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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2006Jamie DixonLevance FieldsAntonio GravesNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: Levance Fields and Antonio Graves will be the players for Pittsburgh. COACH JAMIE DIXON: First thing is I don't know really what happened. Our team is very concerned about Allan and how he's doing, and our thoughts are with Allan and what happened. I didn't see the play, but I hope he's okay. That's our first concern, and we've talked about it after the game. He's a great kid, a great player. We've known him, St. Raymond's guy, we've known him for a long time. We played very well. We rebounded and we beat a very good team - a great team. I'm proud of how our guys played. I'm proud of Levon Kendall, how he responded and came back for us and how these two guys played and made plays all night long. I thought our guys, it was a whole team effort. Just our defense, our rebounding and our decision-making was solid all the way through. We were fortunate to beat a very good team, and we've got to get ready for Syracuse now, get our rest tonight. Again, I'm very proud of these guys. Q. You've been talking about your depth all year. Can you talk about your bench tonight. COACH JAMIE DIXON: Well, I mean, I guess the numbers say it right there. I mean, these two guys here made shots all night. Made -- rebounded well, played well last night as well. Bringing Levon off now, I guess you get some points there, too. It's a strength of ours. We use it. We expect it. So it's not unexpected for us. We have good players and we have a lot of good players. That's a good thing to have. Q. Coach, can you talk about the work off the offense. COACH JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, last two games we've talked about it. I mean, going into this game, when you're talking about a West Virginia team and a Villanova team that are very good at a lot of things, rebounding is not their strongest suit. They are great passers, great shooters, great defenders, a great defensive team, Villanova, but we really felt we had to beat them on the boards in a big way. We did that last night and we did it tonight as well. It's something, you know, certain teams focus on certain things. Ours is rebounding. We have to win the battle on the boards. We practice it every day. Our drills are based around rebounding, blockouts, getting the rebounds. You don't finish a drill unless you block out. You don't get the point unless you block out. I think that carries over and puts us where we're at rebounding-wise. Q. Either of you see what happened to Allan in the scuffle? ANTONIO GRAVES: No, no, we were on the bench at the time. LEVANCE FIELDS: No. Q. Levance, did you like the idea of the matchup, getting a chance to go against them? LEVANCE FIELDS: Most definitely. We feel we have a good group of guards also. We come in, me and Tone will come in for Carl and Ronald, they start off, do a good job. Keith is in there, he does a great job. We heard a lot about them all year. We were looking forward to it. We didn't get to play them in the regular season. I think we held our own tonight. Q. You've talked all year about not being on team's radars. Still okay with that? ANTONIO GRAVES: Yes, yes, yes. But, I mean, we all -- like Levance said, we're a deep team. I think, you know, us not being -- our players on the bench not being on the scouting report, you know, that's little because you have to watch out for us now. Everybody should know now that you have to watch out for us. We're a deep team, we play well together, and we share the ball, so that's all that counts. Q. For the players, Carl Krauser played 20 minutes tonight. He's been the team leader for several years now. What was it like with him on the bench? LEVANCE FIELDS: I think we all did, you know, it wasn't one person. It was a team effort, like Coach Dixon said. Carl was in foul trouble. Early in the season we had to get over that against Notre Dame with him fouling out. Things just carry over. Today, me, Tone, everybody on the team stepped up in his place, and we got the job done. Q. The way you finished the regular season, did you come in here with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder this tournament? LEVANCE FIELDS: Most definitely. We definitely had a chip on our shoulder. Definitely because we lost our last game at home. Being undefeated at home, losing to Seton Hall really hurt us, and West Virginia on the road. Games we both felt we could have won. We wanted to come in and prove something, but at the same time, we're taking it a game at a time. Now we're going to get ready for Syracuse. Q. Can you talk about Syracuse. You're playing your fourth straight game, both teams. That's even. Can you talk about playing them and the challenges they pose. LEVANCE FIELDS: First off, I'll say that I know they said no team won four games in a row, so that's gonna be broken tomorrow. But Syracuse, you know, they got Gerry who is playing excellent right now. They're big down low. We have to attack the zone. We'll have to be aggressive. We'll have to run some of our plays and try to get a couple of baskets in transition. We'll definitely have to attack the zone and play good defense. Q. You talked about your rebounding, Jamie. What did you guys do, do you think, to force them into bad shots initially? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I thought Coach Sandle did a good job on the scouting report, preparing in a short period of time. Not often do you play a team in a tournament where you haven't played them before during the season. So not a lot of time for preparation. I thought we had -- coverage is what we wanted to do. We had a good game plan going in, and the guys executed it throughout. We knew what they wanted to do. We knew how good they are off the dribble and scoring, taking guys. But our guys just continued and battled. We understood that they're going to make shots. They make tough shots. They're that good. You have to continue to play defense, stick to your principals, stick to our rules defensively even after they make a difficult shot and do it again. That's something that we really stress. Q. Do you feel you might be one of the teams in the country that might match their guards? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I know how great they are. They're all guys we've recruited. We've known these guys for ever and are aware of how good they are. It's not a surprise that they've become as good a players as they are. I do have a lot of confidence in our players, I really do. Sometimes our numbers may not be as dramatic as others because we play four or five, we play five of them really and sometimes six. We understand that, our guys understand that. They understand the sacrifices that come with that. It's a big part of our team. But they know that each time - and we know it's not a surprise that these two guys are up here tonight. They've done it before.
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