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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: BIRMINGHAMMarch 21, 2008Jeff CapelDavid GodboldBlake GriffinAustin JohnsonBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get an opening statement from Coach Capel, and then go to questions for our student-athletes. COACH CAPEL: First of all, I'm really proud of our team. I thought we got off to good start in the first half and especially the way we closed the half to have a 12 point lead at half time. We came out and really got after it and we were able to extend the lead. We knew St. Joseph's was going to make a run. They're a very good basketball team. The program has a lot of pride and they're well-coached and they have good players. And they made a run, but our guys never panicked, we stepped up and made plays and all three of these guys stepped up to my left and made huge plays for us, whether it was David all night, offensively and defensively, the job he did on Calathes. Blake playing really, really well out of the double team, making some key baskets down the stretch. Austin running our team, I'm just really proud of our guys, and glad we have another opportunity to work together. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. David, before you talk about your offensive explosion, talk about how you defended Calathes. DAVID GODBOLD: Just wanted to come out and get in the shooting pocket as Coach Cline would say, he's a really good 3-point shooter, and that was kind of the first key. They told me to limit his threes, and secondly, watch out for the drives and the post man did a great job showing and trapping, and also the other guards came and rotated and helped out a lot. So, it was just pretty much a team effort. Couldn't do anything by myself. Just the whole team helped out, and we did a great job on him. Q. David, you dropped out of the starting lineup I think after February 9th. And you were, I think, eight-out-of-ten games coming off the bench. Can you talk about being a senior and getting to start again in this tournament and what that was like being a reserve? DAVID GODBOLD: It's really exciting to just be able to start and in the NCAA's. Coming out of the bench, I knew coach wanted me to just bring some leadership, some energy off the bench, and I had no problem doing that. And that's -- I just took pride in doing that. And today, I just wanted to come out with a lot of a lot of energy. I knew the other four guys who always bring energy. So, I wanted to make sure I played up to their level, and I think I did a good job today. Q. Austin and Blake, since you haven't been asked, when they made a run, they were very, very aggressive. You guys had to respond. Would you talk about the keys to responding and keeping your composure? BLAKE GRIFFIN: I think, definitely, just talking and using a lot of help on defense; they do a good job getting into the lane and finding shooters on the outside, but I think that definitely, just switching off a man and staying together and talking a lot. That definitely helped with stopping their run. THE MODERATOR: Get closer to the mic. BLAKE GRIFFIN: You want me to say it again? When they got in the lane and penetrated; they do a good job of finding the open guys and attacking the rim. So, I think our biggest thing was just to talk and switch and stay together and not just run around and try to defend everyone, but go about it in a team way. But just stay together and talk was our biggest two things, probably. AUSTIN JOHNSON: We knew they were going to make a run. We just didn't know when it was going to happen. They made their run, we kept our composure, coach was in the huddle and told us we're fine, we're okay, just keep your head, keep fighting, and that's what we kept doing. Q. I was wondering, Blake or David, if you could address this, it was 20-20 when Austin went out of the game with two fouls, and then you guys went on a run, and it seemed like your offense wasn't flowing without him in the game. What was it that picked things up for you in that period after A.J. went to the bench? DAVID GODBOLD: We just kind of got a lift from Omar checking into the game. He made sure to put us in good spots to kind of execute better on offense. And that's what we did. We just knocked down shots, got it to the right people, and they were coming out aggressive at us, and they were feeling good about the game so we just had to stay aggressive and just keep executing. And that's what we did on our own. Q. David, could you talk about your night offensively, you averaged single digits usually, and then the other two guys if you could talk about his night after he's done. DAVID GODBOLD: I think it just goes back to the how I've been practicing and the coaches, they stayed on me the last four days of just going hard, and shooting drills, and making sure that I jumped high, and made sure I kept following through on my shot. And that's what I did today. Blake and Longar -- they always get double-teamed. They have to get respect down there so I have to be able to knock down the shot when they kick it out and that's what I did a good job of doing today. AUSTIN JOHNSON: The coaches -- when we have been doing shooting, guard shooting, they have been telling Dave, hold his follow-through up every time he shoots, and trust that it's going to go in. And I think he's been working hard on that. When I see Dave open, out there, I have faith in Dave, and I know that he can knock down the open shot. So, I'm going to try to get him a shot as much as I can. Being a senior, Dave knows that it could have been his last game, and I think