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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: RALEIGHMarch 21, 2008Patrick BeverleyJohn PelphreyDarian TownesSonny WeemsRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA COACH PELPHREY: Well, we feel very fortunate to get a win in this tournament, and certainly versus Indiana. For me, personally, I understand a lot about what -- I mean, it's a big deal obviously to be in that tournament, one, and obviously to have a chance to play against Indiana, because of where I grew up, tremendous respect for them, and Coach Dakich obviously has had a huge hand in all of their traditions, as a player and a coach. We feel very fortunate tonight to come out on top. Q. In Atlanta, your shot was not on all those games, but can you talk about just going ahead and pulling the trigger the other night and getting it back going? SONNY WEEMS: You know, those games are behind me. I just kept my confidence. The guards did a great job, Patrick Beverley and Stefan, finding me in open court, and I just knocked down shots. Q. Being seniors, not having an NCAA Tournament win, just what does this feel like to finally get over the hump and get this? SONNY WEEMS: It feels great. We think we played one of our best games against Carolina, we can move this thing forward. DARIAN TOWNES: This game was very special, going back and starting off with the Bucknell game, they had some great guards, and then it goes down to USC, another team with great guards. This is a different ballclub. We headed down farther in the SEC tournament and kept our focus and had momentum going into this. This was a special game and we got it done today. Q. It looked like you had the man duties against Gordon for a lot of the game, and then y'all played some zone. Can you talk about how you mixed it up and kept it off balance? PATRICK BEVERLEY: You have to give them a lot of credit, they are an amazing basketball club. Eric Gordon is a tremendous player. He's strong, he's fast, he can shoot it, he can do a lot of things. I think it just wasn't a one-man wrecking crew that they had; it was a team effort. We did the things necessary to try to limit him and his scoring ability, and, you know, our defense was the key to our win today? Q. You had that stretch where you had the offensive rebounds and scored and they called time-out and you went over to the cheering section and had a look like you were crazy, hitting your chest; what intensity were you playing with there? DARIAN TOWNES: That was just the passion of the ballgame. This tournament is real big to us, and to the seniors, this is our last go-around. With that momentum and going with the offensive rebounding, I wanted to beat my chest like Charles Thomas, feel like him for a couple of seconds and got the crowd going and the players going and kept the momentum going from there. Q. Talking about Darian's inside play, just talk about his inside presence? SONNY WEEMS: Darian is one of our best low-post scorers on the team. Darian helps us a lot in terms of scoring and rebounding. Darian is one of the key parts of this team. Without him, I don't think we've got this win tonight. PATRICK BEVERLEY: We get Darian Townes the ball a lot, he's been playing phenomenal the last couple of games, and when he gets the ball, teams are forced to double-team him. He's been doing a great job of finding open guys, and he's been providing good offense for the team. Q. Sonny had his shot going tonight. Can you guys talk about when he contributes this much, what it means to you guys? DARIAN TOWNES: It means a lot, you know, when Sonny is hot, he gets everybody going. We have a lot of depth on the team. Anybody on team can shoot. It was real great for Sonny to come out real strong. He had a little slump in the SEC tournament but he got over that. He worked on his shots over the little break we had and he just came out on fire. He played a great game tonight. PATRICK BEVERLEY: Sunny days when Sonny plays the way he can play. He's been doing a real good job of leading this team down the stretch here. You know, you really can't say anything about it, he's been playing well the whole year, so this is nothing new to us. Q. Arkansas' first NCAA Tournament win since '99, you guys were all pretty young back then. Just talk about the significance of breaking through and breaking the drought that Arkansas had been going through. SONNY WEEMS: You know we are not really worried about the past. The present, this is what it is now. We're just trying to go farther in the tournament. Q. Defensively you went into a zone for most of the game. I just wonder what went into that decision and what you think that did to help contain Gordon? COACH PELPHREY: Well, we came in -- the game plan was to get some zone into the game as we do all games, but what I didn't plan on was almost our whole team getting in foul trouble almost immediately. We tried to press back to zone. I was concerned thereafter about the first, six, eight minutes of the second half and the pace just got really, really slow. But our foul trouble continued. Stef got hurt. Our guard depth basically left us and I was forced to kind of manufacture things a little bit. Fortunately for us it worked out. We started playing the two bigs together and they were able to get some stops and some rebounds. I just felt like the way they were attacking was just very, very difficult for us to stay in front. Gordon is murder off the bounds; the whole world knows that. He's got 270-something free throws coming into tonight's basketball game which is just mind-boggling. Armon Bassett was terrific. I didn't want to expose our front court any more than we had -- to -- to foul trouble with D.J. White, because he was very aggressive to start the second half as well. Those are some things, certainly part of our package and we'll do it every game but sometimes when you get into a game, you never know. You have to make adjustments and it just felt better doing that, especially after some of the balls were not going in. Q. What's the injury with Welsh and his