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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2006Jamie DixonAaron GrayCarl KrauserNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: Aaron Gray, Carl Krauser and Coach Dixon. COACH JAMIE DIXON: I thought it was a great -- two great teams. We knew as a team that they were going to come back strong the second half. I thought our guys responded well. Executed well. Did what we had to do. I thought obviously first half we played very well, defended very well, which got our offense going, and got a lot of good performances from a number of guys. But I think we battled back. We knew it was gonna get physical second half, we knew what type of game was gonna happen. I thought our guys responded well to it. Time to get ready for West Virginia. We won't focus on this one too much. We have to get ready for them. I thought Carl was great handling the ball, handling the pressure of the trap, as well as Levance and Ronald, and we did a great job on the boards which was something we emphasized going into it. Q. Can you talk about why you decided to make a change in the starting lineup? COACH JAMIE DIXON: Keith has just been playing well. Just been doing a great job in practice and a great job getting back. He's just getting better. I mean, we've said about improving and getting better. Keith is getting better. All of our guys are getting better. We saw something with Keith, and he's constantly improving and working hard and doing a good job - as are all our guys. Q. Drawing on your experiences from West Virginia previously, what do you have to do similar and what do you have to do differently? COACH JAMIE DIXON: Well, we gotta defend and guard the perimeter, as everybody knows. No secrets there. Rebounding, we've got to beat them on the boards and do a great job just getting out on their shooters and doing it for 40 minutes. You can't have any breakdowns because they're so dangerous, as we know. But I think our guys will be ready. I know they're going to get some rest tonight, and we'll be ready to go. You can ask these guys. Q. Can you talk about establishing yourselves inside. AARON GRAY: The guys, they did a great job of giving me the ball. I made a few good decisions, bad decisions. The guards were doing a great job knocking out shots. It forced them not to be able to double down or triple down. And then, you know, when I got the ball, I felt I was making a good decision on the post. That was one of the things that we wanted to emphasize. We knew with Padgett out there he could go down and utilize our post game. We did that. Obviously, we got out to, you know, a big lead because of it. Q. Jamie, you were critical of your defense the last two games. Was your defense that much sharper this time around? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I don't remember ever really being critical about our defense. We're constantly trying to improve. That's what we talk about, getting better and improving. That's not critical, that's just coaching and getting better and trying to improve as we go. So I thought it was very good. Defense, we were very good in the first half. I think we did a great job guarding their come off screens, we did a good job of extending the defense all the way through. It was pretty consistent. We had a few things that we wanted to do better, but very consistent in the first half. Carried over to the second half. They made tough shots. A different game as we could tell and everybody could see, it became a little bit more physical. Our guys responded well. I thought we played very good defense all the way through. Q. Carl, can you talk about keeping focus when the score is 33 to 5. CARL KRAUSER: You know, when you're up by that much, you have to understand that you have to keep playing. There's still a lot of time left and you don't want to go out there and just think the game is over. Because every team in this BIG EAST Conference is competitive. We wanted to go out there, take care of the ball, move the ball, have everybody in right positions to score and just make plays. We were just trying to stay solid, like Coach said, and that got us a win. Q. Jamie, did the offense get a little bit too conservative for your taste in the second half? COACH JAMIE DIXON: No, I thought we were very good. I thought we got the ball inside. You're not going to go 40 minutes of constantly making shots. It wasn't anything about that. They made some shots in the second half that we expected them to make, maybe that they didn't make in the first half. That's just basketball, being around it, knowing good teams, good players, good programs that they're going to respond. No team is gonna go through a situation for 40 minutes. So that was to be expected. I thought we did a good job defensively, on the defensive end all the way through. Offensively, I thought we made good decisions, got good shots. Sometimes they don't fall as you want, but I thought we were pretty good all the way through. Q. Carl, you said it's important to keep your focus when you have a big lead like that. Was the team able to do that? It didn't seem like you did, the way they came back. CARL KRAUSER: You know, those guys, they're coached by a great coach and they're a great team. Great teams make plays. They were out there making plays. But at the same time, you know, we had to stay solid and we had to stick together and we had to come out here and get a win, and that's what we did exactly. We stayed solid, we stayed together, we kept our poise and we made plays and we got a win. Q. Is there too much made out of the fatigue thing with West Virginia getting a bye and you guys having to play tonight? Does that really matter? COACH JAMIE DIXON: You know, we talked about, you know, most minutes anybody played was 31 for us today, so that was good, and I think that's a good sign. We would have been practicing anyway. These guys love to play. They've been playing anyway. So we practiced the other day and the guys wanted to keep going once I wanted to stop. So that's just what they do. They like to play. Most teams are like that. Most kids are like that. Our players are definitely like that. Q. Aaron, Coach was asked about this earlier. Your thoughts on West Virginia? If there's one thing you guys can do better as a team as opposed last time you played them, what would it be? AARON GRAY: Guard Pittsnogle. I mean, he got a lot of good looks early. You know, just started feeling it. He did a great job of getting his teammates involved. You know, they just got hot. And, you know, like Coach Dixon said, we need to worry about perimeter defense. I mean, they shoot so many threes that, you know, they play the percentages, they figure they got to make some of them. We got to do a good job of doing that. Then we really need to utilize our rebounding. I mean, I think we should have done a better job of that in Morgantown, especially on the offensive end, because our team feeds so much on not only getting one shot on each possession, but two or three shots. If we can do that, we'll be fine. Q. Can you talk about Ron's night. Quiet, but the team needs him out there, it seems. COACH JAMIE DIXON: He's solid. The guys know where he's going to be. You can count on him. He's a good defender. Again, there's two sides of the ball and two things you got to do - defend and offensive. He did a good job on the defensive end. Great contributor. Had a great job all the way around, I thought. Did a good job. You know, he was handling the press. He was throwing it ahead. He had no turnovers against a team that pressed for 40 minutes, especially in the second half where it was, you know, they're getting after it, looking to create turnovers, get steals, reach in, and doing that sort of thing. So, again, zero turnovers, 30 minutes of making good decisions. Q. Coach, the last 13 and a half minutes, did you do anything different? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I think we went to the free throw line a lot of those times. I mean, that has something to do with the field goals. I think they were aggressive. We may have made some turnovers. It just becomes a different game when you're down and they're playing a little bit different to how they play as far as trapping everything. You know, games become a different game when you're up by 20. It's not played the same way. It's not called the same way. It's just what happens.
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