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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2007Jeff CapelNate CarterMichael NealOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA CHARLIE FISS: Joined by the Oklahoma Sooners Coach Capel and his two student athletes, Michael Neal and Nate Carter. COACH JEFF CAPEL: I want to congratulate Kansas. They are awfully good, very talented. They were just too much for us. We played a very good first half, had the lead throughout the first half and squandered it there towards the end. We felt like we were in good position, didn't get off to a great start. Obviously we struggled scoring the ball in the second half. We have one field goal for the first 12 minutes or so and when you are playing against a team as talented as Kansas, you have to score. I thought defensively we did a decent job and the team average was 80 and they scored 64. But we didn't score the ball enough to win. So congratulate them. They are awfully good. Good luck to them the rest of the season. We're seal what happens with us. Q. For both you guys, do you think you have played your final game this year and in your career at Oklahoma? If so, what are your thoughts right now starting with you, Michael? MICHAEL NEAL: Hopefully not. I don't know how the -- how it works with the tournament selection. Just going to wait until Sunday to figure out if we are still playing or not. NATE CARTER: You know, we already know what's going to happen. We still want to play, so we will have to wait until Sunday and see what happens. Q. Nate and Mike, Kansas did a good job of trapping tonight, forcing you guys to back up your offense a little bit. Maybe, Mike, I need you to comment on this, too. Talk about how that bothered the offense. It just seemed like it took you a few more seconds to try to get into an offense. MICHAEL NEAL: I didn't hear the question. I didn't understand it. Q. Kansas was trapping you in the corner. Talk about how difficult it was to get into your offense. MICHAEL NEAL: It kind of throws off the rhythm. The things we do -- like we got things to counter that and we just didn't put it together today. In the second half -- I mean, the first half, we did some good things. The second half, they just kind of ran away with it and took the momentum. Q. Michael and Nate, if you guys can, if you can talk about the zone that you guys were in early, you seem to give Kansas a little bit of trouble, forced them to take some outside shots. As the game wore on, they kind of broke that down. Was there a change in the philosophy or the effort? I mean, what happened down the stretch there? COACH JEFF CAPEL: We just made some mistakes and they scored off of them, but they are a good team and they played real hard. Q. Guys in the second half when you just couldn't put the ball in the basket, it seemed as though Kansas -- I don't know if intimidated is the right word, but they altered a lot of your shots, it seemed. Do you think that's fair? NATE CARTER: They definitely didn't intimidate us, we just missed shots. We was attacking them. We was going at them. We just missed shots that we normally make. Q. Michael, just talk about this season in general, then, how has it been this season for not just you individually but as a team? First year under Coach Capel, have things gone the way you thought they would, not necessarily in wins and losses but just describe how the season has been. MICHAEL NEAL: It has been, I think, a blessing. We're blessed to get a coach like Coach Capel who believed in it us. It could have been anybody, and brought a system that fit us and work with our personnel. And I think despite the wins and losses, we were a good team and we hit some shots, we get some stops, we can easily be looking at being in the tournament and stuff like that. But at the same time, I learned a lot and I just -- I really appreciate having a coaching staff like we had because it could have been anybody, you know. The seniors, me, Nate, our careers could have been over, you know, not playing as much as and stuff like that. They believed in us and we did the best we could. Q. Jeff, do you believe this team has done enough to warrant to keep playing next week? COACH JEFF CAPEL: I would like to think so. I mean, obviously my biased opinion is yeah. You know, I think we are playing in one, if not the best conference in college basketball. If you look at what our teams have done this year in our league, I think so. We have been competitive. We haven't maybe had a signature win. We did beat a top 25 team. They are not a top 25 team now. So I think we have, but unfortunately it is not in my hands. We hope so. Q. Jeff, is it just going to be about recruiting to resurrect the program and get it back in the NCAA tournament? COACH JEFF CAPEL: Well, any program -- the lifeblood of your program is recruiting. You have to have players. That's the bottom line. You have to have players and the players that you have, they have to believe in you. They have to want to play for you. And recruiting is a big part of getting better in any