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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007Bill CarmodyKevin CobleTim DoyleCraig MooreCHICAGO, ILLINOIS COACH BILL CARMODY: We played them at the beginning of the Big Ten Conference schedule, and they out-rebounded us by 25 rebounds. That was our main focus today, to try to just sort of match their physicalness of their play. I thought we did a pretty good job at that. They got a few more rebounds, but I think it was mostly defensive rebounds. We missed more shots than they did. But it didn't seem like they got too many second looks, although a couple at the end were real important where they rebounded and brought the ball out. But at halftime I told them, fellows, they're off an awful lot, you're getting some open looks, and if we're going to beat this team, you have to make -- put the No. 8 on the board, you have to make eight threes. If you do that, I think we can beat this team. Each guy is going to have to step up, and we started making some, five or six in the second half that kept us in there. I was proud of the way the guys hung in there. It's not what you like, to go out on the first day because you don't get a real flavor of the tournament to tell you the truth, but I thought they did their best and I thought -- I think despite the record, we've been improving. I think it's sort of promising for the future with a few guys, the few guys we have in. Michigan State, they don't play on Thursday too often, and they played hard, and they just made plays when they had to make them and shots when they had to make them. And we weren't able to handle that. He had 20 points, but it seemed very economical to me, not that many shots, and he made the right plays and the right passes. So you know, we struggled guarding him. Q. Craig, could you talk about the comeback and the attitude and the shots you hit and then that last pass that got away from you, the whole sequence and the comeback and the shots? CRAIG MOORE: The comeback was basically just try to get the ball down the court as fast as possible, get it to the open men, make a shot and then play defense. I think we did that pretty well. Timmy found some guys, everybody was making shots when we needed them to. And then the last play, Jeremy did everything right. He was on Neitzel, he defended great, he rebounded the ball well, and I kind of -- I don't remember if I called for the ball or not, but I kind of looked over at coach to see what he was doing, I looked at the clock and then the ball flew past my face. Q. Mr. Doyle, you joined the illustrious likes of Isaiah Thomas and Magic Johnson today, I think, more than 500 points, 150 assists. Say something about how you crowned with your career. It was an exciting game even though you came up short. TIM DOYLE: Yeah, I think it's a testament to Coach Carmody, that 13-18, 2-14 in the league, we just bowed out to arguably the toughest seven seed you're ever going to face. This is a team that lost two games at the buzzer to the No. 1 team in the country at their place. So it was just a tough game, but I think it's just a testament to Coach. We came out and we gave all our heart, we gave all our effort. The records are great. I want to look back when I'm an old man and enjoy them. Today it's kind of a bitter taste, but it's nice to see the young guys respond to the way I stepped forward, and I always give 110 percent and I see the guys out there doing the same. Q. Kevin, you guys did a lot better job rebounding this game compared to last time against Michigan State. Did you change anything or was it just seeing the ball better? KEVIN COBLE: If you look at the majority of the games we lose, we get killed on the boards, and that was something that happened there. The coaching staff had emphasized that throughout the last few weeks of practice, doing various rebounding drills. I think that's something we've keyed in on. We realize in order for us to compete in these games and to win that we have to rebound. I think we consistently got better as the season went on and kind of shortened -- lessened that margin of rebounding deficit between the teams. So I think that was a positive thing and something that we need to continue to work on for next year. Q. Were you a little bit hyper, too quick fouls and you were sitting? KEVIN COBLE: I came out aggressively. That's going to happen sometimes, I guess, in the game. I just tried to play hard, and those things are going to happen. You play enough basketball, it's going to come back and get you. But you just have to play through it. I was pleased with how everybody was able to respond to that, and I was glad to come out in the second half and play a little bit better. Q. Tim, you had 16 in the first half and it could have gotten pretty ugly pretty quick. Why didn't it? TIM DOYLE: A key guy, that was Jeff Ryan, and he's a freshman, and Kevin is a freshman, and every game -- even midway through this game you could see (Kevin) Coble getting more comfortable playing in the United Center. I think he might have been a little anxious at the beginning like he just said. But that's just a testament to our team. I think we've had that never say die, let's not bow out attitude. Then we started to gain some confidence and Craig (Moore) stepped up, he hit a couple big shots. We were right in that game. They shoot 58 percent for a team that struggles scoring, and you know, they came into -- we came into the game hoping that, big arena, early game, they'd struggle with their shooting. That's a ballgame we can usually win if we shoot that well and get multiple contributions from everybody on the team. Like I said, the effort was there and I think that was important because we could have bowed our heads and showed up and took our free meal and left. Q. What excites you about the future with this program? KEVIN COBLE: Oh, I think just the opportunity to continue to learn from the coaches and the incoming recruits that we have and just coming back and playing with the same guys that I've gotten to know over the last couple years. It's just an honor to be out there on the court with them and continue to grow teamwork wise. And I think we can do some pretty special things with the foundation that the seniors have sort of laid for us this year, and leading into next year it's going to be something that's really special. Q. Can a game like this where you get your shooting touch back help you for the future? CRAIG MOORE: Well, my next game is not for eight or nine months, so I'll replay this game a couple times in my head. Coach is already talking about what we have to do as individuals and what we need to do to succeed. We learned a lot from the seniors and we're going to miss Timmy (Doyle) and Joe (Kennedy) and Vince (Scott) and Ivan (Tolic) next year, but we're going to have to build on that and do more, do what we have to do to survive without them. Q. Tim, this is a similar question that was asked earlier, but what has to be done to kind of turn this thing around do you think? TIM DOYLE: Well, there's encouraging signs. We obviously lose the