|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2009Da'Sean ButlerBob HugginsAlex RuoffNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK West Virginia 74 JOHN PAQUETTE: Questions for the coach or players. Q. Coach, why was the 1-3-1 so successful today? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Tough, ask him. Those two guys. I don't know what they're doing. Q. The 1-3-1 was tough. DA'SEAN BUTLER: Yeah. Last time we played them, we have another defense called point drop. We play them a lot of man and coach kind of talked about, you know, like we stayed in a lot of things because they can adjust to things very quickly. We stayed man too long and they adjusted to that and they have great players like DeJaun Blair and Sam Young. We never really ran 1-3-1 against them. We wanted to switch defenses on them, keep throwing different defenses at them so they can't adjust to them and it worked. Q. Da'Sean, both you and Devin are from the area and Newark and Long Island. Talk about what it feels like to win in front of the family and friends. DA'SEAN BUTLER: It feels good. This game, they beat us twice in the season and, no, we're not a team to lose three times to any team, you know and just came out, we played well. Devin played excellent tonight. He was on the glass and made big play after big play and I'm just happy for him, you know. Q. Coach, talk about Devin's play today in front of his home town. COACH BOB HUGGINS: It's not just today. Devin has been terrific, you know, from the Big East season on, at one time he was averaging 12 points and 8 and a half rebounds a game in Big East play. These guys can tell you, he's gotten so much better. He's gotten so much better defensively. He does a lot of things for us. I think that's what's great. He's played point guard for us, he's our leading rebounder. He's just been really, really good and he's a great guy on top of that. I've said this many times but these are great guys. I mean this team is just full of absolutely great guys and we bring the three New York guys in and they're as good guys as what these guys are. That's important to us. Q. Coach, John Flowers contribution today seemed like a pretty big difference? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Yeah. John is good in a 1-3-1 because of his length and, you know, none of them -- probably a lot of it is my fault. John has gotten very tentative and, you know, I told him with the clock running down, I'm standing right there in front of him, I said, step in and shoot it in. He stepped in and made that big 3 for us and he got some really, I think, key rebounds for us, took a big charge there at the end of the game and I just think he's more assertive, you know. I'm a big believer in you can't play tentative. You've got to take the fight to people and I think John did that today. Q. Alex, are there major differences in the 1-3-1 you're playing with Coach Huggins than what you were playing with Coach Beilein or is it similar? ALEX RUOFF: You know, it's a little different. We got -- we don't got as many rules as we did before. We're kind out there trying to just get to the ball, really. We're trying to explain to the young guys what are rules used to be when Coach Beilein was here. There's too many. We're kind out there trying to get the ball and make people comfortable. Q. I wanted to ask the players, what impact Coach Huggins has had on the program and specifically tonight, you guys played with such confidence. It seems like you reflect him. ALEX RUOFF: I think it speaks for itself. First season, Sweet 16. The season we've had this year, going back to the tournament. It speaks for itself and that passion he has on the sideline he brings to practice. That's something we try to put out on the court and I think that's noticeable. Q. For Bob first please and then the two players. Just talk about taking the fight to people. Your players talked yesterday a lot about matching Pitt's physical play. You beat them on the boards tonight. I'm curious your thoughts on how physical they were tonight. COACH BOB HUGGINS: Well, in all honesty they were too physical for us, I think, and that's why we went 1-3-1. The 1-3-1 -- now -- Alex, correct me if I'm wrong, it's hard to get -- to have post play with it because you're dropping so many people in around them and we just -- you know, the first two games against Pitt we were in both games and they came out and they just threw it inside to their bigs and we had a hard time. They're just bigger and stronger than we are and, you know, we went to the 1-3-1 to try to keep from them getting the ball inside and you saw they didn't really get the ball inside much and, you know, it's a tremendous credit to these two guys. I just let them go. I'd screw it up. Alex says we don't have a lot of rules; it's because I don't know any of them (laughter). But, you know, I think they'll tell you this: The one thing that I've really stressed in the two years that I've been here is learn how to play, you know? Learn how to play the game. I'm not big on, you know, run here, run there, you know and have a whole bunch of things that are concrete. I wanted to learn. I want them to learn how to play basketball. Q. Do you guys feel you were more physical tonight? ALEX RUOFF: I think we're the aggressor. I think that's big. In the first two games we matched up against them. We had stretches there where they kind of out manned us the second