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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2007

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Brigham Young university head Coach Dave Rose and student-athletes Trent Plaisted and Lee Cummard.
Coach, if you want to open with some general marks on the game.
COACH ROSE: Well, I was very proud of our players, how they came out and got off to a great start. I thought that we were playing very well together, were unselfish, sharing the ball, we were hitting shots. We got a nice lead.
The first half was pretty much -- I felt like we, you know, from that early lead had the half under control. We knew in the second half it would be a different story.
Wyoming played very, very hard, had a real will to compete. We matched that and were able to, you know, kind of carry that early lead into a victory.
Proud of our players. We'll go back, regroup, got a big one tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Trent, you got 27 points and tied a career high. Can you tell me what was the trouble at the free-throw line? What would you attribute the nine missed free-throws to?
TRENT PLAISTED: You know, there's not really much you can attribute it to. I didn't step up and knock 'em down when I needed to. I'll do better tomorrow.

Q. Either player, you got off to such a fast start and were able to pretty much own the paint as well. Did you see anything or try to do anything to get off to such a fast start?
TRENT PLAISTED: That's always an emphasis for our team: To get off to a good start, kind of get a lead that we can work with.
It's hard when you get a lead as big as that as early as we did. You know, you might get a little bit complacent. We were able to hold 'em off. It just worked out for us.
LEE CUMMARD: Like Trent said, emphasis, coach wants us to win that first four minutes. Austin created some shots. We got some steals for easy buckets. Obviously our defensive effort is what created the big lead.

Q. Can you talk about now moving into the championship game, the thrill it is to play for a title here.
TRENT PLAISTED: You know, that's been our goal all year long. You want to win a Mountain West championship. Obviously when you come to the conference tournament you want a championship here.
We've put ourselves in a great position to do that. Whoever we play, we'll be ready for 'em.
LEE CUMMARD: Along the same lines. Tomorrow's going to be a fun night. No matter who we play we're looking forward to it. We got great fans coming to support us. Got really fun tonight when it got loud, interesting at the end, so...
THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we'll let you two go. Thank you.
Questions for Coach Rose.

Q. Big first half, then Wyoming made things interesting in the second. What was the big difference? Was it maybe the lack of focus in the second half with the big lead, or did Wyoming do anything different?
COACH ROSE: I think a lot of it was Wyoming, I mean, they're very athletic. You get in a situation at this time of year when, you know, players realize that the season's over if you don't win, and it changes the mindset.
I think they came out in the second half with great determination. I think we were real fortunate we played as well as we did in the first half.

Q. Lee talked a little bit about the crowd, enthusiasm, how loud it got inside the stadium. Can you talk about moving from Denver to here? You have more fans it seems here. Also moving into the championship game, thoughts on that?
COACH ROSE: Well, I think the way we've addressed it as a team is that wherever the conference decides to have the tournament we'll go down and play. This seems to be a lot more excitement -- there seems to be a lot more excitement here as far as ticket requests are concerned.
That must mean there's a lot more people that are here. But as far as who we play, we'll deal with that in a couple hours.

Q. What did you say to the team when it got down to six opinions with just over three minutes or four minutes to play? You had a timeout. What were you communicating to your team?
COACH ROSE: Mainly we were just trying to be positive, you know, trying to get some confidence going. All we needed to do was make a free-throw or make a shot and it would really settle everything down.
But we knew they were going to continue to contest every pass, contest every dribble, contest every catch, and that we just needed to get ourself in a positive mind frame of, you know, we just need to finish the game off.
But that time, that three minutes or two-minute mark, I mean, we knew that there would be a lot more possessions in the game, that the game was a long ways from being over, that we just needed to continue to be confident, play confident.

Q. How big was Mike's three?
COACH ROSE: I think Mike's three was very big for our confidence. But I also think that put-back that Lee had sometime in that stretch was a real big shot for us.
I've said this all year long: it's hard to win games. Your guys have to really compete. You have to compete for 40 minutes. I thought our guys did really well down the stretch.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. Good luck tomorrow.
COACH ROSE: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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