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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 14, 2009

Luke Neville

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

Utah Â– 52
San Diego State - 50

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Utah student-athletes Carlon Brown, Lawrence Borha and Luke Nevill, and Coach Jim Boylen. Coach, we'll start with some opening comments about the game from you.
COACH BOYLEN: Very thankful for the win. I felt in the first half we had played very well defensively, did not make shots, were not real sharp offensively. You know, their defense had a lot to do with that. They're a very good defensive team.
But I told my guys at halftime that we're gonna make a spurt, we're gonna make a run, and it's gonna come. Just keep defending, keep rebounding. Our guys did that.
You know, I talk a lot about the games inside a game. We won the free throw game, which is very important this time of the year. The rebounding game was close. But only having nine turnovers is a big deal for us and winning the free throw game.
So, very proud of these guys. Happy for the seniors. Thankful for our program.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll open it up for questions to the student-athletes.

Q. Carlon, can you talk about your play, especially at the start of the second half.
CARLON BROWN: I just wanted to be aggressive throughout the game. I thought I brought a lot of energy to start. And I think it carried out through the whole game. You know, Coach drew up a live play for me. That got me going. Luke found me, which he got doubled, which got me going as well. I was trying to focus on rebounding, and playing defense. I think we did a good job of that. My teammates helped me out a lot. It was really fun out there playing.

Q. Could you reflect on what you saw and what was going through your mind on the last sequence when Shaun stepped up from behind and poked that ball away.
LUKE NEVILL: I kind of got a view of it. It was a huge play 'cause, you know, Richie Williams hit a three just the play before. He was looking to do something. And for Shaun to have the awareness to come out and poke the ball away and to help out just shows that we're a great help team, a great defensive team, we help each other out. That's what we're based on. That's what our program is all about.
LAWRENCE BORHA: I think the same thing. We're a great defensive team. And Shaun made a great defensive effort on that last play.
CARLON BROWN: I was on the left. I was just hoping he would get it. I saw him tap it. I just saw it, you know, bouncing around. I didn't know what was going on. When he grabbed it, I just ran across the other court and started screaming.

Q. I think he was going to catch up with you.
CARLON BROWN: Yeah, usually Shaun is slow, but on that instance he wanted that ball, so he went and got it (laughter).

Q. What was going through your mind on those free throws?
LAWRENCE BORHA: I just got to make these to seal the deal. That's all I was thinking about, was making it. Then when I missed that last won, I just ran down the court as fast as I could to try to get in front of Kyle Spain, hope he didn't hit a shot.
I was upset with myself when I missed that last free throw. Got to get better at that.

Q. Lawrence, you made that 12-foot jumper right before the end of the first half. How important was that to get you going?
LAWRENCE BORHA: I think that was really good. You know, my shot felt good all day. None of 'em dropped, though. When that one hit, you know, I just started -- I got confident. You know, my team kept me up and going. You know, I just keep on playing the game. I start on the defensive end. Anything that happens on the offensive end is a plus.

Q. Luke, can you talk about being the Player of the Year, tournament MVP, what all this means to you.
LUKE NEVILL: You know, this is a great way to end the Mountain West Conference -- my Mountain West Conference career. You know, I had my ups and downs. To finish off as a senior with all these accolades and to be able to play with such a great bunch of seniors, just a great team, it's a great way to finish.
You know, I couldn't have done it without them. I'm kind of humbled in the experience that I'm getting all these awards 'cause, you know, I just go out there and play every day. Hopefully we can keep winning. You know, through winning, you get awards.

Q. Can you talk about your motivation for winning this tournament after having to share the title the last week of the season.
CARLON BROWN: I think it was self-motivation and at the same time we wanted to prove something. I mean, we had a lot of doubters coming into the tournament after losing two to BYU and New Mexico on the road. We wanted to come over here and set ourself a goal of winning a tournament outright and by ourselves.
We had a tough game against TCU, bounced back against Wyoming, and we had a grinder today. I think we played good throughout the tournament. We came up with what we accomplished to do [sic].

