|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2009Jamelle CornleyEd DeChellisINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Penn State – 66 THE MODERATOR: Okay. Just a reminder, we'll take opening comments from Coach DeChellis and then we'll just take questions from just the players and then finish with Coach. COACH DECHELLIS: I thought these two guys played great tonight. I thought Jamelle came out with a lot of energy, a lot of emotion and really set the tone early. We wanted to try to be aggressive early with our press and try to speed up the game. We wanted to try to be in attack mode offensively and defensively, and I thought these two seniors did a great job tonight. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the players. Q. Did you think that the loss to Iowa refocused you guys? JAMELLE CORNLEY: I really do think that the loss to Iowa really refocused us because we were anxious to get back to the court. We know we left one out there. As much effort as we exerted out there, we really wanted to rest up and come to the Big Ten Tournament and put on a great showing. Our objective in this tournament is to win the tournament, and I think we packed enough clothes to make sure that we stayed in until Sunday. Q. Jamelle, was there a moment in the game where you guys sort of felt comfortable with the lead that you had? JAMELLE CORNLEY: I don't think it's ever really safe to say that we were comfortable. We just wanted to continue to put pressure and continue to be aggressive. Teams like Indiana are pretty scary because you can get them down early but they'll continue to fight back. That's a credit to Coach Tom Crean. We wanted to be aggressive but towards the end of the game we understood the clock was our biggest opponent. So by making sure we took care of the ball, being strong with the ball, we wanted to attack but at the same time make sure we made the proper plays to be successful. And hopefully next time we can knock down some free throws to give us a bigger cushion. Q. Given the loss to Iowa, have you spent any time either this week or today watching other scores, how it may affect your tournament status either in this tournament or other ones? JAMELLE CORNLEY: To be completely honest with you, I haven't watched anything regarding the NCAA tournament. This is my biggest focus right here. I've never gotten past -- me personally, I've never gotten past the second round. So making sure that we take care of business and staying until Sunday has been my prime objective from a leadership standpoint, from a senior standpoint. So I'm not worried about the NCAA tournament. I know that as long as we get to Sunday and we win on Sunday, then I really won't have anything to worry about. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, you like to talk about sort of throwing the first punch. Did you feel like you did that tonight? COACH DECHELLIS: Well, I don't know. We just tried to be aggressive. We talked about it for a couple days of trying to come out of the gate and play with energy and enthusiasm, and we were going to press to do that. And I thought we got off to a pretty good start. So we're very, very happy about that. Q. Of your three games against Indiana this season, this one was probably the easiest win of the three, what was the difference? COACH DECHELLIS: Your easy and my easy are two different easies. I don't know. They didn't have one of their players. That's a big difference, too, because the kid can spread things out and he can get 20, 25 and I was really concerned about that after watching the Texas Tech kid last night score 29 in a row or whatever he had. You come in these tournaments, you're always worried about one guy getting hot. And to be honest with you, I thought that was the guy, 33 for them was the guy that could get hot and really do some damage. But credit Indiana. They continue to play hard. They continue to execute down to the end. And there was no quitting in that team, and that's a credit to him and the staff and the players. Q. I think you were able to get Jamelle out with about eight minutes to play, and Talor with about six minutes. Could you talk about the importance of sort of resting those guys? COACH DECHELLIS: Talor banged, he's had a foot that's been banged up about a week, 10 days now. We tried in practice to give him as many reps off as we possibly could. The guys talked about it's going to be a tough game tomorrow night and we gotta have energy. I wish I could have got some more guys in there a little earlier as well if we weren't fooling around with the ball and throwing it away. We could have got some other guys in there as well. We rested those guys, and I thought our bench did a pretty good job tonight. Jeff did well. I thought Andrew Ott did well and Danny made his shots. So I thought our bench did a pretty nice job tonight that let us do that. Q. Ed, I was curious what your approach has been with the team regarding the NCAA tournament. Have you talked to them about it at all or not? COACH DECHELLIS: No, we have not. My approach with our team in the last month, and really all year my whole approach has been that we're trying to go into each practice every day, try to become a better basketball team. If we play better defense, if we rebound better. If we take care of the ball, if we get good shots. Then I think the wins and losses will take care of themselves, and obviously the other thing will take care of itself. Never said to them this is a must game. Never said to them we've got to have this one. You know, as a staff you know what you have to do. But I never wanted to put that pressure on them. All I wanted to do was us try to get better in practice the last couple days leading into this game. Q. D.J. Jackson had 10-and-5 today. What's it mean to get a performance like that out of him? COACH DECHELLIS: He was a little early. Had a shot on the free throw line he didn't take. I was upset with him and said if you don't shoot it you're going to come out. You have to shoot. You're a good player. I thought he had some rebounds to get himself going too. That was a focus at halftime. We said the first five minutes we've got to get on the glass and you guys have got to rebound it like crazy. And I thought they did, and D.J. got himself going by rebounding the basketball. Q. Were you concerned at all about Jamelle coming into the game, his injury status? COACH DECHELLIS: He's had a couple of good days of practice. He was not close to 100 percent at Iowa, couldn't get his left arm over his head to rebound. I don't think he had one rebound in the whole game. But tonight I think he's got his confidence back in that shoulder now that he can go up with two hands and rebound the thing and help us in rebounding the ball. But he had two good days of practice as well. So we were hoping that he could come in and rebound, rebound. I've been after him the last two or three days about rebounding the basketball. 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
|