half of both games. Everyone was emotional coming out of halftime with a two-point lead. Q. You said no. DA'SEAN BUTLER: Honestly, they're a strong team. I know with my frame and things like that, they got some pretty big guys. Honestly, Coach -- the rest of the coaches talked about they might be bigger than us, be a lot more stronger, but if you play aggressive and go at them, attack them, it will probably be a different game. That's what happened. We didn't really focus on trying to out-man them as far as strength but being more aggressive as they are and matching their intensity and play. I think we did that tonight. Q. Coach, did you make a major point to go after Blair and Biggs in the first half there or did that just kind of happen? COACH BOB HUGGINS: We were going to, initially but it worked out better than -- I wanted Wells (Wellington Smith) to attack him but we had to get the spread first because they do a great job of defense. We wanted to spread them and attack them. The first time we did get them a little bit spread. The second time Al (Alex Ruoff) made a great cut and drew a block but DeJuan is a great player. He's a great person. We just -- you know, we're just trying -- we try to do what we do. I thought we really controlled the game with our offense. I mean I thought the 1-3-1, was really, really good. We talked about controlling the game with our offense and I thought we did that. I thought we shot it too quick early on and once we kind of got settled down, were in offense, I mean shot a lot of layups and made a lot of great cuts. Q. Kind of sneak in a second question here about the two New York guys, (Devin) Ebanks and (Darryl) Bryant. Can you describe a little bit about how they've become so important to your team and either one of the players, can you describe if they've been excited about the idea of playing in this thing in New York? COACH BOB HUGGINS: The honest to God's truth is if you're not excited as a basketball player about playing in Madison Square Garden in the Big East tournament, then, you know, they need to check your pulse. They're great guys. They're fun-loving, great guys. They've really bought into what we want -- "Truck" (Darryl Bryant) had a huge game and it's just hard to play 1-3-1 with Truck. He had a huge game yesterday for us. Devin had a huge game and Kevin kept us in the Louisville game, our last home game and he hasn't shot it quite as well as what he was shooting earlier in the tournament but he's played really, really well and I think the thing that's great about -- and Truck, it's hard because he has so many responsibilities handling the ball, but with Devin and Kevin, they've got a great aptitude to learn basketball, and these guys can tell you how much stuff we throw at them and they've picked it up and done a wonderful job with it. Q. How have those guys been about the idea of coming back too New York for this event? ALEX RUOFF: You know, they're excited. They're excited coming back to New York. They got their friends and family here. They've been playing in big games all year. I don't think they're starstruck by the Garden. They played here before in high school and big AAU tournaments. They're not starstruck at all. They're playing like upper classmen. Q. Bob, going back to DeJuan for a minute, was there any thought in your mind that maybe you had blown it at halftime when he played so many minutes and were you perfect at the foul line and only up by two? COACH BOB HUGGINS: No, I didn't think we'd blown it. I didn't think we did a very good job carrying out the game plan that we talked about doing and I thought we were much, much better in the second half carrying out the game plan. You think about it, Dave is in foul trouble. We don't start him in the second half and we still were able to build a lead without him in the game and you've seen this all year, know how important he is to us but I think that shows the level of maturity that our other guys are starting to attain. Q. Bob, just talk about the adjustment, you lose. How this team sort of came together as the season kind unfolded together here. COACH BOB HUGGINS: It's been a hard year in a lot of regards. Losing Joe and I mean we all miss Joe playing and Joe gives us that -- you want to talk about toughness, Joe gives you toughness and I think in the long run, it's really helped these two guys because they really had to expand their game. Both of them have played point guard for us and, you know, for a long time I was trying to figure out how Alex could throw it to Alex and -- or Da'Sean could throw it to Da'Sean and you got give Truck a lot of credit because there's a lot of things that he has to know and in losing Joe -- we lost Al for a couple games and lost here in the Garden and he couldn't play and we really toughed out a win at Duquesne without our two starting guards and that may have, I think, maybe in the long run -- I think maybe we grew a little bit then because it forced our other guys to have to do more things than what they've ever done. Honestly, I can't say enough good things about these two guys because you know, I've played them out of position. I've asked them to do a lot of things that they hadn't never really done before, but in the end, again, I think it's made us one, a better basketball team and I think it's made them better players. JOHN PAQUETTE: West Virginia, thank you. 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
|