NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 26, 2004

Tim Welsh

TIM WELSH: Well, I think the key to tonight's game for us was that we got up on the backboards in the second half. You know, we're pretty smallish at times, we don't really play with a center, a true center. We go with Hanke and Hill a little bit but for the most part, we play with three small forwards or two small forwards and three guards. So we've got to scratch and claw to rebound. But I know one thing: If we do get the ball off the glass, we're as dangerous, pretty dangerous going the other way with it. We have a lot of finishers. We have a lot of guys that can invert positions offensively and handle the ball and drive the ball up the rim. We have guys that can post-up. We have some pretty big guards. But we have to really work hard to keep a team like Michigan and their size off the glass. In the first half they had 14 offensive rebounds and that was a big concern. But we scratched and clawed for 11 and we ended up with 18 for the game, which is pretty good for us. But the second half, we limited them to seven offensive rebounds and I think that was the key because we got a lot in, that one period where we got the lead to 10, we really got our running game going. We got our hands on a lot of balls, too. We got our hands up, we have quick hands. The zone I think is starting to come together. We kind of have to mix-and-match with the back line and we get in foul trouble and we're small, but we try to trap out of it and we'll double in the box and do different things. But guys are starting to understand that, you know, if we play on that end of the floor, we can be pretty dangerous because we've got a lot of offensive weapons.

TIM WELSH: Ryan was pretty much that last year in his freshman to sophomore year. He had a very good freshman year for us, but, you know, he jumped from just a pretty good player as a freshman to all-league as a sophomore, second team all-league. So I think Dwight has always had the ability, but you've got to hone your skills and be patient. He wasn't patient last year, and that's fine. It's not unusual that most freshman are not. But he knows he has a lot of talent and he has to make sure he keeps working to improve. He's still got different things to improve on, but he's very intelligent. He knows the game as good as any player we've had. He understands the game. He would not be able to play it as well as he did if he didn't, because he's got some other things that he has to overcome, and to do what he does out there on the court is pretty amazing for what he has had to go through his whole life. But he does not make excuses. He sees the floor, he sees the game, and he's hard-nosed. He's a nice second option behind an All-American, that's for sure.

TIM WELSH: We wanted to play fast, always. We don't want to play a half-court grinding game; that's not our style. We don't have enough size to do that. You see, we're not beefy, we're not big, we're quick, we're grinders, we're athletic. So we want to run, but the keys, the two keys to running -- excuse me, to get up on the glass, obviously, and rebound the ball. That's what we did in the second half; we rebounded the ball better. We started to get some clean rebounds and also we had some steals. We turned them over a few times in our half court with our zone. We were pretty active in it.

TIM WELSH: Yeah, Gerald Brown is a scorer. He's a scorer and that's what I like about him. He's a tough young man. He's come off some knee surgery about three weeks ago and he jumped right into the first game. He's helped us. He had 10-points in the first half. But he's a finisher. It's nice to run, but if you run to the end line and then fall over the finish line, it's no good. But we've got guys that can finish, and he's one guy that can finish against any size player.

TIM WELSH: We're fine. No excuses. They are excited. They would much rather play Florida than listen to me yell at them in practice tomorrow, that's for sure. So they are ready to play. Not one guy has said, "Oh, my God, coach, we have to play Florida." They like it. They are fine. It may show it's effects tomorrow night but we're not going to use it as an excuse. Whoever said you can't play back-to-back? Just because people don't do it, we're going to do it, and, hey, we'll see what happens. One way or the other we'll become a better team because of this week and I already know we're better than we were a week ago, and that's why we play in these tournaments and that's why -- we were playing Florida first, and we weren't backing out of that. Then when NIT called me, I said, "let's play." The game tomorrow is big, it's a great game and a great venue, but more importantly, this tournament got us extra games. This team needed an identity and we didn't really have an identity because we lost a lot of guys last year, and as a coach, you want to try to see what you have and see what you can do. Tonight, DeSean White was another guy who came in and gave us a pretty good lift. He gets eight points in 19 minutes, six rebounds, has not played a lick pretty much all year, has not played any minutes that were worth anything. But he played and he played well, he had a good practice yesterday and so he grew on this trip already. I'm sure I wouldn't know that about him if he were staying home and practicing for a few days. So we found out in a tough-game situation and these games will help us. It was a quality win because Michigan is an NCAA Tournament team; there's no question about that. I think they will be there at the end of the season, so we got a good win on the board already so, that helps us in the big picture. That's why you play in this tournament.

TIM WELSH: I think the biggest question mark you have is, you know, if you play a game on a Wednesday and then you play a game on a Friday, just normally, and you lose on Wednesday, you're pretty hungry to win on Friday. But the whole stigma of a consolation game gets in the way sometimes but these guys, it was never discussed. They knew it was a real game. They knew this game means as much as playing another non-Conference team in the middle of January or whatever. It means as much as the Wake Forest game. Obviously you want to win the Championship but you can't so now it's on your schedule and you have to try to go get the win. I thought both teams approached it the right way. We were very focused yesterday, it was Thanksgiving Day, but we got up, had a great practice, had two meetings, two meetings this morning, and these guys were ready. They want to win. Dwight, the last thing he said before we went on the court tonight, he just blurted it out like he does sometimes, is, "We're not going 0-2 down here." So I like that. That showed me that we were going to play tonight.

TIM WELSH: His game is he makes everybody better. We got a lot of open looks because he's on the floor, and he is very, very unselfish. He's the best -- he's the most unselfish great player I've seen. He just does things on the floor, stat-line, I don't care what it says, he's the MVP of the team every night. You know, we don't get all of those open looks without Ryan Gomes because they are just -- the whole world is paying attention to him when he was the ball, so that frees up all of our other players, and he has got the presence, the skill and the lack of ego to give up the ball. He doesn't care about his numbers as far as points go. He cares about one thing: Wins.

TIM WELSH: He's a lot better. He's still the winner he's always been. He's always been the highest level with that. But you see his ball-handling skills, he really can step out. He can take people off the dribble now. He was a good shooter last year but now he can shoot off the dribble from 20 feet, 18 feet and he can come off screens better and he has a lot more quickness. He's better defensively. People don't give him credit for that; he's very good defensively. He's worked on his game and he's worked on his body, he's in great shape. He's the only guy that played 40; that should tell you something.