that he came out and played his heart out. He didn't want it to be his last game. BLAKE GRIFFIN: I definitely think, like David said, these last four practices he's been playing really well. Yesterday, he brought a lot of energy to our team and really helped us yesterday through practice. And also, him being a senior, and he's been here before, and he knows what it's like, so he kind of brought some experience with us. And he just stayed ready and hit big shots for us today. Q. Two questions: One, David, the second half looked like Calathes got really aggressive offensively in trying to drive. It looked like you were able to ride him a little bit. He was not strong enough to kind of get by you. And two, you said, this is for any of you, you said you had a really good practice yesterday, how much -- did that give you confidence going in to today's game, especially the shooting, you shot 57 percent. DAVID GODBOLD: Just when we look at Calathes on tape, we see that he likes to drive, but if guys got in physical with him, he kind of struggled at that. And so the -- I just kind of tried to stay on him, and the big guys did a great job stepping over, and letting him come to them instead of stepping up and letting him get an easy pass to their big man. So, I tried to stay physical with him, and I'm glad that I got a chance to kind of push him out, and I was fortunate that he kind of missed some open shots. He didn't get a good rhythm going. AUSTIN JOHNSON: Practice yesterday -- I think we had a lot of energy. I think the guys were really excited about being down here. The freshmen, their first time being down here, they were excited, ecstatic, they were ready to play. And then the guys that have already had experience; me, Taylor, Dave and Longar. We, kind of my freshman year, we kind of had a bad experience down here. So, we didn't want that to happen again. So, we had that coming in our heads coming into practice, and we carried that over to the game. Q. For David, considering the way you played defensively and offensively, where does this rank, as far as career performances, and have you thought about the magnitude of this stage and all that? DAVID GODBOLD: I don't know about career, but I say it's a pretty good game. I think I did one of the best jobs defensively, I think. I really prided myself today on trying to stop their best player. So, I really look at that first. Offense comes and goes. I know there's four other guys that can step up any other day, so it was just my day today, and I'm fortunate that it happened today, but I'm always going to try to come out a hundred percent on defense. That's what I'm looking to do whoever we play next round. I want to try to stop their best player. And that's what I look to do. Q. I know you guys have won before, but you're 1 of 32 teams that are going to be playing after today. Can you just talk about what this win feels like for you today, but Blake as a young guy and David as a senior? BLAKE GRIFFIN: It's definitely a great thing. Obviously, no one wants to go home in this tournament. And to move on, and when a lot of people were saying that we weren't supposed to win, and St. Joseph's was supposed to upset us. It just kind of gave us some fire and to win it, you know, it feels kind of even better. But you got to put it behind us and get ready for our next game. DAVID GODBOLD: It feels really good. I experienced one victory my freshman year, and I know how good it feels. But then also sophomore year I had a very bad experience. So, I just got to look forward to Sunday, and hopefully come out with the same fire, because whoever we play Sunday is going to come out very aggressive. They're going to not want to go home, and hopefully our team doesn't want to go home either. Because it's real boring when you go home after you lose. So, you got to come out with the same fire and aggression that we had today. THE MODERATOR: Thank you guys. We will excuse you guys back to the locker room. Questions for coach. Q. You said earlier this week, this team had to shoot well, score well. Talk about that shooting performance today. COACH CAPEL: We made shots, our offense looks a lot better when we make shots. I thought we did a good job of sharing the basketball and making shots. I feel bad for Blake and Longar, but more so Blake because he never gets to play against single coverage, he gets doubled so much. But I think his experience of having to deal with that basically all year long has really helped him. And for him to have four assists, and one turnover, I think that opened up a lot of things for our guys; same thing with Longar. He's another guy that's been doubled at times this year. Obviously, David stepped up and had a huge game for us. Austin was very steady for us. I thought Omar came in and really did a good job for us in running our team and getting us into stuff. It's as good as Longar has looked in a while. Just how active he was, and playing different spots on the floor, and he was guarding Ferguson at times in the perimeter. So, we feel good about this, we're not satisfied, we have another good team coming in here on Sunday. Whichever one of these guys wins, we'll get prepared for them and be ready. Q. Could you, for those of us who don't follow you regularly, could you talk a little bit about David's situation, why you started him, why you benched him earlier? COACH CAPEL: I didn't bench him. David is really a sixth starter for us. Really, what I wanted was, we had no experience coming off the bench for us. When you bench a guy it's because a guy's not playing well or a guy's done something to get in trouble. We just switched