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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: WASHINGTONMarch 24, 2006Karon BradleyPaul MillerSean OgirriMark TurgeonWASHINGTON, D.C. MARK TURGEON: I want to give George Mason a lot of credit. They played well. They got out of the gates hot. I think that was the difference in the game. With that said, I don't think we played particularly well in the first half. We didn't play together. We didn't play the way that led us to a League Championship and the way that led us to the Sweet 16. And our shot selection hurt us in the first half, hurt our defense, and so that was disappointing. But after that, I really thought we played a valiant effort in the second half and had our chances, still couldn't make a shot, enough shots. But our defense was good enough tonight, it really was. Holding them to 63 points, you know, some of the shots they made in the first half, I think they had 15 like four minutes in the game, to hold them to 63 was good enough. Just our offense wasn't there tonight and that was the difference in the game. But they are a heck of a team. Q. Sean, can you talk about what the problems were on offense tonight, why the shots were not falling like they had in the previous two games? SEAN OGIRRI: Like coach said, we didn't play together on offense. That kind of hurt us. When I was open personally, I felt like I didn't make the shots. I couldn't knock down a couple of shots and then I took a couple of hurried shots, and I just couldn't, like I said, get in the flow of the game and it just hurt us. Q. Is the frustrating thing about this not that you lost but that you lost without feeling like maybe you gave it your best shot especially offensively? PAUL MILLER: Yeah, it's a little frustrating. You know, I think that George Mason is a great team and with the way they came out shooting the ball tonight, it really put us in a hole and kind of got us on our heels and I think we panicked a little bit. That's why we didn't play so well in the first half. You know, it is frustrating to end your season with a loss that you feel like you didn't play as well as you're capable of playing. You know, you've just got to take it for what it is and remember the good times and remember what a great season we had. Q. If you can talk about their perimeter defense and what made it so difficult to get open shots? KARON BRADLEY: I don't think it was necessarily difficult getting open shots. I mean, like Coach said, I think it was just more our shot selection. It was more in the first half. We shot quick and you know that allowed them to get out on the break. SEAN OGIRRI: There were a couple of times they just got their screens pretty well and I felt like I couldn't elevate or shoot the ball and shot a couple quick shots in the first half. In the second, I guess I just didn't get in the rhythm. Q. What did it do for you mentally for them to hit their first three 3-pointers and go up 9-0 in two minutes? PAUL MILLER: Like I said, I think it got us on our heels. You know, playing a virtual home game for them, it seemed like it really got their crowd into it. It helped them pick it up on defense I thought and gave them a lot of energy. You know, I think when they hit those three back-to-back to back, we panicked a little bit and thought we had to get all nine points back right away. You know, there was 38 minutes left in the game. I just thought that we tried to rush things and it just start started things bad for us. Q. Your final game, can you talk about just your feelings and what you felt immediately after the game and where you go from here? PAUL MILLER: You know, I'm disappointed that we didn't play better and that we weren't able to win obviously. I think that, you know, overall, I'm just still in shock that we were able to make it this far. I'm very happy with being able to be a part of this team and it's been an unbelievable ride. From here, I think these guys have got a lot of good games ahead of them and a lot of great seasons. I know they are going to work hard in the off-season. We've set the bar kind of high now and it's up to them to get back here. Q. You mentioned the slow start and then playing really valiantly in the second half. Can you talk about the frustration of not being able to slow them down and push the right buttons in the first half, and then how you felt down the stretch when you're just subbing and coaching and it seems like maybe you're trying to get them back in it? MARK TURGEON: Well, you're right, I couldn't get them under control in the first half. I mean, I just couldn't, and if I had to do it over again, which I can't, I would have called every possession and made us walk it up and that's basically what I did in the second half. I kept thinking, we've scored 83 points a game in the last two games, we've shared the ball and been unbelievable in practice this week, sharing the ball, screening, our offense has been really good. So I just assumed it was going to be that way tonight. Now, their defense is eighth best in the country and they fly around and they switch out and you think you have an open shot and they will switch out, big on little or little on big and they don't care about match-ups. But I was disappointed and as hard as I tried in the first half, I couldn't get them out of that funk. They thought that if we made a shot, it would count to nine points and it wasn't going to be that way. We cut it to nine with our zone, but we just couldn't score enough. It was 24-15, they had to call time-out, I'm like, we're fine, we'll get this going. But our offense just wasn't good enough. Matt was in foul trouble all night, except for, we had a lot of guys not play well tonight. But we had a lot