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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2007

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by University of Wyoming head coach Steve McClain and student-athletes Brandon Ewing and Brad Jones.
Coach, general comments on the game.
COACH McCLAIN: I thought, one, BYU played really well. They shot the ball really well in the first half. You know, I thought our kids gave a gutsy effort in the second half. We got it to six, then we just could never get it below that.
But, you know, I think they showed -- our kids showed they were going to just keep fighting till the end. You know, I think that's what our program stands for.
You know, it's disappointing, but you hope you learn something from it.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Rough first half. A great second half for you. What was the big difference? Seemed like you had a hard time containing BYU in the post in the first half, but better in the second.
BRANDON EWING: Well, the main difference was we got on each other in the locker room at halftime. All the trouble was we didn't want to lose, we didn't want to go home so soon, so we came out and showed everybody we wanted to win.
Just we came up a little bit short. We cut it to six opinions. But that 20-point deficit at halftime, it really hurt us a lot. If we were able to cut it down to 10 at halftime we probably would have come up with the win.

Q. What happened in the first half today that was so different than against Air Force when you got off to the fast start? Were you just stunned? What happened?
BRANDON EWING: No, it wasn't stunned. It was just they came out ready to play. We had the right mindset. We had good open looks. We just wasn't knocking them down. Every open look they had, they knocked 'em down. Every open look we had they knocked 'em down. Whether it was a three or a good move, I played there in the post.
They were just clicking on all cylinders in the first half. It's hard to beat a team that's clicking like that. I take my hat off to them. They played a great half.
BRAD JONES: Like Brandon said, they came out strong in the first half. We had the same mindset as yesterday. They was just knocking down shots and we wasn't.

Q. Did you feel a little shellshocked at first when they kept hitting shot after shot? Sometimes teams just get on a roll like that.
BRANDON EWING: No. I don't think we was kind of shocked. We knew they was a great team. They top 25, so we knew they was a great team coming into the game.
It was just, you know, they were just on tonight. It was one of those type nights for the whole team. When a player hit every shot - and their whole team was hitting every shot - it's kind of hard to defend one player.

Q. Brad, the last minute or so, it was such a wild helter-skelter thing. You're pushing the ball down the court, you fell, kept on going. Talk about how that play was.
BRAD JONES: Well, I was just trying to make something happen, trying to play hard. We was down eight points. I was just trying to get the ball down the court as quick as I could.
I guess there's a lot of dead spots out on the floor out there. I kind of hit a dead spot. Didn't come back to me. Tried to dive for it. Just laid into the crowd. Just trying to do whatever it took to win.

Q. Last year you made it to the championship game. You talked about all year how that was something to build on coming into this year. Can you build on the almost comeback that you made here? Is that going to fuel your fire over the summer?
BRANDON EWING: We just had a long talk. Coach made a great comment to us at the end of the game. He said, Let's not put ourselves in a situation where we have to win a tournament just to make something special happen.
Why not come in in the situation like BYU, 24, 25 wins, you lose the first round, you're still going maybe a No. 2 bid in the NCAA tournament.
Next year that's what we wanted to work on. We kind of want to put this behind us. We'll probably take a week off and get to work, because next year we just want to win 24, 25 games, play the tournaments, not put so much pressure on ourselves to win the tournaments.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen.
Questions for Coach McClain.

Q. I know you talked yesterday. Keena Young had two big games against you in the regular season. He was kept in check pretty good today. Plaisted and Cummard and Ainge, they're just full of so many weapons. Were you pleased with what you did on Young, kind of discouraged about those our guys going off on you?
COACH McCLAIN: Well, you know, like Brandon and Brad said, every time early in the game when we did try to go double 'em they kicked it back out and hit a three. You know, it was kind of like we were playing the devil's advocate.
You know, if they'd have missed a couple of those, you can keep going double, keep trying to do it, but it was almost like anything they did was going to work. You know, Plaisted just had one of those days where he'd toss it up there and you think, That one ain't going in. It would just roll around the rim and go in.
I thought in the second half, Daaron did a better job on him, got more aggressive with him. But, again, I just -- you know, they got off to the kind of start we got off to the night before. You know, we kept trying to recover, but the harder we went, the more they just kept making shots.
But, you know, again, that's why they're a good team. Somebody else stepped up. We did a good job on Keena Young. Plaisted stepped up and had a big night.

Q. During that fast start, were you frustrated with your team's defensive effort? Were they not guarding as hard as you wanted, or was it strictly BYU being in the zone?
COACH McCLAIN: You know, you asked the guys in -- the game in the first three minutes just had such a different pace to it than what we had spent 40 minutes the night before. They're coming down just pulling up from three and shooting threes on the break and they're burying them. Now, if they hadn't buried them, we would have went down and got layups on them.
So, no, I think it was more of just we had to adjust to the quickness of the game, and it took us a while to do that. But, you know, we were in the right positions. They were just making every shot.

Q. The free-throw line wasn't too kind to you tonight: 15 of 28. Do you want to comment on that? What was the factor on that?
COACH McCLAIN: I don't know. The other night we go 21 for 28 or whatever we were. We've been a good free-throw shooting team all year. We just had some stretches there where we didn't convert. You can go back to early in the game, we got to the free-throw line a couple times, couldn't knock them down to cut that lead a little bit.
But we've been a good free-throw shooting team all year. Some nights you're going to have them roll in and out, and we had a few of those tonight.

Q. Commenting on what Brandon said about not putting yourself in the position to have to win the tournament next year. And obviously you can go back and look at games during the season and go, We could have got that, We could have got that, and that probably could have done it.
COACH McCLAIN: And I think the good thing for us, and why Brandon says that, why I said it to our team is, we got one senior sitting in that locker room. A lot of teams are going to leave out of here with four or five seniors. We got one senior sitting in there.
Now it's time for these young guys to grow up. Last year they experienced winning 17 games. This year finishing fifth in the league. Coming out here with the expectation to win.
You know, but you do, you go back to the Wisconsin, Milwaukee game. We lost by two. The Charlotte game we lost by two. We had so many close games there, but yet I'd love to go back and play those games right now with this team because we're such a different team now.
I think that's where Brandon and myself and Brad, you know, you go, just don't put yourself in a position you have to come out here and win. It doesn't mean it will happen, but that's what you'd like to do.

Q. What was said at halftime? Was it by you, a player who took charge in the locker room?
COACH McCLAIN: I told Brandon walking up the ramp, I said, You're going to have to get in 'em. You're going to have to just challenge them. I walked in and challenged them. But I still think there's a difference when one of them challenges each other, too. And I thought they took that challenge.
I couldn't have been prouder of how they finished the game. I guarantee you most of the people in there thought, We're going to get beat by 20. The kids just weren't going to let that happen. That's the mentality they have. That's the mentality of our program.
I got into 'em, then Brandon got into 'em. They came out and responded. That was good to see.

Q. What's next for you?
COACH McCLAIN: I don't know. I don't know.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Appreciate it.

End of FastScripts

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