NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 24, 2004

Tim Welsh

TIM WELSH: Well, obviously tonight's game had a lot of ebbs and flows to it. But, you know, Wake Forest, if you're going to play and play with them, you know, you can't get off to the start we got off to. But, you know, I give our guys a lot of credit. We bounced back and fought and competed in the last 30 minutes, and we just couldn't get over that hump. We cut it back to four, but they made a couple of 3s. And obviously I think our foul shooting, really last year we were around a 70 percent foul shooting team, never had any games like this from the free throw line it. Was something that was a thorn in our side tonight, trying to make our comeback when we just could not knock down free throws. Against a team like this when you're digging from behind, you have to pretty much let those type plays go through and just be positive with them and make your shots, make your free throws and tonight we didn't. They keep coming at you. They are a dangerous team. Our guys fought. I think we got a little overpowered late, probably because of our lack of depth and size. But for the most part I thought we did a pretty good job after the first 12 minutes of the game. But, you know, we dug ourselves a hole that was hard to come back from. I think we'll learn from this and I think we got better tonight. I'm not big on losses being helpful, but, you know, as a coach of a team with only three upperclassmen, I've got to stay positive with them and understand that these are the type of games that we'll play Friday and Saturday and the next couple of weeks and obviously into the BIG EAST. So these games, we'll always be able to fall back and learn from. I think our guys, they learned a lot tonight playing against one of the best teams in the country, and showed that we can play with them a little bit for 30 minutes, but I told them, unfortunately, the games are 40. So we've got to understand that we've got to compete for 40 minutes, because the first 10, 12 minutes we really didn't compete. We were kind of back on our heels. They knocked us back into the ropes and we didn't really respond. But then when we responded, I was pretty impressed. But again, it was too late because you just can't dig from that spot, unless pretty much everything goes well. Our defense let down in the first seven or eight minutes in the second half. I thought our defense was fantastic at the end of the first half, got us back in the game. I don't think they scored a bucket in the last four or five minutes and they come right out and get 15 minutes in the first four minutes of the second half. They had some renewed energy. Was kind of like a playground game for a while there; we are going back and forth, but when we started missing free throws, we dug the hole back to eight, nine points and it was hard to recover from that.

TIM WELSH: Well, you know, I liked that we battled toe-to-toe with them. I thought we guarded them pretty strong. I thought our guards did a very good job. We did a good job on Paul. I was disappointed that we let Gray loose at the beginning of the second and I thought that was a key point when he got three 3s and kind of gave them a lift. But overall, if I was going to make an overall assessment of the team from this game, it would be that we're close. We're close to being where we can compete with being a Top-25 type look, but close doesn't get you much. You've got to finish these type things, and our schedule is such where we're going to have to learn to finish and that means playing for 40 minutes.

TIM WELSH: To do what, I'm sorry?

TIM WELSH: They sagged on him but then we went with Brewington. We are not just going to go to him every time and force it. Ryan is going to pass on the double teams. We kind of ran a five-man motion with no center out there and when they are doubling Ryan in the box, he will step out and we have other guys that can score. You know, certainly he didn't touch it, I think for a few minutes, in a key part of that half, but I think for the most part he kept scoring. Missed some easy baskets around the rim, they went to the zone, we turned it over a couple of times and that was disappointing. You know, if you don't keep scoring with them, they are going to increase the lead because they just have a lot of firepower.