NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 5, 2004

B.J. Elder

Paul Hewitt

Marvin Lewis

COACH HEWITT: Congratulations to UConn, winning the national championship. They had an outstanding season and obviously played better than we did tonight. I thought our effort was outstanding. There were just some little things that just got in the way. We missed some free-throws. Our guys go up, they try to make them; they do their very best on those, we shot free-throws pretty well, especially during the ACC season. Tonight wasn't our night. It just didn't fall for us.

MARVIN LEWIS: I don't think they took us out of our offense. They played great defense. I just think tonight, you know, the ball didn't fall in our hole.

MARVIN LEWIS: It's tough, you know, because we were going to fight till the last buzzer. You know, we did. We fought as hard as we could. You know, all we had to do is keep our heads up because we fought as hard as we could.

B.J. ELDER: I just came out and just tried to play the type of game I've been playing all season. But tonight the ball just didn't fall for me.

B.J. ELDER: I mean, you really never have control over that. That's something that can pop up on any given tonight. Tonight, unluckily for us, that happened.

B.J. ELDER: Just disappointment that we didn't pull it out. I mean, I don't know.

MARVIN LEWIS: They just went after the ball. They used their size, they boxed out well. They got to the ball. We were fighting as hard as we could. There were times there were over-the-back calls. Offensive rebound-wise, we were tied 18-18. We were fighting for rebounds, as well.

B.J. ELDER: Yeah, definitely. We feel like we had a good run at this thing. Still disappointed not to come out with the victory. Like you said, we've done a lot, you know, for this program, trying to get it back to where it used to be, and for the university as well. We're real proud of that.

MARVIN LEWIS: We're just proud, especially for me, we kept this thing going as long as possible. We wish we would have got a win. But to keep this team together, this family atmosphere is going to be together forever.

MARVIN LEWIS: No, I don't think so. As a team, we've had nights where we've struggled offensively. Our defense stayed consistent. I think tonight we fought as hard as we could.

COACH HEWITT: I thought in the first half we might have taken a couple of hurried shots. Start of the second half, we executed very well. We got three or four post touches down there at the start of the second half. They just didn't fall. BJ, opened up, got the ball to him, he usually makes that shot. McHenry got the rebound. I think Okafor made a great block on it. We had Moore down there one time. You know, it happens like that some nights. You've got to give UConn credit. I'm not going to sit here and say they didn't have anything to do with our shooting effort tonight. They had a lot to do with it. The free-throws, it just happens. Sometimes it happens. Last year I think Kansas was 10-for-30. I don't know what their number was. Last time we played UConn, they were 10-for-30 from the free-throw line. It just happens like that some nights.

COACH HEWITT: I think for coaches, anytime you lose, it's disappointing. Sometimes I think we make way too much of a game of this -- I don't want to say magnitude, of this much attention. Quite often I find it amusing when these games are overanalyzed. This game could have happened in the middle of January, it would have been like, "Hey, they won, let's move on." UConn is a very good team. They're well-coached, they have excellent players. They've got some young men, I think they represent college basketball very, very well. That's what we should be dwelling on now instead of major disappointments and things like that. We were 4-for-11 from the free-throw line first half, a couple of turnovers we didn't convert. Those things happen. Credit should go to UConn. I think, at least for me, we should stay away from overanalyzing why this happened, why that happened. They won, we lost. We're going to move on to next year now.

COACH HEWITT: Maybe after a few of those shots didn't fall, maybe we tried to press a little bit. But that's natural. That's human nature. You're going to try harder. If things aren't working your way, you're going to try harder. Sometimes your increased effort will pay dividends, sometimes it doesn't.

COACH HEWITT: He did an outstanding job. But I thought Luke did a good job as well. They had 18 offensive rebounds, we had 18 offensive rebounds. I thought we did some good things against Emeka Okafor, but he kept his concentration. He had six turnovers, which part of our plan was to a attack him, see if we could force some of those turnovers out of him - which we did, but we didn't capitalize at the other end. He's an outstanding player, probably the player of the year in college basketball. I'm happy that he's had as much success as he's had at UConn.

COACH HEWITT: No, you know, again, those guys have a tough job. They do their job. As I said yesterday, calls have an impact on a game. It's not a matter of saying somebody did a good job or a bad job, if they're wearing that striped shirt. It impacts the game. It's that simple. It's been forever in basketball. You just got to learn how to play through it and play around it.

COACH HEWITT: He's had a great tournament. So you remove a piece like that from the puzzle, you know, become a doughnut, I guess (smiling).

COACH HEWITT: You know, what do you want me to tell you? You don't know how the game would have played out. Would I rather see those points not go on the board? Sure. But you don't know how that will play out. We still missed free-throws. We still missed layups. You can judge for yourself what you thought of those calls, but again we don't know how the end of the game would have come about.

COACH HEWITT: Gordon in particular, I thought he took advantage of some breakdowns. We had a way that we were going to play some of those screens. I thought our kids had a pretty good idea of what they were going to run and how they were going to run them. A couple times instead of caboosing, chasing him from behind, we went over the top on a green screen. You give a player like that room, he's just too good. He had room. He made us pay. Okafor, he shot the ball very, very well. We forced some of those turnovers out of him. But, again, he tried hard tonight and he was successful.

COACH HEWITT: Huh-uh, no.

COACH HEWITT: We were very confident. There was none of that in the locker room. Those guys were up. They just felt like if we could get on a little bit of a run there early, we could get back in. That's why I thought we executed so well and got the ball in good spots. I thought we got the ball into the post where we wanted, some of the match-ups we wanted. Some of those shots dance around the rim, they fall. Tonight they danced around the rim and didn't fall in for us. They fell off.

COACH HEWITT: I've appreciated it already. I've said all along there were about 20 teams that could have gotten to this point. We realize that as a coaching staff we were blessed to have a team that was unselfish, that played hard all the time. They put us here. So, believe me, I realize how lucky I am to be in this position. But it still is very disappointing when you have a chance to play for the national championship, and it just wasn't your night. Again, UConn had something to do with that.

COACH HEWITT: Did I mention the future (laughter)? We realize we've got some good things going here. But quite honestly, my immediate concern is to get these guys back in class. We've missed eight days of class throughout the tournament. It's been a wonderful run, great run for our seniors. Unfortunately for us, our seniors are in a position where they're going to graduate in May or the summer. But I've got some juniors, sophomores and freshmen that I'm worried about getting back in classes, catching up. We've got some good guys. We've got some good guys in this program who worked very hard. I've got some excellent assistant coaches to go out and recruit. We'll be back out on the road Wednesday recruiting. It never ends. Right now I want to deal with the immediate future. The immediate future is getting back in the class on Wednesday morning. We won't be able to get out of here tomorrow until 1:00.