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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2009John GarciaBobby GonzalezJeremy HazellNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Seton Hall - 68 COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: Just start with an opening statement. Obviously I'm just very proud of these two guy sitting next to me and our whole team. This team has just been a fun team, a great team to coach. We're extremely resilient. We don't go away a minute. We're just tough. We're iron tough. We play 6, 7 people, maybe at the most and, you know, in the beginning we started out great, then obviously the tempo got slowed down, we got a lot of foul trouble. It wasn't to our tempo. The game got skidded to a halt. Hazell jumped in our press against turning the tempo up and that was the difference in the game. John Garcia had 8, 9 defensive rebounds in the second half , Jeremy made big shots. Eugene came up big at 16 and 6, I believe and it was just a tough grind it out type of game. These guys, this is how we've been playing all year. Right now we got a lot of confidence. We're highly motivated because these guys wants to get to post-season. JOHN PAQUETTE: Questions, please. Q. Bobby, it looked a little bit like the last South Florida game, close at halftime and you guys sort of did your thing and pulled away a little bit in the second half. Was that sort of what you were preaching to them at halftime in? COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: Absolute. It's easier to slow a game down than it is to speed it up. We sped it up in the beginning, they slowed it down. The key for us at halftime, we talked about was if this game is going to be in the 40s, 50s and turn into like a kind of a mug you, slug you, it turns ugly, I'm not saying we can't win but it's not good for us. We have to find a way to get in transition, get stops and run outs and all that kind stuff and we did. John got rebounds, kick it out. Jeremy, we got steals, threw it up ahead. The other thing I didn't mention I should have mentioned Jordan Theodore, a freshman in the seconds half when the game was tied or whatever, hanging in the balance, he came up huge for a freshman in Madison Square Garden, first game ever in the Big East tournament. Hit a 3, guarded the heck out of Dominique Jones. Just was terrific. Jordan Theodore was really a big key in helping us pull this out. Q. Bobby, I know you're big on history. Part of this is the program's first win in this tournament since 2003; what does that mean? COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: It means a lot. We talked about it in the hallway, Joe Quinlan, Monsignor. We knew exactly how many years it had been. We stayed at the same hotel, went to the same restaurants P.J. (Carlesimo) and them used to go to. We hope we could get some ghosts from -- they just wanted to win and we talked a lot about getting 17 wins, being in a situation where maybe somebody would consider this team for the NIT. These were all the things that motivated us and you know, even though South Florida we're supposed to win, we're favored, we talked a lot about single game elimination, survive and advance, neutral site, anything can happen. We talked about DePaul winning today. St. John's beat Georgetown. Just anything could happen and you just have to come to play. It's a 40-minute situation. Q. Bobby, you put the focus on the players but you won 17 games this year. With all the obstacles that was given to you, this has to be one of the greatest coaching efforts that was made anywhere, I would think. COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: Well, I appreciate you saying that but let me tell you something, when -- this guy, Jeremy Hazell makes shots and makes you look good. It's an old coaching saying that shooting makes up for a multitude of sins. When we make mistakes defensively, he makes shots that makes any coach look good. I would give Jeremy me a lot of credit and John. Q. This is for John. John, how big is the motivation of getting to the NIT? JOHN GARCIA: It means a lot. At this point in the season it comes down to whoever wants to continue to play is going to win. Whoever comes out with the most energy will win, still has that drive to keep playing. At this point a lot of people packed in it and want the season to end. I think we've got a lot of guys that are motivated and we want to keep playing. We don't want the season to end. We had a lot more. -- lot of people didn't think we could go far this year. We remember where we were picked in the preseason. We come out and tried to prove everybody wrong. Just carried us throughout this whole season. Q. You got a ten-point lead pretty quick but you end up going into halftime down. During that stretch of time, I mean is it that they've got control of the pace or how do you feel about the way that the pace changes? JOHN GARCIA: Yeah. The pace, that's pretty -- the pace kind of grinded to a halt. It took us out of our game. We knew we came out in the second half with a lot of energy, we tried to come out and play our game and try to pressure and get the game going up and down the court that we would have an advantage. That's kind like what happened at the start of the second