our lineup to get experience to come off the bench. Really when David has come in the game; even when he was coming off the bench for us; he played as many minutes or more minutes than anyone. Usually, when he came in he never really came back out. So, for us, we just wanted some experience. We just had only freshmen. We're have new guys coming off the bench for us and so that's why we did that. As we got ready for the NCAA tournament, one of the things I looked at with our team; we really have no one that has any experience in this tournament besides David, Austin Johnson, Taylor. Griffin and Longar were on teams that were in this tournament, but they didn't really play. Longar didn't really play his first two years, and so I don't know if he logged any minutes in the NCAA tournament. Maybe that freshman year against Niagara. But I think that Taylor and Austin; when they were freshmen, when they played in the NCAA tournament, I think it was five minutes, two minutes, I think each of those guys got that. And so we really didn't have any experience. David's the only guy that's played extensive minutes, and he had a good game his sophomore year Oklahoma's last time in the NCAA tournament. He was probably the only guy, just looking at the box score. So, we wanted to switch it up and have some experience in our starting lineup for the NCAA tournaments. The NCAA tournament experience, and he played a tremendous game. This game and our game against West Virginia this year are the two best games I've seen him play since I've been here. Q. Can you talk about the specifics of the shooting that David was talking about and if it was you that worked with him and if somebody had told you that you were going to have a player with the numbers that he had after the ball game, and you didn't know who it was, would you have thought it would have been, who would have come to mind first? COACH CAPEL: As far as him shooting, we always talk to David about shooting the basketball, about holding your follow-through, about going harder, going game speed, that's really the term that we use with him. And we have been really emphasizing it more with all of our guys this week. Obviously we didn't shoot the ball well in Kansas City last weekend. So I don't really think we had to tell our guys a lot, to be completely honest with you. These guys understand the magnitude of this tournament and obviously the excitement our freshmen and sophomore are never played in this tournament. And so they were excited about that. Our older guys have. So David just came out and made shots. That's the bottom line. He made shots. I don't know if it's anything specific. Maybe he's giving us too much credit. He stepped up and made shots today. Obviously a first guy, if you talk about a game, like the second part of your question, the first guy always is Blake. To have a game like that. The second guy would probably be Crocker, because that's the kind of game he's had for us several times this year. Especially making threes like that. But David stepped up and did a good job for us and we're glad someone did and I thought a lot of guys did, played really well for us, and that's the reason why we were able to get this victory. Won by like a touchdown too, right? (Laughter.) Q. You made a statement yesterday about being unsure about your leadership, is your opinion changed after watching what David did tonight? COACH CAPEL: Well it's changed for today. But one day doesn't make a leader. David was terrific today. Longar was great today. And I think what those guys have done and at least it looks like to me just being around our team for the past few days, is that those guys have shared their experience. Especially David. That's one of the things I talked to him about and talked to our older guys is sharing your experience, both good and bad experiences that you have had playing in this tournament. Our younger guys need that. And he stepped up and played a great game. Q. You look at what the Big-12's done, five of six wins, do you think the conference is better than some people have given credit for? COACH CAPEL: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a really, really good league. And it's been a very good league all year long. I don't think it gets enough respect nationally. We have other teams that are very capable. You look at Nebraska, they're as good as some of these teams in this tournament. Obviously we're really happy to be 5 of 6 in the league and we want to keep going and we're rooting for all of the guys in our league right now and hopefully we can keep advancing, all of us can. Q. With your defensive performance or the performance as a whole did you see anything in yesterday or today that would lead you to believe that you're going to have this kind of performance? COACH CAPEL: I would tell you what, I think our defense can be better. They shot 49 percent from the field. I don't know how good, I mean it was good, but I still think it can be better. And I don't want to discredit our guys, but I don't want our guys to be satisfied and I'm not satisfied. I thought we did a good job of contesting shots. We lost Ferguson too much and he made us pay just about every time. And I thought they hit some tough shots that Govens banked in a couple of shots and I know he didn't call bank on either one of them. But when you're in the midst of a run like that, those are the things that happen. But I think we can be better defensively, I think we will be better defensively on Sunday. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. End of FastScripts |
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