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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2009Tubby SmithINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Michigan State – 64 THE MODERATOR: Opening comment then questions for the players. COACH SMITH: I want to commend and congratulate Michigan State. That shows why they're the top team in this league. They really took it to us in that second half. I thought our kids gave an excellent account of themselves and played extremely hard. Had some breakdowns there in the second half but I thought overall we had a good game plan and our kids stuck to it for the most part. Again, it was a good college game and we fought pretty hard. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Damian or Devron? Okay, guys. I guess you're free to go back. Anything for Coach Smith? Q. Was the pace of the game about what you wanted? COACH SMITH: Yeah, we were doing a good job and pushing the ball. I thought press early in the game was very -- was effective even though we weren't able to, no one was able to get any rhythm, any consistency. But we were forcing some turnovers and doing some things. We just didn't capitalize a few times, but pace in the game was what we want. We like to play up-tempo and we just didn't score, weren't as efficient as we'd like to be offensively. Q. Coach, normally at this point a team that's out of the tournament looking at the NCAA would try and lobby for its place in the NCAA tournament. Do you feel like you need to do that? Tom made a pretty good case for you just a minute ago. Do you feel like you needed to do that? COACH SMITH: I appreciate Tom lobbying for us, and I hope he doesn't send me a bill as a lobbyist. But I think we've had a pretty good resume. We've had a pretty good year. Not a great year but a good enough year. I think looking at the competition and the way we played, obviously we had a tough month, February, but those five games we lost that month were all on the road. So hopefully that accounts for something. I think we were a team that could play well in NCAA tournament. But if we don't we'll be happy to go wherever we're up get into the post-season play. Any time you get to this point you just want your kids to have had a good experience. You want them to keep believing in the program and believing that they have a chance. And we have a chance to, I think, be a pick to go to the NCAA tournament. Q. Two years now your style of play is pretty good fit for the Big Ten with the defensive emphasis and were you surprised at all that defense seems to pervade the league the way it does, just the physical play? COACH SMITH: Well, it kind of evolves to that, because what you do is just like anything else, you look at the top teams and you say, okay, how do we beat them? How can we compete with them? And obviously in any conference that's the case. And different styles, I think the Big Ten gets that reputation because there is that physicality, but also, as you mentioned, there's a lot of coaches in the league that emphasize defense as well. I'm more on the side of more of a finesse game. But I think we have to continue to look at ways to improve the game. There are things that we can do as far as widening the lane that I think can help out putting that half moon in front of the basket, that kind of stuff will take away some of the physicality, I think, and would help not just the Big Ten but college basketball. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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