program, certainly in ours. So we look forward to recruiting. I enjoy it. I have a staff that enjoys it. We have signed four guys we think are really good, and we look forward to continuing to do it. Q. Jeff, in the first half, did things go just about as good as you could hope for going in the first half with your game plan how you laid it out? When you went into the half time locker room, were you thinking, okay, we are right there? COACH JEFF CAPEL: I thought so except for the last 30 seconds. We wanted to try -- 44 seconds on the clock, we called time out. We wanted to hold for one shot. We didn't execute that play but we got it back on the out of bounds. I thought we shot quickly there. But overall I thought in the first half we played very well. I thought our defense was good. We did some different things on ball screens. We mixed our defenses up some. But the bottom line is scoring. To beat Kansas, you have to score. They average 80. They had 28 at half time. So our defense was very good. Offensively, we did some decent things but that's been the story of our team all year. You know, we have played pretty good defense for the most part. I thought the difference in the second half defensively they got transition baskets. In the first half, I don't remember them getting one transition basket. In the second half, they probably got about 12 points -- about 8 to 12 points in transition. I thought that was a big difference. Obviously, I felt we were a little bit deflated once we got down. They were getting straight-line drives on us, which not many teams have done that this year. Brandon Rush got one on the left wing when drove it right down the middle. Looked like Moses had a staff and the sea parted right there. That's disappointing. All year long these guys have fought hard. We have tried to get better. We just unfortunately have been inconsistent with scoring. Q. Coach, along the same lines, how would you describe your first year? I would imagine any time first year at BCU, here, whatever would be special in some ways or however. How has it been emotionally for you as a coach in the first year? COACH JEFF CAPEL: It has been an honor to be here honestly, and to coach these guys, I appreciate these guys accepting us. Our players have been through a lot. Any time you have a coaching change and you go -- and you are playing for someone that didn't recruit you, that's tough. I went through it as a player kind of like half a year. It wasn't anything like that. My coach was out my second year in school, and it is tough. But these guys you know, you know, we appreciate the fact that they embraced us. We worked. There were a lot of areas where we have to get better, we have to improve. I knew that coming in. I knew that once I took the job and we started individual workouts, I knew that. But these guys have displayed great heart and we fought all year long. There have been some teams we have played that are more talented than us. Kansas is better than us. Kansas is better than a lot of teams. But these guys have fought. I said at the beginning of the year, I thought this team would be a team that our fans would really get behind and embrace because I thought it was a team that would fight. We knew we were an underdog. We knew there wasn't a lot of expectations outside of our locker room and we talked about that. We talked about fighting and giving great effort every day, and for the most part, I think we did that. Q. Jeff, along those same lines, you talked about before the season started that you wanted this team to be the best that it could be, basically, I think in those terms. Do you feel like this team reached its potential, even though, like you said, you had limitations? COACH JEFF CAPEL: Yeah, I do. That may sound crazy, I do. Listen, I didn't come here to be close, to give great effort, to just do that. I came here to win. That's what I know is to win. But I think you have to run your own race. We can't compare ourself to someone else right now. We want to -- we think what we have at the University of Oklahoma is very good. And I think our team hit its ceiling. When you are playing with guys that really haven't played and with the inconsistency that we had, I mean, if you would have told me last night that Longar was going to come out and have a double-double and almost have a double-double in the first half, I wanted it to happen but I would have thought you were probably crazy to say that with the way he was playing. We have a guy that -- our two leading scorers didn't score yesterday. Obviously, Mike didn't play. And then we have a guy like Nate Carter who had 6 points today. He had 22 or 24 yesterday. David Godbold didn't score. I mean, that's kind of been how our season has been. I knew who we were at the beginning of the year. We've tried to work. I think we have gotten better. I think we've improved. But we just -- we have to improve in some talent. We do. I understand that. Our staff understands that. And that's something that we look forward to doing. End of FastScripts |
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