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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2008Roy HibbertJessie SappJohn Thompson IIINEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, how charged up were you to play tonight and why? ROY HIBBERT: I just came to the game to try to establish myself down low, not just try to score but try to just set the tone and get deep positions. Try to pick up on things that I did before in the year. Q. Talk about Hibbert and talk about the different looks you gave to Alexander today. COACH THOMPSON III: Yeah, I think that Joe Alexander is terrific, and he's playing at such a high level right now. You know, you just look at the points he's putting on the board the last four or five games I think it is. He's put so much pressure on everyone that goes against them. Then they have shooters and other guys that can make plays around him. So it's not like you can really help too much. I just think that between Patrick (Ewing) and DaJuan (Summers), and for stretches also Jeremiah (Rivers), you know, they play him differently. So it's like a different look, a different feel. But I just thought they worked their behinds off. It was one of those games where we wanted, like I say, we didn't want to double, we didn't want to run guys at him. It was just, hey, guard him. And we're fortunate that he missed some shots that he had been making the last two weeks. But I think our guys' effort, particularly DaJuan and Patrick did a very good job of just making things a little more difficult for him. And we were fortunate that it worked out. Q. On back-to-back days you have convincing wins with two different styles. Roy didn't play as well yesterday as he did today. How refreshing is that for you at this time of the year to win convincingly on two separate days? COACH THOMPSON III: This time of year you want to win. You want to win, convincingly, not convincingly. I've said all along, and you guys that have been following us, we can play and have success different ways. Yes, we'd like to, and the big fella is the hub, he's the focal point. We don't want and will not have more days like yesterday, but if there is a situation that because of foul trouble he's taken out of the game or because of how the opposition is doing he's not as successful, we don't need to always force feed. We have other guys that can step up and make plays. We have an unselfish group that make the extra pass and we give the ball to each other. So there was no sense following yesterday, there was no feeling of oh, what in the world is going on? We had guys that were open. We had guys that had shots, the ball went in the basket. Today he had a little more freedom down there; he did what he does. Just as long as we keep playing unselfishly, you know, we have options. Q. Was the start of the second half played at a faster pace than you would have liked? COACH THOMPSON III: No, start of the second half -- I don't care about the pace. They scored too much. The start of the second half they came out, I don't know what it was, but I feel like they made four threes in a row. The pace, I don't care about the pace. We got to get stops, and we didn't get stops at the start of the second half. Then once we started to get stops, everything was fine. Q. They got it down to four points and you went out there and you posted up the guard, which I don't know if you do that very often, was that a set play? JESSIE SAPP: No, it was not a set play, but I felt I had the advantage over them. You know, John (Wallace), or I think it was Austin (Freeman) looked down gave me the ball. Sometimes I work out, play around with the big fellas and do post schools and stuff with them. So today was a chance to, how do you say, sport that talent. So I got an and-one, and it was relaxing. COACH THOMPSON III: I have to say jokingly that Jessie Sapp is our best post player prior to today. The part he hadn't figured out yet is, which the big fella has figured out, is you don't have to shoot it every time to get it down there. Q. After yesterday do you even have to talk to Roy Hibbert or your players about what went wrong and what didn't happen to get him the ball, they just know? COACH THOMPSON III: No. I mean, as I said, Villanova, their game plan that they executed very well was to sit three people around him, and say we're going to make you make a shot. That was somebody's question over here. There was no need for a big pow-wow, we just do what we do. We take what the defense gives us. As I said following yesterday's game, we don't want and we're not going to have games where Roy doesn't score. But at the same time we didn't have to go back to the drawing board and reinvent the wheel. We did what we do, they played it differently tonight and it was over. Q. Your dad used some language that I can't publish. So I need to come to you with this: Some people have said this team has been more lucky than good this year. You're on the verge of possibly back-to-back regular season and tournament titles. Does it irk you when you hear that? COACH THOMPSON III: This group, we just want to win games. I learned at a very young age when my pops was sitting in the chair that I now sit in, that people aren't always going to say good things about you. They aren't always going to say what is right. They aren't always going to say positive things about you. A lot of times it's more negative than positive. So you learn at a young age just do what you do. We know what we want to do. Just keep winning games. If you want to call us lucky, we'll be lucky. Q. After Chris picked up the technical foul, you went on a 28-1 run to end the game, can you talk about that stretch. COACH THOMPSON III: I don't think Chris' tech had anything to do with that. I didn't see that play, I don't know why the tech was called, but this group has a knack for ending games. So the run, if that's what it was, that's coming down to the latter part of the game. We execute. We got stops. We got stops and the fellas got rebounds. Then as the game progresses, and that's a terrific team over there, well-coached, everyone knows they're not going to quit. They're going to keep playing hard. They have so many different weapons. We were fortunate that their guys missed shots that they normally make which allowed us -- and they had to take threes. They had to take shots. We were fortunate they didn't go in, we got the rebound, and we were slowly able to pull away. Q. Your coach says that there was no need for a pow-wow last night, y'all take what you get. But do you sense that Roy was pissed off yesterday? Did you fully expect a game like today? JESSIE SAPP: I didn't expect this big of a game. He did very well today. I knew he was going to come out hungry. So we wanted to feed him. We wanted to keep feeding him and feeding him. It wasn't just his scoring. It was his rebounds and his energy. We fed off him today. And we need him in a game like that for us to win and be successful throughout the rest of the season. Q. After your last basket, you kind of shouted, I don't know if it was to the crowd or to yourself, do you remember what was going through your head then? ROY HIBBERT: No, I was just saying, "I'm a monster right now. " COACH THOMPSON III: I know. ROY HIBBERT: "I'm a monster, be afraid." (Smiling) I don't really show a lot of emotion, but it's just the way our team was just working, and the way I was getting the stops. I said, you know what, you know, just got to keep cranking those buckets out and I'm happy we got the win. Q. Is it after the national anthem was played just before the end, Patrick was next to you and kind of rapped you in the chest a couple of times. Did he tell you that you're a monster? ROY HIBBERT: No, it's just a thing we've been doing. COACH THOMPSON III: I was going to say, it's two or three years now. ROY HIBBERT: We always have a bet to see who can get more rebounds than who, and who can get more blocked shots. And I usually, I beat him sometimes. I'm happy. That's something we do to challenge ourselves to go out there and just play hard. That's gets us going. Q. The guys next to you had 20 rebounds between them, and West Virginia only had 22, can you talk about the energy they brought to the game. COACH THOMPSON III: I think from the beginning our focus and our energy at the defensive end kind of set the tone, and so just as a group. I didn't realize these two did that, and that's good. They need to do that more often. Y'all hear that (smiling). But just as a group, I think we set the tone with our defense. Like I said, we were fortunate our guys -- I mean, this is March in New York. This is the Big East Tournament. So the enthusiasm was there, the energy was there, the focus was there. And we're fortunate to get some lucky bounces along the way. Q. You heard what I asked Coach, we were talking about that yesterday in front of the locker room. Why do you think people don't mention Georgetown in the same paragraph this year with, let's say, North Carolina, UCLA or other teams that seem to be destined for the Final Four? COACH THOMPSON III: Can I answer that? Q. Yeah, but you're going to ruin what he's going to say because he's going to echo what you say. JESSIE SAPP: No, I'm not. COACH THOMPSON III: No, no. It's you and your peers that are or not saying it. So you should be able to answer that, not him. Q. Nobody cares what I say, trust me. JESSIE SAPP: You heard what Coach said (laughing). No, I'm just playing. No, but I told somebody else, it's just people don't really understand our offense and the things that we do as far as the little things. We're not looking for everybody to be -- one person or two people to just score 25 points a night or this and that. It takes a lot to win a lot of close games. Much of the games we've been winning were close, but at the end of the day, we still got the W. So it takes a lot for you to consistently do that. We don't really pay attention to what this person said, what this person said. We just look in our locker room within our team. As long as we all believe, we're fine with that. End of FastScripts |
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