of guys, a couple guys that did and kept us around. As far as the end goes, you just never give up. UCLA was down a lot, came back. I just thought maybe we could do it. I've seen our guys get hot, and I was just asking our guys just to get it close and then the pressure would be on them playing a home game. I thought put pressure on them but we could never get close enough to put pressure on them. Q. So many games this year, your philosophy has been to pound it inside and make people stop you there before anything else. Is that one of the things you're talking about tonight that just seemed to evaporate and never really appeared? MARK TURGEON: It was frustrating. They did a good job of guarding our secondary break and taking away our initial post-up out of it. After that, our guys would shoot it so quick, we never could really establish Paul or Kyle. We were begging the guys, they don't have a team foul yet. Ten minutes into the game they didn't have a team foul, I think we had two in a row, just because we were playing a finesse game. We were trying to establish Paul as much as we could in the second half, but you're right, we've gone through Paul all year. We didn't do that. I just kept telling the guys, "I don't know whose team that is out there but it's not us on offense." Five guys standing around holding their hands up, or four of them holding their hands up and one guy going one-on-one, it was a little frustrating. But our execution was much better in the second. Q. Can you talk about, other than the obvious fact that they have got some excellent shooters, but their ability to get the good looks on the outside, on the perimeter, what was going on there? MARK TURGEON: Well, you know, I heard you guys in here, I don't know if I agree with that. I think that first one Butler hit was some 23 feet over Sean Ogirri's hand. Then they hit one of them in transition, Campbell in the corner and we're running at him and Tony Skinn hit another one off a ball screen from deep. I'll have to watch the film. We were trying to take away their big guys but I don't think our helping down and closing out was when they got jumpshots. I think it was in transition, late on the shot clock, it was one-on-one, but I don't remember every play. So they made some tough ones. We know how good of shooters they are. We know Skinn can make 3s, we know Butler is an all-time point guy there, Campbell is a much better shooter, just keeps getting better. You know, they are 8 for 16 from there, I thought we did a pretty good job of guarding inside. Our defense was good enough. Our offense was not good enough. Q. You talked about not giving in to our offense. How much is the point guard responsible for that, Karon and Matt not getting offense started, can you talk about Matt's struggles on the defensive end? MARK TURGEON: It wasn't Matt's night. It just wasn't his night. He didn't have a good night and that happens. He never got in the flow. Picked up a couple of fouls, but yeah, it is his responsibility. But that said, we had so many guys not doing their job. Offensively, I can't really blame Matt and/or Karon. Motion offense, four or five guys doing it the right way to be successful. Our guys know that they didn't do what they were supposed to do in the first half. But we were going to have to play an awful good game to win here. We knew that. So that was disappointing because we know how good this team is. George Mason, and of course in this building. It just wasn't Matt's night. Matt had a heck of a year. Q. Can you just talk about Paul and his final game and the bond that's developed between the two of you? MARK TURGEON: Yeah, what a career that kid had. I thought he was the only one that was really aggressive in the game. He made some tremendous post moves. The thing I appreciate about Paul is he always kept trying to get better, he was never satisfied. Kind of put our program on his back a little bit the last few years. We're going to miss him. He's a good one. It's hard to get 6-9,6-10 guys with his skill and his determination and his savvy of the game. He's an intellect. So we're going to miss him. He's been really good. Proud of him, more proud of him as a kid than as a player. He's represented us in the right way for five years. You never had to worry about Paul Miller. I get e-mails about Paul Miller all the time about how he was so good to my kid, he was so good to my family, I see him out in public. You know, he's done a lot for us off the court, too, as much as he's done. So, big shoes to fill. He's been pretty dominant and I'll have to become a lot better coach now that Paul is leaving. I've got to figure out ways for us to be successful without him next year. Q. Playing in these tournament games, how much has that helped push towards next year? MARK TURGEON: Last year we played to the end of this week, Sweet 16 week, of course it was in a different tournament what we played. I think it's great for us. Obviously just getting this experience to play in these games, these type of environments, so much attention has really been good for our program and good for our players. We're awfully young. We had one senior starters. Three sophomore starters, to do what we did, I'm really proud of the guys. Our young guys have to get better, get stronger and have to become more complete players. Hopefully they will learn. That's one good thing, it's never fun losing, but the way we play, we can learn a lot from it. And how guys struggled that are going to be coming back next year, they can learn a lot from it and hopefully they will go into the spring here and summer and really work hard to become a better basketball player. MODERATOR: Thank you.
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