BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2000

Calvin Bowman

Gale Catlett

COACH CATLETT: John, want to trade jobs? Well, my first comment would be he hit a great shot. We thought we had it covered pretty well. What we were trying to do, he doubled down, shoots the three, knocks it dead. 2.2, knocks it out of your hand. Two or three games ago at Connecticut we had 3.8 on the clock, we were up one, El-Amin goes up and gets it in. I'm getting tired of those. I don't want to see any more of those. We had some opportunities. I was very disappointed in our last time up that we didn't get a better shot when the score was tied 67-67. We had a play set for Goree and for Armstead, our two best players. Goree pops open, couldn't get the ball over to him. Armstead comes over a little bit covered. We have an option play to go to the end, we didn't get to it. Gharun played good defense. We took a very poor shot. I was greatly disappointed because if you get up there a basket, sometimes it changes the game. There was about seven or eight seconds' difference in the shot clock and we wanted to try to -- with the score tied -- get it as close to that as we could. If I had it to do over again, we might go ahead play, you don't know. But if you go ahead play, miss it, they have plenty of time to come down and set up a second shot. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong as a coach. I'm getting tired of these guys going the length of the court and making shots. He knocked a heck of a shot there. That's the way it goes.

COACH CATLETT: I told them, "Let him shoot."

COACH CATLETT: We changed defense to be different than what El-Amin's was. The last time we played him man-to-man, this time we played him zone-trap, double-team and never zone-trap down the sidelines. We were supposed to get that double down the sidelines, under heavy orders to do that. He dribbles down, backs us down and shoots one three right in our face there. We did not want any penetration. They had more time on the clock than last time. I didn't think of El-Amin. I was thinking we're in our two-two press, we played zone the entire day, we played zone two other times we've played Georgetown. (Inaudible.) Try to get him a double-team. Didn't work. We didn't get the double-team. He made a nice shot. That was a totally different defense, supposedly, than it was against El-Amin. Because I said if it ever happens again, I'm going to line up in the zone and we're going to make him get through it. And they had a few more seconds to get through it. Quite honestly, he could walk it down a little bit differently. 6.8 or 6.2 is quite a bit of time.

COACH CATLETT: I'm very pleased that we had 21 assists and 8 turnovers. That's probably our best of the year. But I wasn't very pleased with our 41.9 shooting in the second half, and I wasn't very pleased with being outrebounded 39-32 and 18 offensive boards. The game was won on the offensive boards. Georgetown's offensive rebounding beat us. If you said, "Coach, pick one thing in the game," Georgetown's offensive rebounding beat West Virginia today. We didn't block off and they got second shots and hurt us. We shoot better than they do. We have more turnovers than they do. We have eight assists (inaudible) turnovers -- more assists, I should say. We shoot the ball from the freethrow line. (Inaudible.) We said before the game, you have stop the penetration, and you got to block him off the board. That will be the key. We said during the game, you don't have a chance unless you block off the board. There's not a lot more I could do as a coach.

CALVIN BOWMAN: We've been playing as a team all year. At the UConn game, we had a chance to win down the stretch and this is a repeat, so we're kind of disappointed. We have to stay together as a team and give everything out on the court. And we can't be mad at each other.

CALVIN BOWMAN: It was fun but, you know, I wanted to win. Friends and family come out and watch the game, it was fun to play in the Garden again. But, you know, I'd rather the win.

CALVIN BOWMAN: I feel -- I feel like I played all right. If I could take back my game, the way I played, for a win, I'd do that.

COACH CATLETT: Not really. I haven't thought about it. Still in mourning. Not Alonzo, but mourning because of the game. What happens, happens. But we did play the 29 schedule in the country, toughest schedule. We did play all road games. RPI was -- you know what the last RPI was, didn't you, before today, 70-something?

COACH CATLETT: The kids have done a good job. We've won some games and we've lost a few games. But I don't have any control over that. It would be a nice reward for the kids if it happened because -- the NIT, I was on their preseason committee for a couple years with Jeff Powers (phonetic spelling) and those guys. They're not like the NCAA; they do things differently. Their parameters are different, which I'm happy to say I think are pretty good. They take into consideration a lot of different things the NCAA doesn't consider. I'm just going to guess, because of being in the Big East Conference and having a win regular season and being a No. 8 seed, No. 8 seed in this tournament, it's a pretty significant achievement for a team that was picked 11th in the beginning of the season and playing all road games. I'm going to take a guess that the Powers-that-Be, not Jack, but the Powers-that-Be would take that into consideration. I'm going to guess off the top of my head that it would be heavily considered. It would be very nice. But if it doesn't happen, that's the way life goes. We have no control over that.

End of FastScripts...