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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2008Neil DoughertyBrent HackettKevin LangfordLAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you want to just take a minute or so and just your thoughts on the game. COACH DOUGHERTY: Well, first of all, I'd like to congratulate UNLV for, you know, they played very hard. I felt our kids did. And they seemed to just make the last play of a very hard-fought game. And a lot of credit goes them. They did win the basketball game. You know, outside of that, I probably ought to just take questions, to be honest with you. As I told my kids in the locker room, you know, we played very hard. We played well. You know, we made some mistakes at times, obviously. But I just really didn't have the words yet to describe tonight's game to them. And I wanted to take some time before I -- before I actually visited with them in depth about it. So that's what I'm going to do. Probably ought to just take questions. THE MODERATOR: All right, coach. For the next few minutes, questions directed to either Brent or Kevin. Q. Have you guys ever been in a situation in your career where it seemed like everything was going down like it was tonight? KEVIN LANGFORD: Yeah. I mean, we were just hitting shots. I guess it was just our time to make shots. Because last few games, like, we haven't been hitting any shots. So we just -- I mean Coach D, he told to us keep shooting it, keep getting in the gym. And it just paid off for us tonight. BRENT HACKETT: It was a good game as far as just seeing all those shots go in. A lot of -- a lot of shots that we don't even practice. But, you know, Coach D instilled just confidence in us the whole time. I mean, that's what we just kept doing, just kept shooting the ball. Q. Would either one of you guys just describe kind of that last 30 seconds defensively, then what happened with that play on Wink at the end there? COACH DOUGHERTY: The last 30 or the -- Q. Well, after you hit the shot, Brent. BRENT HACKETT: We went into zone, but they just penetrated and I guess he just got his shot off. They called a foul and he made it. That put them over one. That's just all it was. We just tried to get a shot off as quick as we could the last three seconds. It really ain't much I can say about it. He just made a good shot. Q. I just wanted to ask either one of you guys, did you think -- I don't know where your vantage point was, but did you think there was enough contact there for the official to make that call, to make that a three-point play? BRENT HACKETT: I wasn't down there. And everything was kind of moving so fast I really didn't even see what happened. Kev was there, so he can probably speak better. KEVIN LANGFORD: What I think about it, it don't matter. That's just the call he made. It just matters what's the ref thought, and he thought it was a foul. So he made the call. And he made the free throw. And that's just how it went. Q. Brent, what had you coming into this game so confident? Last time you were in this building you guys didn't shoot that well. You didn't really shoot that well either. BRENT HACKETT: The last game here I think I only had like five or six points. This was possible -- that was my last game. But I was going into it thinking this is possibly my last game and I want to just play as hard as I can and leave it out on the floor. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Kevin or Brent? All right. We'll let you guys go. Thank you. Good job, guys. Q. Coach, have you had a chance to see the replay of Wink Adams' play at the end? And I'd like to get your thoughts on whether you thought that was a foul or not or should that call have been made that late in the game? COACH DOUGHERTY: I'm already in trouble. I mean, what do you want me to tell you? I'm already in trouble, guys. I think honestly I thought he made a tough shot. I have not seen the replay. Really when the ball went down, my thoughts immediately went to the fact that we had no time-outs and we had to figure out a way to try and get a shot up in three seconds. So all of that processing hasn't really brought me all the way back to what I thought about that last play. I'll watch the tape just like I always do and, you know, keep it to myself so I don't get in more trouble. Q. Coach, coming into this game, strategizing the game, if that's a word, did you foresee this taking a lot of three-point shots, trying to outshoot them, hoping you'd get a high percentage like you did or was that an adjustment you made? COACH DOUGHERTY: Have you seen us play lately? We've been shooting about 20% max. Q. So as they were going in -- COACH DOUGHERTY: I think what happens in games like this, and you have to give UNLV credit, what happens is you had situations where the pressure was so great defensively that they would take us out of our initial set and then we'd get into motion and try and run some clock in an attempt to maybe get back into one to get a shot off. And, you know, college basketball's a funny thing. You know, you can't explain all of it. You'd be wasting your time. But what happened was we got the ball. Brent Hackett got off to a nice start to begin the game. And he was probably in a rhythm that I haven't seen him in in a long time. He made a few shots. And then he made a couple tough shots with the clock going down. Then you get into a situation where it becomes a lit little built contagious. Ryan Wall, Keion Mitchem, Kevin Langford, where it gets to the point where normally I'd want them to pass up on that particular three, but the shot clock was down. We had to shoot it. As luck has it sometimes, where I'm hoping for just an opportunity to get a rebound and extend the possession, the ball goes in. I can't explain why it didn't go in the last two weeks. And so trying to explain why it goes in tonight, I'd be guessing again. But I think sometimes when kids get their backs up against the wall and you have to shoot it, you know, coach isn't going to say anything about, This shot it's got to go up. And they made shots where we were really just hoping to maybe get a rebound off of it. Q. Did you feel like you had defended Wink at all well, or the way you wanted to to start off that last kind of possession? COACH DOUGHERTY: Well, I think there were about three people that went after him and got the ball contained. We wanted to make sure that he didn't get to the free-throw line, which we didn't do a real good job of. Obviously, he got there. But he did have a very tough shot, and he made the shot. So you have to give him credit. But we did -- we were able to get the ball contained. We were able to chase him off of three. And then he made a tough play. He made a big-time play. He's made a lot of plays like that in his career though. Q. With the way the second half of the season has gone, especially the last two weeks, what does it say considering a lot of people wouldn't have blamed the kids maybe if they had rolled over tonight, that they came out and competed so hard? COACH DOUGHERTY: Well, we competed in every game that we played in the last two weeks. We didn't always play as well. But our last game at home against BYU we played very hard. We played hard again tonight. I don't think I've ever worried about our kids competing. I mean, they always compete hard. They're going to continue to compete hard. Q. Coach, how many teams do you think deserve to get into the post-season tournament this year, in your opinion? COACH DOUGHERTY: You're talking about out of our conference here? Well, you know, obviously the tournament's got to play out. But if the tournament stopped right now, I honestly feel like we deserve at least three, okay? And the next step would be if one of the three that I don't have included on that list were to go on and win the tournament, we should get four. I don't know on that. But I honestly feel like we deserve three. And for our conference to continue to get multiple entries at-large bids, we're going have to continue to get better in everything that we do from, you know, the teams, the coaches, teams and how the games are conducted because we can hurt ourself if we aren't careful and what's put out there and how we handle game night. But I honestly think that we should get three. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thanks very much, coach. End of FastScripts |
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