|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2009Ralph Sampson IIITubby SmithLawrence WestbrookINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Minnesota – 66 THE MODERATOR: As the Minnesota players make their way up, we'll ask Coach Smith to make a couple of opening comments, then we'll take questions for Ralph and Lawrence and we'll finish up with Coach Smith. Coach, you're free to make some opening comments, please. COACH SMITH: I certainly want to commend and compliment Northwestern. Bill Carmody has done an outstanding job this year and his team's always played tough. They beat us at their place this year, and they didn't have their full complement of players at all in Minneapolis. But today was a good all-around team effort on our guys' part. I thought we kept our composure and made some big plays down the stretch to get a good win today. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please, for either of the players. Q. For Tubby and players, you've had your backs against the wall in other games, against Penn State and Ohio State late. What was the difference today? How were you able to pull out that late run and pull off the win? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: I think that today we stuck together as a team. We had everybody contribute. We had big deflections, big blocks by Ralph and Damian. I thought Damian threw Ralph nice alley oop passes. Just a collective effort. And we came up with big plays sometimes in a couple games we lost, one or two bounces went the other way. But today we got them and Colton was diving on the floor. Made all the hustle plays, and I think that helped us win. RALPH SAMPSON III: For me, it's that time of year. It's March. Coming in as a freshman, this is my first time being in playoffs, and so for me -- and I'm sure most of the new guys here, they're coming in giving it their all. And the veterans being here before, taking us under their wing, and showing us the ropes of how the Big Ten tournament works, it really helped the team come together more as one unit. And we all worked for the common win today. And that was the deciding factor today. Q. Lawrence, what was the difference for you between the two halves, didn't have any points at halftime then obviously the big second half? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: Just really no difference. I didn't want to come out and force anything. I just wanted to let the game come to me. Maybe just playing a little tentative in the first half. But I just relaxed and a couple shots went for me in the second half, and I think that just sparked me a little bit. Q. Ralph, kind of wondered if you could talk about your freshman year and how you think you've progressed and what things you've improved at the most? RALPH SAMPSON III: I think I improved 100 percent in my overall game. Under the leadership of Coach Smith and all the veteran players, they helped me evolve my game 100 percent since the first day I walked in the door. We're working on post moves and perimeter moves, all-around game. So become more complete and more efficient player. Q. Does winning this game today make you feel more secure about your NCAA tournament status, this may be the one that gets you in? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: Well, we never looked at it that way. Obviously it was a big win. I'm not going to lie. We watched TV. We hear what people are saying. But the only for sure way that we're going to be in the tournament is if we just win. And it was a big game for us to win today, and hopefully we can try to win again tomorrow. But if we just keep doing that, I think our fate's in our own hands. Q. You touched on it earlier about the first half and the second half, their press caused you guys some problems. How did you adjust to that and get through that stretch when they took the lead from you? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: Yeah, their press, they have a good 1-3-1 press. I think the problem is with teams, you float the passes over them, and we were sharper with the ball, had more crisp passes in the second half, and we fought our cutters cutting to the basket. We made a lot of skip passes. The key was quickly moving the ball and be sharp with your passes, and that helped us see the open lanes and get open shots. Q. Ralph, after the 19-5 run by Northwestern and, Ralph, you were involved with the 3-point play and had the dunk also, your thoughts as a freshman at that period of the game? RALPH SAMPSON III: Really for me I know that the game was close, and I know that we couldn't let this one slip away. So during those two plays, I knew we had to score and it was a great entry pass, and I just had to get it up on the back board and try to score it and it went in, and had to knock a free throw down. And then after the lob from Damian, it helped bring a lot of energy to the team and we were able to play and had great defense and offense from there. Q. Lawrence, on your defense, from the team perspective, Coble didn't hurt you in the second half like he almost killed you in the first half, and Craig Moore you guys kept under control all day. What were you doing against those two guys? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: They're really good players and you're not going to totally shut them down. You're just hoping to contain them. We just wanted to make them dribble and contest every shot, and we could live with that. I think we did a pretty good job of trying to make Kevin dribble a lot and Damian is a really good defender and he changed his shots. With Craig we just wanted to make him play defense as well, get him tired. And he had some open looks. He wasn't shooting his best today. I mean, I'm glad that he had an off-day today. Q. Your bench outscored Northwestern 27-0 first half. If your bench is playing like that, how well can you guys do against Michigan State? What do you think? LAWRENCE WESTBROOK: I think that we can do well against Michigan State. That's one of the staples of this team. Coach Smith plays a lot people around the same amount of minutes. Like with any team, if you get contributions from off the bench, you are just going to be that more powerful and effective. So if we get a team effort like that and everybody is scoring, I think we'll be tough to guard. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We'll finish up with Coach Smith. Q. Can you talk a little bit about the last five minutes, Northwestern comes back after you had the lead for most of the game, and just sort of the heart your team showed down the stretch? COACH SMITH: Well, we've had those periods of droughts where we haven't been able to score. They made some -- they threw the ball off guys and got them back. It seemed like everything was going against us during that stretch. We'd maybe get a stop or block it out of bounds. They score, we block it and they get it and throw it back out. But our kids -- I never saw that panic in them, and that was something -- we haven't seen it all year long. But as Lawrence said earlier, we were able to make some key stops, key plays, the 3-point play by Ralph was huge at that time. It was a nice entry pass like he said, went to the baseline side, and he took it up strong and was able to finish. I think that was a big key. But I just thought our kids were focused and were not going to be denied during that stretch. Q. Can you talk about defending Coble and just the halftime adjustments of trying to shut him down after he had that big first half? COACH SMITH: We were disappointed the way we ended the half. We shoot a free throw and everybody knows whose man they had, they should, but obviously they didn't. And he runs down and gets the 3. So you can imagine that was the topic of halftime, mostly and I think our kids took that to heart and they decided to do a better job defensively. And I think we really did a better job of really trying to run them off the 3-point line, chase them more, and we held them to just three 3s after having five, and I thought that was a big part of it. Q. Tubby, virtually every expert thinks that if you got the win today it would put you in the NCAA tournament. Your thoughts? COACH SMITH: I hope they're right. I hope all those experts are right. But we've had a good year. We've had a solid year. We had a tough February. Five out of seven games on the road we lost. But those are no excuses, but this is a young team that's getting better. We played well against Michigan, but it was a very emotional night, with seniors, but I think we've done our work early in the season and hopefully we can continue to play in this tournament well. Q. Tubby, I know you substitute a ton as it is, but you had 10 guys in by six minutes or whatever, was that to wear down Northwestern, was that looking ahead realizing you may have to go four in four days? COACH SMITH: No, we've got guys that I guess have been programmed to sort of play a certain amount. And then I didn't think we were really getting the energy at the time. And certainly Devron came off the bench and gave us positive minutes. Devoe gave us positive minutes Blake. That group really defended well. Colton is bench starting. We knew we needed Ralph. Their team, they really make you use a lot of energy trying to attack their zone. It doesn't look but it taxes you mentally and psychologically. And they do -- and they're very effective at it. I thought we needed more shooting, more outside shooting. Al was struggling early in the game shooting the ball. So I thought we'd get Blake, Devron, Blake, maybe I would get -- and it did, it opened it up in a way to not only get some open looks but get the ball to the basket on slices and cuts to the basket. Q. Coach, the last couple of games Devron hadn't played and then comes in here and has a great first half. What does it say about just his ability to stay in the flow of the game? COACH SMITH: Well, I sort of told him it was my mistake in the game in Minneapolis. I was watching the tape of Michigan, and had gotten beaten back door, previous games. And those kind of things will stick in your mind sometimes and that's all I saw. So I said, I got the games confused, son. But he is a good player. He's a guy that feeds off of his offense. And I need him to be more defensive-minded. And he's starting to understand that. Q. Tubby, has Ralph Sampson exceeded your expectations of what you thought he could do this year? COACH SMITH: I don't know exceeding, and my expectations are pretty high. But he's certainly developed and grown into being a pretty good player for us. And really has come on. He's gotten stronger. He's as hard a worker as we have in our program. He's always willing to stay late, come early. And that's why he's improved. Q. What does this team have to do to compete against Michigan State, especially after the last outing against the team? COACH SMITH: That was a pretty miserable day, night up in Michigan State. But we feel like we've improved. Certainly Michigan State has improved as well. They're very talented, very deep. They play with a lot of confidence, as hot as any team in the country. So we have to play a better game than we played today. Take care of the ball like we did today. If we do that, I think we'll give ourselves a chance. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|