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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2008Greg McDermottTim WelshNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK COACH WELSH: Well, I told our guys that it's a tough way to lose, because we fought, we challenged. We stuck to our game plan as good as any night we've played this year. The shots didn't go down at times, but we battled, scrapped, clawed, loose balls, rebounded. We knew their zone offense. I thought we got to their shooters when we needed to. Obviously, Alexander's a tremendous player and he shot over us a few times, which he's going to do. But end of the game it comes down to a bounce or a made shot or a turnover. At the end of the game we got them to miss, and they offensive rebounded and put the ball in. And we drove the ball to the basket a couple of times. We laid it in, they called a walk. You know, first half we tip it in, they call offensive goaltending. Second half, they tip it in and it's a bucket. So those things went against us today. In games like, this sometimes it's the breaks. We missed a dunk. We missed some foul shots when it was crucial. Then down the stretch we looked a little slow on our cuts. They pushed their defense up on us. We tried to drive to the hole and make some things happen, and just didn't complete the play. That is part of the game. At the end of the game in a hard-fought game, it is who makes the plays at the end. We turned it over three, four times in the last four minutes and that was the key part of the game. I told our guys I was proud of the way they fought. It is unfortunate that the result is what it was because they were really focused down the stretch to get to this point. We came here to win. We didn't come here just to be happy to be here. That is a disappointing part that the end of the game went the way it was. But we lost to a very, very good team who is going to be in the NCAA Tournament. I think we looked at what we did today and I told our guys we can build on that moving forward. It hurts right now, obviously, for all of our players in the locker room. Q. Your defense kind of upset the rhythm for the most part for the first half. COACH WELSH: Yeah, they averaged 70 points a game in the league, and they got 58. So from that perspective, we did a good job. But obviously, scoring points is a difficult thing for us at times against certain defenses with some players playing out of position. But we got the game into the 50s on both ends, and then it becomes a scratch-and-claw-type game. But defensively, I couldn't ask for anything else. They got up on the offensive glass at a couple of key points of the game. The put-back got them the lead, and then the tip-in that was on the rim. But other than that I thought our defense was solid all night long. We let Butler loose in the corner a couple of times, but other than that, I thought we did a really good job. Q. Offensively different from the first half anyways, you just had so many chances that didn't go, plays at the rim. COACH WELSH: Yeah, you talk about the offensive goaltending. You talk about the lay-ups that we missed. We missed three or four lay-ups. I think Randall missed a couple, our guards missed a couple. So we're getting good looks. We got a lot better looks than we did in the last game we played, because we opened up our offense a little bit. Emphasized going back door. We cut harder, we played more solid. We still turned it over, though, and that was at some opportune times. We had a chance to increase the lead, but just couldn't finish at times where we had some lay-ups. We had one of the best three-on-twos you've ever seen. We executed. Made some passes, got to the rim, and they deflected the ball and it goes off our leg. Those type of plays get you at these type of games because they add up. A bucket here, a bucket there, basically it was a two-point game tonight. Q. How disappointing is it to come down here and play how you wanted to play, as a player anyway, and not come away with the win? GEOFF MCDERMOTT: It was very disappointing. We also wanted to win. We played well, we played our hearts out. Everybody fought, and just like Coach said, couple things don't go our way, we don't come up with the win. So it was real tough coming down here. Making it, and then playing as well as we can, as hard as we can and just not coming up with it. End of FastScripts |
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