PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 15, 2024

Dana Altman

Jermaine Couisnard

Jackson Shelstad

Oregon Ducks

Postgame Press Conference

Oregon - 67, Arizona - 59

DANA ALTMAN: Proud of our team. Kind of lost our composure in the first half when Dante went down. We talked all night about playing through Dante and going to him early. And he went down in the second, third play of the game. And we did lose our composure, had some bad turnovers, took some quick shots.

Fortunately they missed some, and we were able to stay in the game.

And then, the second half, I think we outrebounded them by 10. I thought our activity was good. Guys that usually shoot the ball well for them didn't shoot it well, and we finally got some shots.

We were 1-for-13 from 3 the first half. Really had some good looks and were sped up and didn't hit anything.

And second half we slowed down. Jermaine orchestrated some things. Freshmen hit some big shots, big ones there. We went 6-for-11 and that gave us some energy. Our energy wasn't really good the first half when we were missing those shots. And we knocked those down and we got really good energy there.

Dante and Jermaine, they play so hard. Our guys just kind of fed off that. But those three -- Jackson and Jermaine and Dante -- really did some great things.

So we live another day, and we'll play -- we split with Washington State and Colorado got us twice. So we're going to have a tough task tomorrow. And we'll have to play really well again.

Q. With the injuries, tough losses, Bittle's illness, how do you describe this team's mental toughness with Dante going down one minute into the game to never give in and not give up?

DANA ALTMAN: It goes to two guys. Jermaine and Dante are our leaders. And it resonates through the team because of them. Every team I've been fortunate enough to work with, at Oregon or Creighton or any place, you kind of take on the personality -- they always say the coach -- your best players. Your vets.

When we've had good teams it's because Payton or Eugene Omoruyi or Chris Duarte or Dillon Brooks gave us a personality. Jermaine is really tough. He was really sore this morning when he got up, and he just fought through it. He played 38 minutes. And Jackson played 36.

Dante took a terrible fall there, and they went and took him for X-rays. Everything was negative, but he's got a bad bruise on his tail bone. So he'll be a little stiff in the morning. Hopefully by 6 o'clock he'll be loose.

Q. Jackson, it's all relative but you've hit big shots on big stages. How did this feel? Did this feel like a different stage for you, and what did it feel like to make some shots that were so critical for your team?

JACKSON SHELSTAD: I just tried not to lose my confidence. First half, I was missing a couple open looks. My teammates and my coaches do a good job instilling confidence in me, just take good ones and they're eventually going to drop. A couple of them were big down the stretch. I tried not to lose my confidence there.

Q. Was that second half as good as you guys have played this year in a half?

DANA ALTMAN: Well, because of the competition, probably so. They're a really talented team. Really well-coached. They had a good crowd. Atmosphere was all (indiscernible) to them. So with those things in mind, I mean, they kicked us twice. The score was only nine at our place, but they beat us. And they beat us at their place.

So our guys -- to have a belief that being down 10 at half, it wasn't going our way. So for them to battle back, it was a very good half.

And I think the biggest reason, we just didn't give them too many second shots. Beating them 10 on the boards that second half, I think, was by far the biggest key.

Q. In that first half when you got Dante in the locker room and you're trying to find something that will work, and the range of emotion, the second half you're pumping your fist and you're excited. Could you maybe talk about that swing of emotion for you as a coach when you're out there and you're watching that come together?

DANA ALTMAN: I was pumping my fist and yelling at them the first half, they just didn't listen. (Laughter). It's not coaching if nobody's listening. So, no, when you're coming back from 10 -- we got it to six I think at the first TV timeout. And I just told them we've got to keep chipping away. Then we finally got a couple of big 3s to fall and everybody got really excited.

But I was excited. It was a fun ball game. I was excited last night. But, like I said, they feed off Dante and Jermaine. Those two guys, I've enjoyed working with them so much. And that's why tomorrow is so important for them. It's the last crack.

Q. Jermaine, two highest scoring games in Oregon, both against Arizona. Then tonight obviously leading the comeback. Is there something about facing this particular program that kind of brings out the best in you?

JERMAINE COUISNARD: High-level basketball. Big stage. I know everybody's watching these guys. They're top, whatever it was, in the country. But that's just my competitive juice. Just games like this I live for. Always dreamed about playing here. That's what it was.

Q. There was a play with two minutes to go there and Lewis drives to the hoop. N'Faly blocks his shot. It's about to go out of bounds and Jermaine jumps to make the save in a game where he scores 20 points with seven assists. A play like that, what does it speak to what kind of player he is?

DANA ALTMAN: Against a good team like this, and you've got to -- Kario diving in front of their bench on that loose ball, on our ball. Those are the plays when they're making a run at you that you've got to have.

But no, Jermaine did a lot of good things. Seven assists, two turnovers, I'll take three and a half to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio any night of the week. And he got six boards. Dante had 10.

So, again, that 38-33 rebounding margin, like I said, I think we were down five at half. I'm not sure when I was yelling at them at half I said five. I think we were down five at half.

So that plus-10 on the boards that second half, that's when we're really competing. And I just thought that was the margin in the game.

Q. You held them to almost 10 minutes without a field goal the first and second halves. How critical was that until the offense was able to find itself?

DANA ALTMAN: I told the guy at half we were fortunate to be down just 10. I said, as poorly as we played and as unorganized as we had them there for about five or six minutes, we were fortunate to be only down 10.

And so to come out the second half, and we got a pretty good start, I thought that was really important. So to only be down 10 and then to have a good start the second half, coaches always talk about the last four minutes of the first half, the first four minutes of the second half, how critical they are, and they are.

They play a big part, probably no more so than any other four minutes. But in this particular game, we really needed a good start to the second half.

Q. You went to that zone in the second half, and it really just limited Arizona offensively. They couldn't get anything going in the interior. What went into that adjustment and how big was the zone in this game?

DANA ALTMAN: Well, we were playing in the first half zone on makes and man on misses. We just didn't make many shots so we were man most of the time.

We got some shots down the second half. We were able to set our zone. And I thought the guys did a good job, connected. And again they didn't shoot it well. Love killed us at our place, and he killed us at their place. He goes 1-for-7.

Boswell, he lit it up at their place. He went 0-for-3. Two guys that killed us in two previous games go 1-for-10.

And that's just part of the game some nights. We have not been shooting it well. That second half, I think it really pumped us up when we went 6-for-11 to see the ball go through the nets. It's human nature.

We talk as coaches about you've got to play through, gotta play through, gotta play through, but you watch it at every level, it's just human nature: When that ball goes through the net a little bit, crowd gets going, the guys get pumped up. Their energy drained a little bit when they didn't hit some shots.

Q. Jermaine, first half, where did the confidence come from that you guys knew you could come back, with Dante hurt, shooting collectively as a team, where did that confidence come from?

JERMAINE COUISNARD: Just believing. I feel we just had to believe, keep believing. Watching all these games that's going on, guys playing up and playing down. That's all it was. We knew it was going to come down to a close game. So I told them in the locker room just keep believing, once we make shots, they'll fall.