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NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 28, 2008

Mike Davis

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

COACH MIKE DAVIS: Very disappointed, very disappointed we lost.
There was a stretch in the game where they just out-toughed us, and I feel like we have a very good basketball team but until you play with some toughness down the stretch in key moments of the game, it's definitely going to prevent you from winning games. Boston College is a good physical basketball team and we need to play physical teams for us to be ready for conference play and get ready. We gotta play teams like this that's really physical

Q. Coach, in addition to the toughness, what is it that your team needs to do to better close out games in the second half right now?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: I mean toughness means that you have to cut hard. You have to continue to block out. You have to get in a defensive stance. You have to sprint on the other side. All things that make you a tough basketball team to play against.
I think sometimes we just have a tendency to hold team shots and hope make a shot. So when you play like that there's a high chance for you to lose a basketball game. I thought we did a great job in the first half, keep them off the offensive glass. The second half we fouled them too much, put them on the free throw line too much. We had a situation where we fouled them, even in the first half we fouled three possessions and all three was two-shot fouls. So when you foul basketball teams in the act of shooting, they're shooting plus they're getting close to the 1 and 1.

Q. Coach, what was working defensively in the two games against Tyrese that maybe wasn't working in the second half?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: He wasn't being aggressive. He was just kind of playing with his teammates. He's a fantastic player, and we knew coming in half time only having four points that he was going to crank it up. He's first team all conference in the ACC last year which is one of the best conferences in the country. So we knew he would get it going and he got it going.

Q. How would you assess Terrence Roderick's play filling in for Paul (Delaney III) today?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: Terrence is one of the talented players, but he's a freshman. Freshman got to just understand how physical and how quick this game is, and once Terrence realizes that he's going to be a fantastic player for us.

Q. Coach, was Paul suspended or hurt?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: He hurt his ankle in the game on Wednesday, and we knew yesterday he couldn't go, couldn't run. He couldn't practice.
We should have -- Paul or no Paul, we just played the game the way it was supposed to be played. Eight points at the half. We gotta finish games, and unfortunately we won at Arizona, and we didn't finish it. They kind of finished it for us. We had a 15-point lead in that game and just kind of stood around.
How well we played got lost in the end of it because we just kind of hoped we won. We did the same thing at Old Dominion but unfortunately we made some shots in that game at the end, and Oklahoma, same thing. We had it going, had the momentum, and then once we got to the point to where we just needed to finish them off, they made a run, we couldn't withstand it.
So that's where we are right now with this basketball team, just not being able to finish teams and that's a big part of coaching.

Q. Coach, anything positive you can take from this defeat?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: You know, it's only going to be positive if we change. We knew coming in here that we would be playing against two really good physical opponents, no matter who it would be, with Purdue, Boston College or Oklahoma. We knew our two games here would be physical, and we're going to go back and we're going to watch film. We're going to try to improve this basketball team from a toughness standpoint, from the standpoint of being able to finish people off.
If we can do that, we got a chance, but our first home game is Wednesday against a Big East team. Then we go right back on the road to another Big East team. So this is a very dangerous and tough for us.

Q. Is Paul going to be able to play?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: It's hard to say. We knew he couldn't go today. Hopefully he can go on Wednesday.

Q. What have you learned about your team these first six games playing them all on the road?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: Well, I found out we have a really good team. We have a very good team, and what we have to do is just find a way as a coaching staff when we had those little bit hope things go our way, just kind of kick start, kick start maybe with a time out. As long as they're playing defense in front of us, we're not bad because they can hear our voices. And every half we played the first half is pretty good defensively. It's when they go away from us that we lose them.
So when you lose teams as you go away from them, it becomes a situation where you have to talk as a team, communicate as a team to make sure you're in the right positions because they got layups during their stretch run. They need to make plays, they got layups and when we had to make a three, it was a big difference than getting uncontested layups and then coming down and having to make a shot, and the shot (Tyrese) Rice hit that was big shots, but those weren't the back-breaker shots. The back-breaker shots like the Oklahoma game, it wasn't the three-point shot that hurt us, it was the uncontested dunks that Griffin had that really hurt us.

Q. How tough were the first five minutes in the second half for your team?
COACH MIKE DAVIS: Well, I don't think it was the first five minutes of any half for us. I think it was just a stretch. It was a stretch and as a coach you can see it and you can see it. They're not cutting hard, not screening. They're not digging and defensively they're just kind of hoping things happen their way.

End of FastScripts

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