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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2006Hilton ArmstrongDenham BrownJim CalhounMarcus WilliamsNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, it certainly was one of the more disappointing losses we've had in an awful long time, mainly because you got off to such a poor start. We got off to a start where we played like a team that had a 25-point lead at the Carrier Dome and then beat a team by 23 at our place and they were just going to play. Plus, secondly, I've always said about the bye, it takes you usually 10 minutes to get going; it took us 25 minutes to get going. I don't think we played any basketball. By the way, there is some good news. Some of the guys -- a couple of the guys in our States, from our columns, can now write about us. We won a championship on Saturday, they wrote about horse racing or GHO. The only thing I feel good about, some of those columnists who haven't wrote about us the past couple days, they've been writing about everything else, they said they were only going to write about us when we lost. Now you can write, which I feel very good about. So with that said -- and, by the way, that's a true statement. It's not bullshit. They said that: "We'll write about him when he loses." So now you got a chance to write. We came out flat as heck. Syracuse, just as we thought, that shot yesterday carried their momentum right into the game, and they played terrific. They took it right to us. We were the team that looked slow. We were the team that looked like it couldn't attack a zone. At half time, we tried to appeal to the kids that this was not the same team that had played all year. We were not -- we were -- the word "unselfish," which I said on Saturday, was not the case today. It wasn't just selfish, we just didn't have any idea of who each other was, of how to attack this zone that we had played now in the past two years, you know, we've played six times. This is our sixth game with Syracuse, and we've had some moderate success with it. And, yet, we still didn't look like we did anything. At half time I think we started to regroup. They countered. Then we got ourselves back, three-point lead with 11 seconds to go, and made a decision. We talked a great deal about who to play him. We put Denham -- I'm sorry, Rashad on him. You know, he was able to get to the top of the key and shoot the basket. We were going to follow him in the six- to five-second range, but he had such an easy route all the way to the top of the key and he did a good job of getting free. I have to look at the tape, but Rashad might have lost him a little bit. But went right to the top of the key, shot it, and that was overtime then. We fought back in overtime and were unable to win. But my congratulations to Jimmy. Obviously, they're a tournament team. I thought they were a tournament team yesterday. They did a great, great job. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Jim, generally when you guys make a comeback like you did in the second half, down 14, and you get the momentum rolling, you're usually able to open up some space. Are you surprised that didn't happen today? COACH JIM CALHOUN: I don't remember the last time - and I'm sure it has been - that we've lost a game with eleven seconds to go, up three. We'll go with the kids, and I make the decisions, I'm the one who decides who plays who and I'll live with that. He's been a great player for us. It could have been anybody. Just so happened Gerry made a better play and made a giant three. Gerry, up to that point, was two for nine from three so, you know... But he's a clutch player, as Jimmy said. If he's "overrated," I want to, you know -- he's going to try to find a way to beat you. He's a terrific basketball player. But generally speaking, you're right, when we do get the momentum. But I give credit to Syracuse. When we came back at them, Jimmy went to something I haven't seen Jim do in an awful lot of years - a lot of years. He went to a spread offense outside and just took time off. They were able to get by us on a number of occasions. It really was a good strategy because they were playing with a lead, they were playing with house money, and they were able to take time off the clock and did a great job of managing the clock. As I said, this one, we're going home. We're going home this afternoon. We were going to stay around tonight, and I said, Nope, we're going home and we'll probably have a day or two off and get ourselves ready. I know personally I can't be more disappointed for these kids and the way they fought back and then lost the game and got beat really by Gerry's shot. I mean, the overtime happened. Five minutes, you can play anybody for five minutes. But for 40 minutes, usually the better team wins. Maybe we were equal teams today. I don't know about that. But I think with 11 seconds, we've been pretty good with 11 seconds normally. We're very disappointed. It's not Rashad's fault, trust me. Whatever we ask our kids to do - whatever we ask our kids to do - it's our responsibility. We make the choice of who plays who. We thought he had done such a good job on him, so... You know, whether we had put Hilton on him, said, "Hilton, you have to play him full court, make him try to shoot over you, try to make him go to the basket," whatever the case may be, once again, that's our call. I'm proud of the way the kids came back. I'm incredibly, incredibly disappointed in the loss, incredibly disappointed in myself. I would have changed a couple things probably last two, three minutes of the game and into overtime. But, otherwise, we'll go home at 27-3, give some people a chance to write, which is always good, you know - although I do fear a lot more trees will be falling this week because of that and apprentice ink will be printed - but it gives them a chance to write. Winning a Championship, the 10th, the most in BIG EAST history, and then we talked about the GHO that day. I don't know why. I guess it was a good day to put it in there. But I thought winning the Championship against a really good Louisville home, you know, it could be mentioned. Our beat writers, who have done a great job all year, they mentioned it. Some of the columnists aside. But other guys said, "We're going to write when he loses." I've lost. I'm sorry. I digress. Q. Denham, can you talk about that three-pointer that you hit down the stretch there. DENHAM BROWN: You know, down a couple baskets. You know, shot it. Went in, you know. COACH JIM CALHOUN: You know, Denham and all the kids down the stretch - and, by the way, kind of talking, picking up on