Q. Two years ago when you sat in that locker room after losing, not having a head coach, not knowing what was happening next, could you have envisioned yourself in this spot two years later?
LUKE NEVILL: No, not really. I mean, it was queries up in the area, which direction this program was going in. We had all the guys, but we just weren't working together as well as we could. We just didn't have the guidance that we needed to make this program great.
You know, when Coach came along, he introduced a new system. And last year, you know, it was difficult to kind of get used to it. But, you know, we took last year kind of rebuilding, growing. We had a great summer together. We came out this year, you know, ready to go and ready to make a difference, make an imprint in the Mountain West. And we did it.
LAWRENCE BORHA: The same. I don't think anybody knew where the program was gonna go. But Coach B, like he was the best pick. You know, I remember in his press conference first day, he came, he was like, Yeah, my guys back there. That's when I noticed like, I got to stay. He did his work, believed in us, thought we could win. That's when I knew we was gonna be a good team.

Q. Do you have any thoughts on what you can expect with the selection for the NCAA tournament tomorrow?
CARLON BROWN: No, not really. I think we're just going to soak this in tonight, enjoy it. You only get this once in a while. We're going to soak this in, have fun tonight, be together as a team, we'll see tomorrow.
LUKE NEVILL: Whoever we get seeded against, it doesn't really matter. We're going to scout, we're going to prepare for them, just like we do every day. We're going to be ready to play.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes. Thank you. We'll continue with questions for Coach Boylen.

Q. What was the value of winning these three games down here? What did your team show?
COACH BOYLEN: To me the value was the foundation of our program has been defense and toughness. And I thought we showed that. And, uhm, you know, I thought after the Vegas game at our place, at BYU, at New Mexico, we were kind of beat up physically and mentally. We refocused. I thought we had two of our best practices of the year the Thursday and Friday after New Mexico. And we won Saturday to share the title.
Sunday I talked to my team. You guys know I talk very real with my team. I said, We're gonna win one outright. I told my team what Mike Lewis said to me, Did you only keep a third of the net? Thanks for that, Mike, by the way. It was good motivation for us. We got the whole thing this time.
So, you know, we just went back to work.
You know, this team won eight games in a row in this league, in the best it's ever been. I never doubted that we had a good team. But we were beat up a little bit. And we refocused and we practiced well, and my assistants did a great job. We came down here to win. That's what we talked about.
It's very gratifying to have a championship outright.

Q. You talked about how you told the players in the locker room you were going to have a spurt. Came pretty fast in the second half. Can you talk about that spurt, Carlon's play.
COACH BOYLEN: Sure, yeah. Uhm, our push out of the back court is very important for us. He's our best guy at that. And, uhm, we continually talked to him about pushing that ball up the floor and accelerating in the open floor.
In most of our games, especially during that eight-game winning streak, we broke the game open around the 12, 10-minute mark of the second half. That's what I talked about at halftime: We're going to break this thing open, push it, push it, Carlon keep pushing it, keep running. It happened maybe a little faster than the 12-minute mark.
Our defense I thought was so solid. My SID, Kyle, gave me a number. Our defensive field goal percentage these three games down here was 35.7. So our defense was solid and I knew our offense would come around. It always does. And it came around at the right time.

Q. Clearly pretty emotional to hear Lawrence talk about what he talked about. Talk about what this means to you on a personal level to win this.
COACH BOYLEN: Somebody give me another question. I'll come back to that one, please (tearing up).

Q. I'm just curious whether you felt like the fatigue of two games before this accounted for some of the rough shooting for both teams?
COACH BOYLEN: Yeah, you know, legs are everything at this level. You got to hang in there. The one thing we talked about is driving the ball and getting to the free-throw line. If you don't have an open shot, you don't like your look, drive the ball. I thought we did that.
To win the free throw game by 19 attempts is a big deal. Really, that's to me the difference in the game, is that. That confidence to drive the ball, to play with force. I think there's a toughness involved there. Whether you're tired or not, you know, drive the ball, drive the ball. I thought we did a great job of that, so...
I'll go back to the question on the gratifying.
To see these guys grow, was very hard on this group of guys from day one, in school, off the floor. You know, Lawrence Borha cut his hair. I always tell him he became a human being instead of a cartoon character. He started to take responsibility for his actions on and off the floor. He became a teammate instead of a guy that thought he was a great player, who wasn't worth a shit. He bought in.
We made him a stopper. He became a stopper. Then his game took off. We gave him an identity. He accepted the identity. And his game took off. That's just what I believe in the game. You have to have something that gets you on the floor to help us win. Then you work on the other things.
He became a better shooter, a better driver, a better passer and finisher, but it started with his defense and his assignment every night. I told him for two years, Get into the game defensively and everything will work out for you, LB, and it did.
I've talked about Luke. Very hard on Luke. There were days I didn't like Luke. There were days he didn't like me. You know, he was a member of the team, but he wasn't a teammate when I got here, and I hated that. So if you're a big guy, you've got to have your teammates like you. You've got to invest in them, or you'll never get the ball, they won't play for you. You have to play the defensive end of the floor. He's as good a defensive big guy as there is.
Shaun Green wasn't up here. Shaun Green is the leader of this team. He's the guy that tells me to shut up, we got it, Coach, we're good. Coach, that's enough. He's got it, you know. He gives me the tap or the wink. He calms the huddles down. He's a winner. He's a winner. He unselfishly came off the bench. I thought it was best for our team for him to come off the bench. He was a three-year starter, but he wasn't a winner. I told him I thought he could be a winner if he came off the bench.
When the season started he was 53 and 59 here. He was going to be one of the three players in 101 years to have a losing record. He's a winner now (tearing up).