leading scorer in the Big Ten last year and coming into the season we're picked dead last in every poll. We go out and we have the best non-conference record in the history of Northwestern. There's going to be little steps. So that's something you've got to build on. Kevin (Coble), Jeff Ryan, Craig Moore, we're talking about some young, young kids. Each year these guys are going to get better. Last year I assumed more of a role player where this year I stepped up and I had to be the main focus. I think next year everyone says, what are they going to do without you, big Vince? These guys are going to be fine. These guys are going to emerge. They're 18, 19-year-old kids. Guys are going to get more assertive and play with more confidence because honestly, I haven't really improved my game that much. It's just I became more confident as I got more minutes and more comfortable on the floor. The young guys, you're going to see them expand. We've turned the corner and we're going the right direction, 11 non-conference wins or 10, whatever it is, we're headed in the right direction. THE MODERATOR: We can finish up with Coach Carmody. Q. I think Craig touched on it, but you guys did everything right on the last possession but threw the ball away. Talk about how disheartening that was to see your plans not work out like you wanted them to. COACH BILL CARMODY: Like Craig said, they told them to keep the ball away from Neitzel, Jeremy, and I told you if he beats you back there, I don't care, I'll take the blame for it, but just don't let him touch the ball. It was a real good possession defensively. We had Sutton taking the three, and air ball and get the rebound. What can you say, that's part of playing basketball. Stuff like that happens. I didn't tell them at the time, I had to call a time-out because I don't like to do that, I just like to see what the situation is. Usually I don't. What are you going to say? We all wish it was different, but you're playing basketball. I told the kid to keep his chin up. That's all you can do. Q. How much did the run at the end of the first half and into the second half a little bit get you or keep you in the game? It was an 11 to 2 run. COACH BILL CARMODY: Yeah, we started off pretty nicely, and like has happened so many times this year, it seemed like we missed a couple easy layups. They called a walk-on, (Ivan) Tolic, Jeff (Ryan) missed an easy one, somebody else missed something I thought was capable, and then I substituted, I changed a few guys, and it seemed like our defense went down. I took Tolic out and he was doing a real good job in the middle there, I thought. It could have blown out. We could have been blown out in the first half. Those last like eight minutes -- maybe it was the middle eight minutes, and then I think Craig hit a shot at the buzzer and there was something before that that went our way. We just hung in there. Still down nine, though, I think at half. I liked the way they were rooting for each other and stuff on the bench, and the guys were coming in and -- that's important to me, you know, doing what they're supposed to do. Q. You talked about the future looking bright. I say that every year at this point. What's different now about the future than has been in the past few years? COACH BILL CARMODY: I don't know, I think our freshmen are pretty good, and I think that some of the guys we have coming in are going to help us right away. It just seems like some of these freshmen are a little more focused on being good and improving. It's still going to be incremental, I think, but I hope we can get up towards the .500 mark in the conference next year. That would be something. It'll depend on how much these guys get better and what kind of -- you know, what the incoming guys give us. We clearly have to have -- our shooting has to improve, and I think some of these guys are capable of that. Q. Tom Izzo was very complimentary after the game, very gracious. I wonder if that gets old after a while. The idea is obviously for you to win games. Do you almost get tired of that? COACH BILL CARMODY: Well, I like Tom and respect him a lot. He's a good guy. We want to win here, all right, and that's the point of your question. It's just, like, can we turn this thing around, can we get better? I think we can. I'm sure we can, and we haven't done it. But I feel confident in the guys we have, and we're starting to make some inroads. I don't want to blow it up too much in the Chicago area, but we're starting to recruit guys and get guys from our backyard, and that's real important, not just this class but the juniors and sophomores, and it took us a while to do that. I think we're making some inroads, and we're going to get some of those guys and that's going to help immensely. So I understand the point. When is it going to happen because it's been seven years now, so we have to do it soon. Q. To come within three points of tying it, does that give you an impressive profile looking at it, help sell the program a little bit? COACH BILL CARMODY: Yeah, if you're watching the game, as far as recruiting, you can say, hey, they hung in there. Last year we came out here and I thought it was a disgrace, against Penn State. Leading up to this game I told the guys, our seniors, that, and I think that they took it to heart a little bit and worked hard and didn't quit. Sometimes you find out that if you don't quit, then good things can happen. But I thought we played much better throughout the game. Even though we were losing I know I'm going to look at the tape and see a little bit here, a little bit there, a missed layup. We're far away but not that far away. It's hard for me to say. Q. On the last sequence Craig said he was looking to the bench to see -- COACH BILL CARMODY: Yeah. Q. Is it a routine to look for him to see whether you're going to call timeout and go, or at that point in the game should everybody just go? COACH BILL CARMODY: We got the rebound, and I mean -- there was ten seconds left or something like that. Like I said, when he got the rebound, I didn't want to call timeout right then. I wanted to let them all get down the court fast. They all knew from the time-out that we're going to need a three. But if when they came down, they saw that it wasn't good, then I would have called a time-out. But I didn't want to do it from the full court. Q. If you had gotten the ball into your half of the court, do you think Izzo would have let you all shoot a three or fouled you and forced you to just take two? COACH BILL CARMODY: I'm not sure what he would have done. We would have tried to prepare for both. You know what I mean? A lot of guys like to foul, a lot of guys don't. I like to, but I don't know what Tom's (Izzo) thinking on that is. Q. I just thought you knew him more as a coach, what his strategy would be. COACH BILL CARMODY: I don't want to say anything because the next time I play him it won't work out. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for your time and patience, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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