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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: NEW JERSEYMarch 23, 2007Derrick ByarsDan CageShan FosterKevin StallingsEAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY THE MODERATOR: Coach. COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: Well, that was a terrific college basketball game and we're very disappointed to have not come out on the good end of it. But I'm very proud of our team and very proud of all the individual players and their spirit and their competitiveness and how they gave us a chance to win this game. It's always disappointing when you lose one like that, because you can go over so many things in your head, things that might have gone differently, but the bottom line was they made one more play than we did, and we needed one stop and rebound, and we couldn't get it there at the end. Their kid made a heck of a play, and they get to keep playing and we don't. So we congratulate them, but it doesn't diminish or detract from my pride in our basketball team. I wouldn't feel any better about my basketball team if that shot had missed and we had won the game. We'd be a little happier right now, but that doesn't change anything about the way we played. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. This is for Derrick. Can you talk about when you fouled out Hibbert, did you think the momentum was shifting right there for you all? DERRICK BYARS: I thought so. I thought when we got him out of the game, you know, 'cause he was alone down there, at the start of the second half in particular, he kind of exerted his will down there. Got a lot of tip-ins, offensive rebounds, things of that nature. When a guy like that goes out, it makes it easier for you to try to seek driving opportunities to the lane. You know, feed your post players some more. So, yeah, we thought that, but they have a heck of a -- they got a bunch of good guys on their team. Q. Shane, can you talk about that last sequence right there, I think you were trying to double Green at the end. SHAN FOSTER: We kind of knew the ball was going to him. He's a great player. Obviously, Player-of-the-Year in his conference. I just tried to do my best to defend him, and we got the double team there. He's a great player. He made a great shot. Q. Dan and Shane, when you lose a game like this, sometimes you hear people say they'd rather lose by 20 than with two seconds left. How do you take this when there are so many what-ifs? DAN CAGE: Well, it feels bad now because it was a close game and you're thinking about the things that, you know, didn't go our way. When you lose by 20, usually it's a whole game of not playing well. Today I think we had a lot of guys play well so it's a little bit tougher to swallow right now. In the grand scheme of things, I would hate to think back 15 years from now and think that my last college game was a game that we didn't even play well, we didn't even put forth a fight. So like Coach said, I'm proud of our guys, I'm proud of my teammates and the coaches, and things just didn't go our way today. Q. Dan, you guys have talked all year about getting games into those late situations just like what you all had tonight. Can you just kind of talk about your feeling there around the four-minute mark and taking it down the stretch from there. DAN CAGE: Four minutes, you know, if the game's within five points either way, our team kind of looks at each other and basically you can call it arrogance but we think we got the game won. We just got a bunch of veteran ballplayers on our team, and all season long we've made plays and we've won games like that. So this feeling right now is a little bit foreign to us. You know, to be perfectly honest, I'm a little shocked. I'm surprised right now more than I am upset. It's just unfortunate. But you take your hat off to them. Like Coach said, they made one more play than we did and that's why they are where they are and that's why we are where we are. Q. Can you just talk about the team defense you all played on Georgetown, particularly on the inside. The scrambling on the back side helped the double team from the blind side. They couldn't see. All the stuff you did to hang around. DERRICK BYARS: We're not the biggest team, you know, so what we do is we try to make it difficult for their post men when they catch it, try to swarm them and make it difficult for them to get a good shot off or, you know, an easy pass out. So that was our defensive scheme, and it worked very well in the first half. You know, in the second half, when we decided to do it, it worked well, too. Q. Dan, they obviously had you outside. You had a tough matchup but you pulled out 17 and 7 tonight. Talk about how you were able to do that despite being guarded by guys a lot bigger than you all night and having the matchup of guys on the other end a lot bigger than you? DAN CAGE: All year I've been matched up against guys that are bigger than me. That's what happens when you're not a very big guy. Funny, I get some credit for being tough and hanging with some of those bigger guys but really I've got a lot of help. I've got two and three guys right there next to me making sure -- discouraging that player from really trying anything, especially in the low post. As for 17-7, you know, I don't know, that might look nice or something, but wasn't enough. You know, we had a lot of other guys make huge plays tonight, and I