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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: CHARLOTTEMarch 27, 2008Earl ClarkAndre McGeeRick PitinoCHARLOTTE, SOUTH CAROLINA COACH RICK PITINO: First I want to congratulate Tennessee on an unbelievable season. They played, like us, a tough schedule, one of the best schedules in the nation. Played everybody tough and they had a tremendous season. It's not easy to lose at this stage of the season but they've got a lot to be proud of. They're a terrific basketball team. You've got to fight every possession to beat them. Our guys, real proud of them. This young man to my left here takes oxygen during the game, and he's playing so many minutes. He's working his tail off. He's had a great year. An unheralded basketball player, but inch for inch and pound for pound, and I will say a lot of poundage, he's one of the best point guards in the nation. The other guy to my left keeps getting better and better. Big game tonight. He was upset at me for the first few minutes of the game, and then he got over it. Q. Why were you upset with him, Earl? EARL CLARK: It wasn't so much -- I was upset with myself, I turned the ball over a lot, I was frustrated but I wasn't really mad at Coach. Just a little bit. (Laughter.) Q. What happened in the second half for you? You didn't miss and seemed like everything was going right after you struggled in the first half. EARL CLARK: We wanted to come out and be aggressive in the second half, they pushed us out of our offense a little bit. So Coach told us to make our cuts and that's what we did, got open looks. Q. In terms of the way you guys are playing defense right now, can either one of you guys tell us, is this the best that it's been this season? Is it close? ANDRE McGEE: I think it's improved a lot during the course of the season and Coach has talked about denial, pressure, trying to force steals and turnovers. But today as far as offense we did a terrible job in the first half, we had a lot of turnovers. Their denial and pressure was pretty good but we stepped it up in the second half and made them throw the ball out of bounds a couple times. But it has gotten better, but by no means is it the best. Q. Earl, can you talk about your size? Was that a mismatch for Tennessee? EARL CLARK: I really don't see it as a mismatch. Tennessee is a great team and they have been playing guys my size all season. So I don't see it as a mismatch. Q. Also, Earl, can you talk about defending Chris Lofton? I know you guys blocked a few of his shots. EARL CLARK: I just tried to blitz the screen, and every time he's on my side get up and jam him. I try to make it a tough shot for him. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. Questions for Coach Pitino. Q. I can't remember anybody blocking Chris Lofton's three-point shot, you guys did it at least twice tonight. Could you talk about your defensive game plan against Chris. COACH RICK PITINO: One of the keys on defense all year has been the changing of it. When you give any good team a steady diet of one defense, it's not quite as good. We extend our zone almost like a half-court trap. We don't give the wings good looks, and especially on Earl's side we're quite long and T-Will is a great athlete as well. The last three games our offense and defense have been all clicking. There have been other games where our offense has clicked and our defense has clicked. Our defense has stayed constant most of the year, and this is a team that we have tremendous respect for. Guys prepared hard for a week. We told our guys this game is going to be won on the backboard. They had 19 offensive rebounds against Memphis, and I said, whichever team outrebounds the other one is going to win this ballgame. Q. Will you tell us what Earl said to you? COACH RICK PITINO: I took him out and I said you're going to set a turnover record here in Charlotte. I think Muggsy Bogues had seven or eight one game, and I think you're going to break it if you keep it up. Stop passing at his ankles. He's a great guy. Earl is a tremendous young man. You know, I take him out, and I don't leave him out very long, no matter how many turnovers he makes. I get him right back in the game. Q. What's been the difference with him the last couple of games? COACH RICK PITINO: Earl is very young. Earl's just turned 19. He's extremely young. When he first came to us, Earl did not have the ability to work very hard. He thought he was, like most high school kids think they. Are, and he's just in the last six weeks, he's always had great skills, now he's acquired a work ethic. He's really worked hard for the first time in his life up to not his potential but our potential, what we think of him. And he's been working his tail off in practice and it just shows on the court. I'm real proud of him because he's come on. He's very young. Young, young man, but loaded with talent. Q. This game, it was sort of very frenetic and up and down. Is there something about when it's kind of messy like that that allows your guys to prevail? COACH RICK PITINO: Well, we talked before the game and I said, Look, guys, you haven't faced anybody like this this year. I said, but I have, back in the '90s at Kentucky when we used to play Arkansas with Nolan Richardson. They were that type of team where their hands are always in there grabbing at it, and I said, You've got to be strong going back door. You can't beat them coming to the ball. Same thing with the pressure, you've got to beat it north and south, not east and west. And I thought we did a tremendous job of going north and south in the second half. That's the way you have to play against them. Our respect level for them is off the charts because they have taken on a lot of teams. But our team, we've seen every style of play this year. We haven't seen what Tennessee gives you, so it reminded me of Arkansas and I remember that so well because we at Kentucky used to have so many battles with them. And we did a really good job of locating our people in the second half. Q. Coach, I thought the key stretch in the second half they cut it to two or three and after a time-out seemed like you got three straight looks that you wanted to get and got baskets out of each one of them, do you remember that sequence? COACH RICK PITINO: I do. I just kept reminding the guys of every time we needed a bucket what we had to do. We had to use back screens. They did a tremendous job of that. I thought Derrick Caracter played well tonight. Did an excellent job in all phases of the game. Gave us a big lift when we needed it. I thought Preston Knowles gave us a nice look. I think the guys are really playing together, really playing well, playing smart. I thought that T-Will, all of them collectively. When we played on the road this year in the Big East it makes you really tough, and you can't give in. We had to play for a league championship at Georgetown, and we played them really tough. And we lost to a better team that night. But we developed a physical and mental toughness because of the type of teams we had to play; UNLV at UNLV, Kentucky at Kentucky, plus the Big East and all the other teams we had to play. So it's made us tougher, and we knew down the stretch when they cut it to two -- and I kept telling the guys all along, this team will not go away, they will not go away. They've been down before, and they're not going to give up and our guys knew that. THE MODERATOR: Okay, Coach. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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