half. Our guys, Theodore gave us a spark. Jeremy gave us great plays. We didn't want to season to end. We kind of made an effort that we were going to play as hard as we can for as long as we could. Q. Jeremy, looked like you hurt your neck on that three there in the second half. Can you talk about what happened and how do you feel? JEREMY HAZELL: On the three, when I shot, fell back, you know, I hit the little table like this on the back of my neck but I was fine. Hurt a little bit but I was cool after that. Q. Coach Gonzalez, talk about the adjustment in the defensive game plan for Syracuse tomorrow. COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: We're going to go to St. Patrick's Cathedral and spend about five hours praying and hoping Paul Harris doesn't show up. We know they're going to play 2, 3 zone. Coach Boeheim is a hall of fame coach. There will be 15,000 people, man knee accidents in the building. We're in the building playing Syracuse. They're an NCAA team. They've got great talent, Johnny Flynn is a special player. We're going to go back and figure it out, talk about it and spend time. We only have 24 hours. You know -- we just got to come out and play them. You don't have a lot of time. They've rested. They're back sleeping right now. We're waiting to get to the hotel but you know, I love our guys. We've got a chance. That's what matters. Q. Question for both players. When you guys are getting it going in the second half, who is the -- on the court who does most of the talking and the pumping you guys up and what exactly do they say? JEREMY HAZELL: It's a lot of guys but really it's the captains, John Garcia, Paul Lawson, Eugene Harvey. They keep us together no matter what. We can be down 20 or up 20. Stick together and stay together and play hard for 40 minutes and everything will be all right. I really give the credit to them three guys right there. JOHN GARCIA: It's different. It varies from game to game. This game, give Jordan a lot of credit. He came in even as a freshman. He came with a different kind of energy in the second half. He was inspiring. Paul was in foul trouble. We knew we had to step up. He started the second half and had to give us a spark. Today, this game it was Jordan. Jordan got out there with his body language. By his attitude playing on the court, playing with energy. Today was one of those days. It was just everybody today in the second half. Q. Can I follow-up? Bobby, you recruited Theodore. Are you surprised that a guy like that would take this leadership role in his first conference tournament game or did you know that this was there? COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: I knew that he had the ability. He's special young man. He played with truck Ryan from West Virginia, Kimba Walker from UCONN. They were all on the same team in the Gauchos in the summer. He played the point guard on that team with four, five other point guards and they won like every game. He was interested in coming to Seton Hall even though we Eugene who was a starting point guard going into his junior year. That says something about a freshman who is coming in saying he didn't say like, I have to start, I don't care if I'm a backup point guard. It just says something about the kind of kid he is and the kind of leadership. He doesn't care if he plays with Eugene, behind Eugene. I can put him at the 1, 2. He's going to be a special player. Q. This is for John and for Coach. How much do you both relish the opportunity to play Syracuse considering both of you weren't there the first time? JOHN GARCIA: I mean, me personally, definitely it's something that I look forward to. It's a great team, great challenge going against, Arinze Onuaku. It's going to be a great challenge. It's something I do relish because it hurts sitting on the bench watching my team the first time around when I was hurt and I always wanted another shot at it. It's going to be a good opportunity. I do relish it. We'll try to go out there and do our best. COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: I have to add something to that. Of course, I knew somebody was going to ask the question. I thought it might be Mike from Syracuse. I'm only joking. I did miss the first game in the Carrier Dome and you know I tried to behave since then, so it's ironic we played in the first game of the year. I'm happy to have a chance to coach against Syracuse at least once this year. Q. I'd like to follow up with Roger, considering, Bobby, your history with Syracuse, playing them in the NCAA tournament and you almost beat them; do you feel something growing with your coaching career in Syracuse and Syracuse? COACH BOBBY GONZALEZ: Maybe people that followed me. I worked at Syracuse basketball camp when I was a kid, Coach Boeheim put me with U.S.A. Basketball. He's helped me a lot. We played them three, four years in a row when I was at Manhattan. We lost when he had Carmelo Anthony. There's a lot of history there we've never been able to beat them, unfortunately. He usually has the better players and they usually come out on top. The history will be better if we can beat them sometime. JOHN PAQUETTE: Seton Hall, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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