don't know. Just a disappointing finish, I guess, for us. But couldn't be happier with our guys and the teammates, my teammates, and the way they battled tonight. Q. Shan, I know it might not be a good time to think about it, but can you kind of project into next year what type of momentum this kind of run gives this team. SHAN FOSTER: More than anything, it teaches us that if we stay together, then anything's possible. We have a lot of guys that really bought into the team chemistry. I think our team chemistry this year has been the best ever as far as I've been here. We can definitely carry that into next season. Q. Derrick, along those same lines, what do you feel about what you're leaving behind. Just getting this team back into the tournament as you leave, what sense of legacy will you take with you over this season? DERRICK BYARS: I guess we take with us that we were able to exceed, you know, a lot of expectations that other people had of us. We were able to battle adversity and come out with a lot of success, I guess. You know, it just shows what can happen if you stay competitive and practice, you stay working hard. You know, hopefully, you know, the underclassmen saw that and will buy into it for next year. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you very much. If there are any questions for Vanderbilt, Coach Kevin Stallings, please. Q. Kevin, what did you see on that last Georgetown offensive play? Did you possibly see a turnover? COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: Well, I thought that we anticipated what they were going to do. We told them they can go back door first, and then they would post Green. We knew what was coming. I thought we defended the play fairly well, and then he, you know, made a tough shot. It looked like we had him covered up, and I'm certainly not going to take away from the dignity of this game. I haven't seen the replay. Don't care to. He made a great shot. The officials didn't see anything, so there must not have been anything. The young man made a terrific play, and we're just disappointed that the ball went in the basket. Q. Kevin, have you had a team play harder than that and play better team defense in a game like that? COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: Well, I didn't -- our team has played hard like that all season long, and that's why, you know, we were a whisker away from being in the final eight because of how hard they played and how well they played together. I don't know if I've ever had a team overcome as much adversity and stay together and accomplish what this team has accomplished. For that, I am very proud. But our defense was not as good in the second half as it was in the first half. I thought our effort was just as good, just we didn't get enough rebounds and there were some other things that happened that sort of led to our demise. But nevertheless, I thought that we played with great effort, great emotion, and I wouldn't have expected anything less because that's the way these guys practice. Q. Talk about how much you're going to miss these three seniors and how much they've meant to you this season. COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: I'm going to miss them a great deal, all three of them. All three of them, even at the end here, were playing the best basketball of their lives. That's what happens when you have a really successful year. Dan and Ted were able to be a part of two Sweet 16 teams, which is really a nice thing. Derrick obviously had some major league accomplishments in his couple of years with us. I'm going to miss them greatly, and I've never been prouder of a group of seniors than I am those three guys. Q. Obviously, well-documented where you guys came from this season to get here. Going forward, what does a run like this do for a program moving into the future? COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: Well, you hope it gives you momentum and you hope that you can capitalize on it, and you hope that the young guys in the program from the Juniors on down, I hope they learned how to do it right from those three seniors, because they showed them how to do it right. They showed them how to lead. They showed them how to follow. They showed them how to compete on an everyday basis. If we take those lessons and continue to apply them, which I know we will, then this should give us a good shot in the arm, a good momentum as we head into next season. Q. The way you guys have played late in games throughout the season, Dan said he was surprised. Were you surprised in a game like this you didn't come out on top? COACH KEVIN STALLINGS: Well, we are a little surprised, quite honestly, because we've gotten -- we've grown very accustomed to winning those games. I thought we would win that one. I thought when Dan -- I mean, how courageous was it for Dan Cage to step to the foul-line with 14 seconds to play being behind one and making two huge free throws. If we had won the game, that would be a big deal right now. I mean, that takes an incredible amount of courage to step up and do that, and he did it like it was water off a duck's back. So, you know, again, it's tough to be in this position. We were surprised. We've spoiled ourselves. They have spoiled me because we've won close games all season long, and we happened to not win this one. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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