what you had said - Syracuse and us were matching daggers after each other. It was a heck of a game. Just that when you lose, the rawness of it hurts, especially when you're down. And for Jimmy, with the big lead early, it would have hurt just as bad. Trust me. It would have. That was the kind of game when we got down to the end, both teams just kept matching each other. You mentioned not pulling away. Denham's big hoops, big hoops by Rudy. I mean, all the various plays that happened during the game made whoever was going to lose that game so proud of their kids because they came back. Because you know what, rankings and polls and seeds and all that stuff, in the midst of a game, they don't count. You know, you got to make shots. You got to get rebounds. You got to play defense. So in the midst of a game, I thought both teams just made some fabulous, fabulous plays, and ended up being a fabulous game that is very raw with me right now because I felt so badly that our kids lost. But if anybody was going to beat me, I guess a good friend Jim, really got his team to play well after having three poor games at the end of the season. He's had two great wins here in the tournament. Q. Marcus, can you talk about the last final seconds in overtime, the shot you took. Did it feel good? MARCUS WILLIAMS: The last shot, split the double team. Had an open look. Just didn't fall. Q. Jim, in your experience do you find there's a correlation between the way the team plays in a conference tournament -- COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, last year Syracuse won and lost in the first round to Vermont. The question was simply, you know, do you find a correlation to how well you play in the tournament. We played one game, so I can't use one game. I would like to say that over, you know, 16 games we're pretty good. Over the first 29, we won 27. So, therefore, we were pretty good. But it does prove to us that you can't show up in postseason play, because instead of going to practice tomorrow and getting ready for the next opponent, you got a week to wait and you're done. The BIG EAST for us, we're 14-3 in the BIG EAST, season is over. You know, we may see another BIG EAST team just because I do believe we're going to have at least nine people in the tournament, which is great. But BIG EAST season is over. If that lets -- and showing up as maybe -- because we beat a team, you know, pretty handily twice, hopefully is a good lesson to our kids that seeds, during the midst of 40 minutes, or any rankings, mean nothing. Hopefully, that is a lesson that will carry on to the tournament. Our two national championships have both come out of BIG EAST tournament champions, but I don't know if it's automatic. You can go through the history of the NCAA championships and you'll find that's not an automatic correlation, no. But, obviously, we would have loved to have won today. It's incredibly disappointing for our kids. The thing I liked about them - I don't mind using this word - their championship side came out. I mean, we're going to make the NCAA tournament, and we should be apt to what we've done during the regular season, one of the highest seeds in the tournament. The kids weren't willing to accept that. If you look at these faces, they weren't particularly willing to accept the defeat either. So the fact -- there's no good losses, there's no moral victories, nothing of that nature. But the champion in them did come out. The champion in them did come out. You saw it very vividly. They weren't going away any place without trying to win a game. And we came about as close as you possibly could come. I give all the credit to Syracuse. Gerry's shot was absolutely magnificent. Jimmy's strategy of spreading the floor against us, which he saw, so they used Josh Wright and they used a different lineup than they normally would. Josh Wright, I think - somebody could probably correct me - played two minutes yesterday or three minutes yesterday and played virtually most of the game today just the floor, much like Villanova has done this year and a few other teams have tried to do against us. We give them all the credit. We're going back home. We're going to take a couple days off, regroup, get ready for the NCAA tournament. Wish all our BIG EAST brethren the best of luck in the NCAA tournament coming up. I know one thing. I love the BIG EAST and I'll root for everybody unless they play against us, but I won't watch any TV. I won't be watching tomorrow night or Saturday, no. It will hurt too much. Q. How do you use this loss to prepare for the NCAA tournament? COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, I think I just said that. I think we showed up at the game like a team that we had somehow or other glanced at our record and glanced at the fact that we had played Syracuse twice and beaten them both times. And, quite frankly, we led, I think - and I could be wrong about this - 25-5 up at the Dome, had a 19- or 20-point lead, 45-25 half time. Got it up to 30. They scored some points to get it to 8, or I think it ended up being 8, but that was not indicative, and we beat them by 23 at our place. My point being is, but those things, just like the tournament - this tournament and the NCAA tournament - no one really cares what seed that you are, whether you beat someone before makes no difference. It's the 40 minutes you're playing today that's the single most important thing. Q. Hilton, tell us, were they tougher inside today than they were before? It looked like you guys had trouble. HILTON ARMSTRONG: I think they were a little tougher today than the other two games. Q. Was it just more active? HILTON ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I guess. COACH JIM CALHOUN: I think the one thing, Phil, if you look at the stats, most of those offensive rebounds are second-half rebounds. I think when we knew we were in serious trouble - and we were in serious trouble through most of the game - I think we responded, and that's the only thing I'll take home. Once again, no moral wins, we're 28 and -- we're 27-3. Not 28 wins, which I just gave the Freudian slip of. But, you know, this team is to be reckoned with in the NCAA tournament. This team has a chance to get itself to Indianapolis and, just like anybody else, has a chance to go home. I know the pain, I think you asked the question before of preparation, of going home tonight. It's not going to be much fun. So I hope that carries over in our preparation, getting ourselves ready for the NCAA tournament. Thanks, guys. THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
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