availability for Sunday as best you know? COACH PELPHREY: I think he turned his ankle, not 100% sure, and I don't know the availability. Q. At one point last month you lost four of five; what's changed? COACH PELPHREY: I think the young men, and the second half of the SEC schedule, five of eight on the road, and our league is very, very demanding and very, very challenging and that's part of it as well. But any credit goes to these players. They are a resilient bunch. They have been given up for dead two or three times, and they bounced back. I really felt like coming into this basketball game that they would play well. Now, the challenge for them is to have some repeat success in terms of their effort, their focus, their level of play, because this is the NCAA Tournament, and our next opponent is unbelievable. So that's the challenge for these guys. They have had success a lot of times on a given night, a given day, a given game; we need to do it back-to-back now. But they deserve all the credit, the players. Q. I know obviously you've got to focus on your team, but one other thing in preparation is, did you question what kind of Indiana team you would face tonight considering what has happened to them over the past month? COACH PELPHREY: No. My mindset coming in here, we were going to get their best game of the year. Like I said before, got huge respect for the tradition of Indiana; huge respect for Coach Dakich as a player, as a coach, and I just think D.J. White and Eric Gordon, no matter what league they are in, they are going to be two of the top five players in every league in the country. So this is the NCAA Tournament. I really expected to get their best effort, and like I said before, we feel very fortunate to win. Q. Your first NCAA win as a head coach, their first win since '99, talk about the significance of that. COACH PELPHREY: Well, with regards to me, anything that I as a coach accomplish is attributed to the players and the assistant coaches. For me from a side note, person side of it, again, for me being a Kentucky kid who had a chance to grow up and very, very familiar with what was going on at IU and Coach Knight and all the great players and all the great championships, to be very, very humbled and honored to be the head coach at the University of Arkansas; to play them in the NCAA Tournament and have a little success, that's a big deal to me. Q. And first NCAA Tournament win for the program since 1999, how big is that? COACH PELPHREY: I don't know. That's probably an end of the year question when we get back from the tournament and evaluate everything, because we still have work to do. I'm happy we did. I couldn't have told you when the last win was; you kind of feed me the facts, I have to rely on you for that. Q. You talked about trying to get a full 40 minutes out of these guys; do you feel like you got that tonight? COACH PELPHREY: You know, it wasn't the perfect game. Probably never going to pitch a perfect game. But I can't really complain about the results. You know, 14 assist, only 12 turnovers, to out-rebound them, to get more free throws than them; you know, the bad thing about being a coach is that when something as good as winning an NCAA Tournament game happens, you probably don't enjoy it as much as you should, because you're already on to the next one, and that's where I am right now. Q. Can I ask you two things, one, the defense you wanted to have on Gordon, the things you changed up on them, and the free throws, first half you shot pretty well today. COACH PELPHREY: Eric Gordon, we just felt like, tremendous scorer, deep, deep range, whoever had the assignment of playing him, we wanted to stay on him and take away his three-point shot. Everyone else's job was to try to get their numbers squared up with his numbers and make him a passer. Now, I'm sure this is not any different game plan than a lot of coaches and staff have put together in the Big Ten because it's very, very difficult to do with him. He's just a tremendous player. You saw when he gets ahead of his team, he doesn't pay any attention to guys, he gets side-by-side, he bangs into you and he's so strong and fast; that's what we wanted to do was stay up on him take away his 3-point shot, no rhythm 3s, try to get him in transition so he could not attack us, and then try to turn him into a passer -- I'm sorry, what was the other thing? Q. Free throws. COACH PELPHREY: They have been screamed at so much, they probably got a lot of extra work this week -- I have no idea with the freethrow shooting. I think if you want to attribute it something, you attribute it to concentration. I thought the focus was pretty good there, but yeah, at times it's been elusive for us this year. Certainly helps, doesn't it. Q. You said that in your mind, you're already moving on to the next game and your next opponent is unbelievable. What are your initial impressions of that next opponent? COACH PELPHREY: I couldn't agree with you more. They are unbelievable. Phenomenal coach. As storied a tradition as anybody in college basketball. A talent level that runs through there that just -- certain class, from top to bottom. Tremendous respect for the players they have now; although I haven't had a chance to study them in depth, but I will by game time. They play the game the right way. They don't turn it over a lot. They share the ball. They are a team. Tremendous depth. As fast as anybody will play, make or miss. You know, again, for a guy who by no means has all the answers, but just had a chance from afar to not only play against them, as a player, but just tremendous respect for what Coach Williams had a chance to do throughout his tenure. It's Carolina. Q. I think you ended up shooting over 50 percent, you started off 5-17. What got you guys going from the field? COACH PELPHREY: Sonny Weems, 12 of 14, pretty special night. We all aspire to have an evening like that in the NCAA Tournament. And it makes really cool when you can do it for your home school, so kudos to Sonny. End of FastScripts |
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