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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2008Brandon EwingBrad JonesHeath SchroyerLAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you want to just begin with some opening remarks. COACH SCHROYER: I give CSU a lot of credit. They played really well. They knocked down some shots and made plays and we had opportunities to make those plays and they didn't. I give them a lot of credit and it is what it is. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Q. Brandon, I have a question for you. That hard foul towards the end of the game there, did you think that should have been called a flagrant? BRANDON EWING: I didn't actually feel the foul, I just felt myself hit the ground. But my teammates and my coach and a couple of CSU players said I hit the floor kind of hard and they felt it should have been a flagrant. But the ref didn't feel that, so it is what it is I guess. Q. Brandon, could you describe what happened on the driving lay-up that was blocked near the end of the game? BRANDON EWING: I mean, I thought I was fouled, but the ref didn't think I was fouled. You know, that's part of -- in the weight room progress that you do before the season starts, that's just a play I got to finish. That's one of the key plays that win or lose games. You know, big-time players or top players in any conference got to finish that type of play. Q. Guys, maybe five minutes into the second half I think you got up and got the lead up to seven then couldn't score for about five minutes. What kind of happened in that stretch in your mind? BRANDON EWING: Me and coach, we just talked about that. We felt that we just had a team letdown. We stopped guarding for a little bit. You can't do that at this time of the season. You know, March, everybody wants to win, everybody's hungry to get to the tournament. You can't have stretches of the game where you just stop guarding and stop making shots, because any team, no matter what their record is, they're trying to get to the tournament just like us. I think we just had a team letdown. And like you said, that last five minutes kind of hurt us. Q. Brad, can you just talk about what it feels like going out like this and this being your last game? BRAD JONES: It's kind of hard. But all in all I think we had a great season. A lot of progress was made. And, you know, it's sad to lose any game when you're a senior or when you are a freshman. But we anticipated coming out here and winning and came up short. Like coach said, we give all the credit to CSU. Q. Brandon, did they change anything defensively on you in the second half from what they were doing in the first half? Seems like you were able to get a lot more points in the first half. BRANDON EWING: Not at all two of our top players Joseph Taylor and Johnson in foul trouble. I just took it upon myself to keep us in the game. When they came back into the game I just tried to get them involved, tried to get them in the flow of the game. We definitely need them to win games. As point guard, I don't put a lot of pressure on myself. I try to get my teammates involved. That's what I like to do. When they got back in the game, I wanted to get them involved in the game. Because we need all five guys on the court to get going. Q. Seemed like late in the game they hurt you a lot with Nigon, coming in on those teed feeds. Defenses were kind of collapsing on Walker. Was that something that caught you guys a little off guard or was he just able to get by somebody that was suppose to be getting him? BRANDON EWING: Walker is a tough player. Any time he drives, everybody has to collapse because he is capable of hitting tough shots. Tough throwers in the lane, tough runners in the lane. Everybody has to be aware of where Walker is. Since all of us was collapsing, we did a great job of finding Nigon. His teammates did a great job finding him as well. Him being the player he is, he just made big-time shots. He is probably one of the reasons they won. Q. With Johnson and Taylor in foul trouble like that, I know they had good games against them at Fort Collins. How much did that just throw a lot of things out of whack as you really couldn't exploit a potential strength there? COACH SCHROYER: I think it really hurt us. I think that was a huge part of our game plan, was to try to use these two guys, to play small, to match-up to those guys. You know, then when we -- when those guys had, you know, foul trouble in the first half, then we went big. And then McFarland and Clayman were able to knock down shots because we were guarding them with 6'10" guys. So then we went with Derm at the four, which we rarely do. A lot like Tim, we're only playing with eight scholarship players. We just didn't have the depth to match up when those guys got in foul trouble. Offensively it really hurt us. Luckily Brandon was able to knock down some shots in the first half to keep it us in. But when we can't get the production out of those guys, we just don't have enough, you know, to win in March when those two guys aren't playing because of foul trouble. Q. You talked about Brandon's game there. We talked about this week all the little things he does in getting his other teammates involved. Did you feel he did enough of that in the second half? COACH SCHROYER: I thought Brandon had a great game. Brandon's a really good basketball player. And, you know, I'm really proud of him. I mean, I thought he kept his head. You know, he had a couple, you know, turnovers here or there. You know, it was just one of those things, if a guy's making a play, you know. But I have no fault whatsoever with Brandon. I mean I think Brandon played really, really well. I think that, you know, if he wouldn't have played that well in the first half we'd have been down by double-digits. Q. Can you summarize this first season and what are the top things on your checklist you have to do to get ready for next year? COACH SCHROYER: Well, I think that we've come a long way as a program. You know, March 23rd was a day they got on campus. I think that we've accomplished a lot. I think that we've played pretty good basketball at times. I think, you know, there are a lot of issues that allowed us not to play very good basketball some of the time. But, you know, I think that we're heading in the right direction as a program. You know, there's no question, I mean, I've been through this before. I understand the process that you got to go through. I think that we've laid a great foundation. I think that, you know, we're only going -- you know, I think we'll take a major step next year and hopefully we'll, you know, continue to add the pieces to the puzzle that we need. I think the guys in the program need to get better. This is a big spring and summer for us. Most of the guys that are our recruits are already on campus sitting out. So this is a big spring and summer for us. Q. How bad of a taste does this leave in your mouth I guess as the season comes to an end? COACH SCHROYER: Well, I think that, you know, any time you lose, you know, it's bad taste. I mean, you know, I've said it all for over a week that, I mean, it's really hard to beat a team three times. I think it's really hard to beat your rival three times. It doesn't matter what their record is or what have you, it's just really hard the third time to beat your rival. And I think that, you know, the ball didn't bounce our way a couple times. We had -- you know, I haven't watched the film yet, but I bet you we had 10 or 15 lay-ups that we missed that we normally make. If we make half of those, you know, we win and we move on. But, you know, it's always hard. It's always hard to lose. It's always hard to look at your seniors in the eye and know that, you know, they just played their last game. So it's always hard. Q. Is it fair to say that the transition defense, I think they had nine fast-break lay-ups in the game, and then combine that with... COACH SCHROYER: Our transition defense was the worst it's been all year. We didn't get to the hole. We didn't, you know, find shooters in transition. And the combination of that and, you know, missing a lot of lay-ups. You know, when you want to win any time of year - especially in March - you can't give up easy baskets. And when you get a chance to have an easy one, you got to make them. And we didn't do either one of those. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. COACH SCHROYER: Thank you. 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