BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 6, 2002

Ryan Sidney

Al Skinner

COACH AL SKINNER: Questions, yeah. I don't have any comments. I guess nobody said it has to be pretty. You just have to win a game. Yeah, I don't think that there's going to be many games where you're going to shoot 15 percent in a half and expect to win. But, you know, we did some other things. We hustled after the basketball. You know, we got some turnovers and some timely shooting. That was the difference in the ball game. We made some, you know, we made some big shots when we needed to.

COACH AL SKINNER: (Laughing). No, I can't. I don't know. I mean, they obviously had a great year. They had a terrific year. They played, you know, they played extremely well. You know, they're a solid ballclub, not a lot of weaknesses. I think they play real well together. I mean, their defense is solid. Their offense is, I think, is extremely fluid. I really enjoy watching them play, and I just think they're an outstanding ballclub.

COACH AL SKINNER: No, we were going to play the game. If he was able to go, he was going to play. If he's not, then we got to do some other things. So, I mean, I just wanted to know if he wanted to play or not. That was my only question to him. And, you know, eventually, he felt like he could get back on the floor and play. And obviously, he gave us a big lift when he got back out there. But, I mean, he has problems with his ankles all the time. You know that. He's had a tough time with that. I don't know what's wrong with the boy. I think it's an act. I really do. It just adds a little bit more to his little thing that he got going here at BC. But he made it work for him today.

COACH AL SKINNER: No question about it. But he made it work for him today. I ain't complaining. I'm happy about it.

COACH AL SKINNER: Oh, I definitely feel like we're in. I definitely feel like we're in. With our RPI I think we're in. We've shown all year we're a good club, and, you know, probably one of the things I'm really happy about is this is the first time I guess in about 27 years that we've been back-to-back 21 seasons. That's quite an accomplishment for this group. You know, the best way to reward them is for us to be in the tournament. Hopefully, we can do things there. We'll try to come here and win more basketball games. We haven't forgotten that. Our goal is to come here and play the best basketball we can.

RYAN SIDNEY: In the first half, coaches came into the locker room and told us we weren't playing as strong as we were supposed to and that was one of the worst basketball halves they've ever seen out of us. To us, every time you hear that you played horrible, it just makes you think about how other people see you playing basketball. If your coaches say you're playing like that, if your coach says you play that bad, then you can't imagine what everybody else is thinking in their mind. You know what I'm saying? You can't leave the court having thoughts about what you could have done when you were out there. Then in terms of the ankle, I don't know what I was doing. I just slipped out and I fell. I stumbled off the court. Coach looked at me, I was like, "It's time to go back in the game."

RYAN SIDNEY: Yeah, in the first half it slipped away. Come out, down 11 at half time and you're not playing good basketball. I think the whole thing right now for us is just to keep playing as a team.

RYAN SIDNEY: I don't think they tightened up at all. I thought the whole thing was that we just played better defense than we did in the first half. I think that's the big thing, you just have to play defense. Coaches always told us, it's not about the other time, it's about the way you play defense and the hustle plays that you give.

COACH AL SKINNER: Well, in the first half I just thought our execution was poor. I think they did a good job of making us do some things that -- we got real comfortable with that three-point shot. And, you know, I think we really were anticipating them playing a lot of man. I don't think psychologically we were really prepared for the zone. So we kind of settled in, thought if we make a couple three-pointers they would come out of it. Of course we didn't do that. Then it just started to mount. So, I think that zone was effective. In the second half, you know, we had a little more focus, a little better prepared. Our execution improved. We attacked interior to the zone and didn't settle for as many jump shots. It allowed us to stay aggressive. That's what we want to do. When you're shooting a lot of jump shots, you're not playing aggressive basketball. That's what most teams want you to do, is stand around on the perimeter.

RYAN SIDNEY: (Smiling) I don't know. I don't make none of the decisions. I would be sitting there on selection Sunday just like you guessing, until I see my name. When I see my name, yipty-doo. Thank you.

COACH AL SKINNER: Last year definitely helped. It definitely helped in the second half. The experience that we had, even though we weren't happy about the way we played, I think the experience that we had last year gave us a little bit of comfort that we knew we could come out and play a better second half. We had been through this already. We knew that we could fight back. So, you know, the guys that were part of it last year definitely felt that they, you know, there were some things we could do, we could play better basketball. So last year's experience clearly is a big help for us. I mean, you can't discount that.

COACH AL SKINNER: I'm concerned about us winning basketball games. It doesn't matter who gets the job done. I think that's really the focus of our team. You know, we're going to play the game, we're going to move the ball and get shots that we want. I thought we did that. I was real pleased by the way we played in the second half. Shots don't go down, they don't go down. First half we didn't execute well. Second half we executed well, got to his good shots. If they go in, they go in. If they don't go in, you just got to go back and play defense. I'm not going to overly concern myself that Troy didn't shoot the ball well. Part of the reason was he didn't take good shots in the first half. His shot selection has to improve.

COACH AL SKINNER: Well, I mean, it's a different game. It's a different day. So, you know, the day's a day. It's over, we won. Tomorrow we wake up, just because a guy shoots well today doesn't mean he's going to shoot well tomorrow. That's what I'm saying. You can't be overly concerned about it. It's not going to be an anchor for us. We have to play the game the way we play and go out and do the things we have to do.

COACH AL SKINNER: I thought the first half, he kind of got away from us a little bit. We just stayed with him as long as we could. We didn't want to give a lot of help off of him. Just stayed there. Make him put the ball down, attack the basket, dribble penetration. Then we tried to get some help on the penetration. He was a focal point for us, and I thought we did a pretty good job. Unfortunately for Rashod, you know, if he doesn't make free throws, if he makes his free throw, that's the difference in the ball game. He makes his free throws, I think it's a different ball game. Unfortunately, for them he didn't make them. So he didn't have the kind of ball game that he obviously possibly could have. But between those two individuals, those are the two guys that you got to kind of control.

COACH AL SKINNER: It's a joke. What can you say? I mean, I feel kind of bad. I'm watching the team play and I'm like, I'm looking at my assistants and saying, "What kind of coaches' job have you done?" It was not the team I coached. Those things happen. But, again, it's our experience that prevailed in the second half. We knew we couldn't play -- oh, I can't say we knew. We were hoping we couldn't play another second half like that.