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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2007Jim CalhounJerome DysonA.J. PriceNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK JIM CALHOUN: I thought that we started off the game exactly the way we wanted to and had not done for quite frankly some time and that's by running. We got our running, we got our legs, we got up and down the court very well. We executed okay on offense, shot 46 percent. Okay on the boards, and not bad defensively. Second half, we allowed a couple situations to dissuade us. We turned the ball over sometimes, went to the hole a couple of times and let situations dissuade us from staying the course, because there's nothing we can do about that and just got to keep playing. When bad things happen to you by incompetent people and they do happen to you at times. And as that built, we became a little more frustrated. And then I thought Nichols just really took the game over and had some killers. The three in the corner, we're down ten and he makes a three, and mysteriously because there's no contact underneath all day, it was a holding foul because there was a little contact on the boards and that becomes a five-point play, and once we get down 15, it's just too much for us to overcome. Syracuse was a better team than us, they beat us two-out-of-three this year, and certainly we'll go home and practice on Friday and just hope that we get an opportunity to play again. Q. Can you talk about situations dissuading the kids, coming out in the second half, you played so well, you turned the ball over on the first two possessions, is that something that's mentally -- inaudible? JIM CALHOUN: That's getting into situations I'm not going to get into. The guy goes to the hoop and gets knocked down, I don't know what you do with that, and that happened two or three times. I think that somewhere along the line, you've got to play through that. That's the key. You don't turn the ball over, maybe it leads to a basket or two, maybe you get down four. But you can't make that four into ten because things are not going your way. You've got to play through that. It's that kind of situation -- yeah, I thought the opening three or four minutes of the second half was caused by us and other factors. Q. For those of us who don't see you much during the season, after all of the success you've had the last few years, how easy or hard is it? JIM CALHOUN: Last year we sat here at, whatever the heck we were at the time, 25-3, and I was concerned about the kids and if we could win a National Championship. I'm sitting here today at 17-14, hoping that we get to the NIT. To me if I like the kids and they work hard, I am disappointed and they are disappointed I'm sure, that we have not come along. We have nine first-year players, and everyone says they are young; we are young. Everybody says they are young. Nine first-year players and then Jeff Adrian, we don't have anybody who started a basketball game for us and we have no juniors and no seniors on our basketball team, and that was a concern of mine. I thought we could overcome it with athleticism but we ended up being a -- a reporter asked me a question early: "Do you think you'll be able to shoot the ball well enough?" And he was right. We don't shoot the ball well enough, except for Jerome right now, and our youth shows. Our youth shows because we don't know how to handle adversity at times. When you get into this, if you're only getting into it for the great moments, then you're into it for the wrong reasons. I fully expect that a lot of these kids will mature and be handling some physical play as Syracuse, what their seniors did to us in the last ten minutes of the game. Once again, we coach because we coach. We coach to win. We are disappointed we lost. We are disappointed in the season. But, you know, 17-14 is not what we want, but honestly, you know, when we lost to Syracuse last year, I can't tell you that I felt any less or more disappointment. You might say, well, you knew where you were going afterwards. Yeah, well, we knew that if we didn't win a National Championship, people would be disappointed. Either way, I would rather be at that end and I expect, Connecticut expects to be back at that end, and we will be. Q. This game had an almost semi-final or final BIG EAST atmosphere to it. Were you coaching that way? You and Jim are friends. JIM CALHOUN: Well, I think it was a very competitive game and I really thought there was one situation that got involved with the game that kind of took the game and allowed it, and then Nichols took over, so there's two things; something that got in the way early that I think kind of hurt the game. Let the kids play and all of the sudden there's just some things that bothered me. And then Nichols took the game over and put the game away. I would agree that the tenacity right up to two minutes to go, we get it back to ten, yeah, there was BIG EAST tenacity and, you know, talk about the NIT, I'm not politicking for it. If we don't go, we don't go. Q. Were the officials -- JIM CALHOUN: I'm not talking about the officials. I'm not talking about the officials. I said situation. Situation usually denotes single individual who I think helped screwed the game up, yeah. By the way, you've got to adjust to that and understand that. If I agree or disagree, I'm coming from a very objective standpoint. So what I say has to be tainted a lot by the fact that I'm rooting for the guys in blue. But I thought there was a particular point where a couple of things looked unusual to me, okay, and they were not done by malice. They were done by -- well, they were just done, or not done. But we have to overcome those. And then allowed Nichols to go out for 28 points. Q. The offense over the last few weeks, is that one of the better first halves? JIM CALHOUN: We ran. First time we have run -- you could probably tell me better -- you have to put chronologies of this stuff. I think that's the best time we've run since I can't tell you when, maybe the last time against St. John's. I can't think of the last time we ran that effectively. If we had converted a couple more plays, we were heading towards 40, 45 -- we were struggling to score -- (loud sound of pipes falling in Garden) that sounds like the first five minutes of us dropping the ball. The sound of turnovers, I guess. It's going to follow me all year, turnovers. Q. You guys have had a lot of comebacks this year, how hard is it mentally to be in a tight game for a long stretch if you are not really used to that? A.J. PRICE: It's not that tough. It's what you ask for as a player and competitor. Being in close games at this kind of a level. We were playing our butts off and we had our chances to win and we just didn't execute. We didn't finish off plays towards the end of the second half. Q. Jerome, you had a tough time feeding the ball down and Thabeet was getting frustrated; what do you tell a player like him that is young and has size, what do you tell him after a game like this? JEROME DYSON: He knows he's a good athlete and he can play. It's not really, you can say something but just come out and play the next game as best as you can. We tried to get the ball into him as much as we could, and they extended their zone so it was kind of tough. Jeff was flashing and most of the time we were trying to get it to Jeff at the top and get it to Hasheem. JIM CALHOUN: I think your question would be much more to get the ball to Jeff, who was 3-for-12. I think Hasheem quite frankly had the ball go through his hands. He tried to finesse shots up there and was not dunking the ball. He was one step behind the defense the entire night. He's a terrific prospect and that's what he is right now, he's a prospect playing in a game where prospects are not allowed -- no prospects allowed. You have to bring your game, and he's got game, but he can't bring it every single night, nor is he refined enough yet to be able to cause damage. He has caused damage in certain games but he still has a way to go. The end of that is going to be great. It's just that's going to take time. Q. You have the potential to be one of the top teams in the country next season; are you guys going to work out together? JEROME DYSON: I think we've just got to get our teammates involved more in the beginning of the game just to get everybody going I think. I think that's what we did today and we just could not -- in the second half, we just couldn't get it back up and going. We missed shots but we just couldn't get stops. I think if we come back and we just get motivated to play full 40-minute games, we shouldn't have any problem with that. Q. Jerome, the shots you took in the first half were not there in the second half, is that because Syracuse extended or matched up with you? What happened? JEROME DYSON: They played better defense in the second half. I really was not trying to go out and force anything. I just tried to left the shots come to me and they just played disk defense. End of FastScripts |
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