Q. How many bids do you think this conference deserves for the NCAA tournament?
COACH BOYLEN: God, I don't know. You know, I've been on some pretty good teams. San Diego State's an unbelievable team, to Steve Fisher's credit. They've been sick all year. They've had injuries. You know, I think they're an NCAA-tournament team. BYU's an NCAA-tournament team. New Mexico is a quality, quality team.
I don't make those decisions. My AD's on the committee. He doesn't talk to me about it much. He's not allowed to.
You know, I can talk from our experience here. My goal, our goal, as a schedule, as a staff, and Jon Dykema, my director of basketball operations, who does our scheduling, was to make a schedule where we could make the tournament before we got here, to have a rÃ©sumÃ© built that we didn't have to come in and win three to get in, because that's a tough thing to do.
You know, I think we were in before we got here, but hopefully we'll have a higher seed. This is a terrific league. It's a very difficult league to play in. It's getting better and better. I think it's a coach's league; the level of coaching in our league, the preparation, the way people play. So I'm hoping for four. Maybe it looks like three now.
Some people said before we got here that San Diego State had to win to get in. So maybe we're down to two. I don't know. I don't know. I hope it's three. I'd love it to be four. But, you know, it's funny how it's so hard for our league to get games and for people to come play at BYU, at New Mexico, at San Diego State. But when it comes around to making the tournament, for some reason we're not thought of that way. I don't understand that. It's not my place, so...

Q. When you broke down the film for Chris Hill two years ago, did you think you could get them here two years later?
COACH BOYLEN: I didn't know. I really got to credit the guys I've worked for. Judd Heathcote I thought was the best individual instruction coach I've ever seen. Rudy Tomjanovich told me a long time ago, Use what your guys do well now and make them better at things they don't do well. That's what we did.
We used Borha as a stopper. We used Shaun Green as a shooter and a passer. Then we made them better at the things they don't do well. Carlon Brown's improved his shooting and his decision making. He's become a big, ball-handling wing.
Lawrence Borha on film drove me nuts. Luke Nevill on film drove me nuts. Shaun Green wasn't tough enough. Johnnie Bryant wasn't tough enough. That was my motto from day one. We had a 6:30 lift the second day I was on the job. Just had to get tougher.
It's the only thing you have control of. And I didn't think we were taking control of that. We're getting better at it, so...

Q. It seemed to me that it might have been one of your best defensive performances of the year. Expound on that, what you did tonight to stop them.
COACH BOYLEN: We have a system. Every coach has a system. Every team has a system. We have a scouting system and a preparation system that we used when I was in the pros. Some of it's from Michigan State, what Tom Izzo does. But as we go through the process of playing a team a second and third time, we call it the funnel. We narrow the funnel down and we pick the things in the game plan of things we have to be prepared for and things we have to do. By the third time we play somebody, it's ingrained in our guys.
I think you saw that last year when we beat New Mexico in the first round. This year, with the teams we've played. You have to give my staff credit on that. We're very prepared. We tape down a floor in our meal room. We walk through everything. We got up at 9. We walked through from 9 to 9:20. We ate. We walked through again from 9:40 to 10. We let them go. Came back at quarter to 10. Ate, walked through again, watched five minutes of film, ate again. We hit them in pulses, 'cause they can't absorb more than 20 minutes worth of stuff. They've already had it twice. I think our preparation is why our defense was so good tonight and our toughness.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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