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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: RALEIGHMarch 21, 2008Mark FewSteven GrayJeremy PargoRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA Q. I know it's difficult at this moment, but as a player, can you appreciate Curry's performance today, and how hard you guys worked to try to make it tough on him, and no matter what you did, no matter how far you pushed him from the basket he kept hitting? JEREMY PARGO: He's a very resilient guy, and had some tough looks, and you have to appreciate when a guy steps up like that and plays that hard for his team. We tried to change some things, and he's a great player and he made shots. Q. Steven, was there a plan specifically to get you shooting 3s early to try to get off like that, or is that just the way the offense developed? STEVEN GRAY: That's just the way it developed this game. We have been working all week on finding shots, off the penetration, and early on Jeremy and Matt, they found me open and toed up on the line. Q. Can you talk about in terms of trying to guard Curry, obviously he's coming off so many screens and with that release, just how difficult is it when you are just a split second behind and the ball already seems to be in the air? STEVEN GRAY: He has a quick release. That's something we talked about this week. Personally, I don't know if I ran off that many screens trying to defend someone. He knows how to use them really well. He sets them up really well. So I mean, he's very knowledgeable in that way. You know, I was just trying to chase him off and make things as difficult as I could. Q. Can you talk about, it seems like turnovers have been off and on an issue most of the year and today played a big role; wondering what you saw in that regard? JEREMY PARGO: That's one of the things we have been stressing in practice and didn't execute on, and we have been talking about it all year. Myself included we made some big mistakes and cost us the game. Any time you have 19 turnovers in the game, it usually turns out bad for you? Q. We've talked about it all week but just how difficult was it to play an NCAA Tournament game, home court for them, thousands of fans here? JEREMY PARGO: It didn't difficult at all. It's a basketball game no matter where you're at. A lot of people forget we have played St. Joe's at home and UCONN and Boston. It was the same atmosphere there as here and we got two wins then and we had some turnovers tonight and some things that didn't go our way that we gave up and, you know, unfortunately for us, we lost. Q. You've had a lot of great shooters and you've faced a lot of great shooters. What makes that kid special, and how many different defenses did you throw out there today? COACH FEW: He reminds me of like a Dukau (ph). He has a nice, high pocket, very simple shot, doesn't need space or time to get off. It's simple. All great shooters have a nice, simple stroke. Ball doesn't travel too much in their hands. His dad has done a great job with him. And it's something we saw and clipped it and showed our guys. We did everything. We had our man defense where we don't leave him, which we were in primarily. We had a triangle in two. We tried zone which actually worked very well down the stretch. You know, to me, the game came down to a minute left in the game, we had an offensive rebound there and we just quite didn't squeeze it and they took it from us. A lot of his points come off plays like this, where there's an offensive rebound or scramble and he toes up on the line and they are trained to find him in a scramble situation, and it doesn't have a whole lot to do with your man-to-man defense, because you're pursuing rebounds. He probably had nine points just off of that, and then he had a couple in transition, too. They find him, they know their roles, and you know, we actually guarded him probably, you know, as well as we could. I thought Steven did a heck of a job trailing him, he had some tough shots, and he missed some shots, too. Q. Just maybe something on the seniors, their last two games? COACH FEW: Unless you're the national champion in San Antonio, you're going to go out on a loss. So unless you're in the TBI or whatever the heck it's called -- (laughter) -- sorry. I told them, I told the players in the locker room, I told them as a coaching staff, the managers, the players, all of us, and I meant it; myself, obviously, included, I have learned so much from Pendo and Cuso. They play a team and are members of a team the way we all should be, whether it's at work or at home or whatever. They are selfless, they are incredibly hard working and they are the greatest friends you could ever have, and they get it, great leaders, and just great, great young men. I mean, they are the best ambassadors we could have for our program. Q. Kind of a tangent to that, you lose those two guys, but so much is still there. Can you talk about what you've got coming back with all of these young guys and their talent? COACH FEW: Yeah, you know, I was proud. I thought that especially Steven, his approach was great. We really wanted to come out and let it rip. I thought that was a great offensive basketball game -- actually forget offensive. That was a great college basketball game. There were guys making plays and the effort was 100% on both ends and executing out of time-outs was great on both sides and comes down to a play with a minute left in the game, basically, and then we had an open three at the other end that we miss and it would have tied it. I think sometimes we can read too much into this stuff statistically. The young guys, Austin kind of had a rough game at the end. You know, he did and he didn't. He was aggressive and that's the way we wanted him, and we used Rob a little bit and Matt who is only a sophomore made some big plays. Obviously I thought Jeremy did a good job of managing the ball all night. End of FastScripts |
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