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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: WASHINGTON, D.C.March 20, 2008Derrick BrownStanley BurrellJosh DuncanDrew LavenderSean MillerWASHINGTON, D.C. COACH MILLER: Well, obviously today was a great game. When I saw that we drew Georgia, I think, like any coach in my position, you almost question, uh-huh, just what happened in Atlanta. When we saw what they did in those games against three NCAA teams, you saw they were playing at a very high level. We knew coming into the game it was going to be a war. I credit our team because Georgia played an excellent first half and we played an equally bad first half. In very few times can you flip it like we did at halftime. I thought our tournament experience from years gone by, Josh and Stan, this is their third tournament, as it is Drew's, helped us. And we became more of the team that we've been all season long in the second half. I also thought credit goes to Georgia for an excellent finish. You can't help but think it was to our advantage on what they just went through. The longer the game to me, the more we were able to wear them down, and I think we all know part of that reason was the energy they had to use this past weekend. We get a second chance here in a sense, and hopefully we can put a full game together as we move into the 2nd round. I'm very, very proud of these four, in particular, these three seniors. Not only doing what they did in today's second half, but really how they've done things the whole season. Q. Stanley, you were matched up with Sundiata Gaines most of the day. Talk about that match-up and how that went and the way he played. STANLEY BURRELL: He's a really good player, better than what I've seen on the film when I was doing my homework. He's physical and strong and does a great job at playing at his own pace. Other guys rattle him eventually, but he's poised and runs their squad at a great pace. My guys were behind me a hundred percent, and I knew the second half I needed to turn it up defensively and make some plays. We got out on the break and got transition buckets. He's a great player and I wish him luck. Q. Josh, you seemed animated the second half especially down low. Were you a little bit upset with the way you guys had played the first half? JOSH DUNCAN: Yeah, we didn't play our best in the first half. But we're a team that's been through a lot of tough situations and we tend to stay together throughout the year. We don't break down. We stay together and keep our focus and we came out in the second half a totally different team. Q. Could you talk a little bit about that second chance that your coach referred to earlier and maybe the unfinished business that's left over from last year, coming so close to beating Ohio State and not advancing. DREW LAVENDER: We have a great team, we're going to play Purdue or Baylor, and we're going to go out there and play our best. Q. Coach Bob Knight has talked about expanding the team beyond or the tournament to 128 teams from 64. He's put that forth as top seed plays bottom seed as a way of expanding the opportunities for smaller schools. What do you think of that as a student athlete? What would that mean? How would that challenge you as far as your studies are concerned and stuff like that? DERRICK BROWN: That's something I never even thought of (laughter), so I really don't have a voice on that yet, personally. DREW LAVENDER: I'm not going to be here, so it doesn't matter to me. He can have 200 teams if he wants. JOSH DUNCAN: I don't have an answer, I'm just focused on where we're at right now. Q. Just talk about what you feel you were able to take advantage of in the second half, 47 points for you guys after halftime. What went right after the break for you? DREW LAVENDER: Just our defense created more opportunities than our offense. We got some easy buckets which we didn't get in the first half. We turned it up on defense. Q. Can you take a stab at explaining the first 25 minutes, and then maybe explain the last 15. COACH MILLER: Well, I will tell you this, Georgia is a heck of a basketball team. If they would have played the level they would have played at today from start to finish, I think their coach would probably echo my sentiments. I think you'd find they wouldn't be a 14th seed. I really felt like we played a very good team. They're big, they have a senior guard. They came into the tournament playing with as much confidence as anybody in the field. Having said that, we were a little tight the first half. I'm not sure why. I really believe that playing a noon game, first round NCAA tournament, we've been pointing towards getting back here for some time. And it almost worked against us in the first half. And we played an excellent team, like I mentioned. I thought the big difference in the game was we attacked a lot more in the second half. When you look at the free throw differential, that's more of our style of play. Generally we make more free throws than our opponents attempt and I thought we put them in a position to foul us and we finished off that by making a great percentage, which again there's a lot of ways to be a good team. That's a big stat for us, being able to not only get to the foul line but shoot a high percentage. We've shot over 75 percent for the entire season. Like Stan mentioned, I do think that our defense started to wear down Georgia. And on top of that, I thought Dante Jackson's shot coming off the bench that put us up three points was the biggest play in the game and seized the moment for us and allowed us to really finish the game off in a very good way from that point on. Q. Talk a little bit about the hangover maybe from that loss last year, whether it hung with this team and did that have a little something to do with the pressure they were feeling going into this game or the way they got off to the start that they did? COACH MILLER: I guess I've got to ask the question, when will I not answer a question about that game a year ago? Let me just say this to you, we played a second round game against Ohio State last year. They were in the National Championship game. We played a great game. We almost won and then we went home, like every team in this tournament does when they lose. The thing that the Ohio State game from a year ago means to this team is it made us very hungry to get back to the tournament this year. We had a very focused offseason. We have several players on this team who were in that game a year ago, but we're a completely different team. Each year you have a different personality. We lost three seniors from last year's team. We've added two new players and a lot of guys on this year's team have different roles. But other than the work ethic part of it and the motivating force, when that jump ball goes up, there's no one on our team thinking about Greg Oden. We're looking at the team we're playing. And we're in a round of 32. This isn't the first time we've made the tournament. This is 7 of 8 years or 8 of 9 years. We have a lot of players on our team who have tournament experience and great confidence. For example, we're a No. 3 seed. A year ago we were a No. 9 seed. So we have a different personality. We've clearly moved on from that. If there's anything we take from that experience, I believe like any team would, it's the hunger to get back to this great moment. There's nothing better than the NCAA tournament for a player. I played in it a long time ago. I can remember everything about any game that I ever played in the NCAA tournament. And that's what this deal is about. I'm excited, as I know our team is, to have an opportunity to be a part of the field of 32. We're going to play either Baylor or Purdue and when that game starts it's about this year, it's about the next play, it's about can we get to the Sweet 16. There will be no looking back on anything that's happened in the past. Q. I'm just curious, if memory serves me, it looked like you took Drew off a bit right before that run start. Can you talk about what you were seeing at that point, what went into that? COACH MILLER: Stanley Burrell usually guards the other team's best perimeter player. And once in awhile that match-up allows him to take on the other team's point guard. That's not to our advantage sometimes, because Drew's height, guarding the good 2 guard, can be a disadvantage. But he has so much quickness when he's playing at his best defensively, it's the twosome that makes our defense tough, Burrell and him. And I really believe in the second half Drew was a lot more active defensively than he was in the first half. But Stanley Burrell will always draw the toughest assignment. Q. You said you were tight early. Was any of that the way of being a 3 seed? We've seen this a lot in the tournament. I can recall No. 1 seeds like UMass and UConn trailing the second half. COACH MILLER: That first game, especially the first half of the first game, I think in our place playing a noon game, you know, you lose this game it's almost like you never made the tournament. You're gone so fast, you're headed home tonight. But it was on us quickly. I'll tell you this, our team was ready. I just thought we played against a team in Georgia that has big bodies, a great senior guard who came into this tournament playing with great confidence and that had as much to do with the score at halftime, even as it did our own mindset. However, in the second half we were more ourselves, obviously. Q. You talked about the free throws made to Georgia's free throws attempted. It was 27 to 5. Can you put your finger on why such a wide margin, especially the pressure you were able to put in the second half. COACH MILLER: Style of play has a lot to do with it. Their big guys had to guard forwards. When you look at Derrick Brown and Josh Duncan, their ability to attack the basket, C.J. Anderson's ability to attack the basket, that was our advantage. That's one of the reasons they went 1-3-1, as much as they did the second half to get away with fouling us. We didn't do to Georgia anything different than we've done to a lot of teams this season. Being able to attack the basket and get to the foul line is something that all teams do. That and the fact that at the end of the game they had to foul us on purpose, which I think made it much more lopsided than it really was. The other thing is we try not to foul on defense, we really don't. Our style of play, because we have quicker forwards, being able to challenge without fouling is something that we work hard at not doing. Q. You were 3 seed this year, you've been as far down as a 14 seed. Do you agree with the way -- clearly Georgia was a fatigued team when they came in here, they played four games in two days. The selection process allowed them to come as a conference champion, even though their regular season record was nowhere near as good as your team. Do you agree with the way the selections fell? Do you think the selection needs to be changed? COACH MILLER: No, I love the NCAA tournament. There's always going to be a coach or team that could have made it and didn't. Same thing on the seeds. If I called the other three No. 3 seeds and asked if they would trade with me before today's game, I don't know if I'd have had any takers. To me Georgia was a very difficult match-up. But that's what makes the NCAA tournament what it is. Every game takes on its own personality. In a two-hour period of time a lot of different swings can happen. End of FastScripts |
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