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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: GREENSBOROMarch 19, 2009Matt HowardShelvin MackBrad StevensGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA LSU Tigers – 75 COACH STEVENS: I thought we got beaten by a really good team today. They had a tremendous year, and stepped up and answered every one of our challenges. I was proud of our guys for their effort. You know, obviously with mostly freshmen and sophomores and two juniors on your roster that played, kind of anticipated that there may be a little jitters and maybe a slow start. I don't know if I thought it was going to be 9-0 right away. But I thought we really settled down, we fought. We just came up a little bit short. The hard part about that is you can go back and look at all the possessions and inevitably there will be things that we feel like we could have done a lot better. But that was this chance. Now we have to prepare to try to earn this opportunity again. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. When Butler took the lead several times in the second half, did you feel like maybe the tempo and the way the game was played was tipping your way, and if that didn't happen, what did LSU then do to kind of seize it back? COACH STEVENS: I don't know about tempo. I thought tempo was pretty standard throughout the game both ways. LSU seized it back by really good players making really good plays. We didn't have an answer for Thornton. That hasn't happened very often since I've been here, a guy that really just, he answered every challenge. He made every big shot. We were there, our guys played as hard as they could on him. I just thought he was terrific. You run into players like that in the NCAA Tournament. As I was watching them on tape, I thought he was probably a pro, now I'm convinced of it. Q. Talk about the physical play that you and Johnson kind of went at it for a while. Then you and Tasmin went at it for a while. Talk about what they tried to do to scheme on you, and lot of bodies hitting the ground and very physical inside? MATT HOWARD: Well, I wouldn't really expect anything else from an NCAA Tournament game. Yeah, it was really physical. And I thought it was called pretty consistent throughout the game. You know, that's just what I expected. I wanted to come in and make sure I was as physical or more physical than they were. Q. Butler had 11 turnovers in the first half, only 4 in the second half. What was the difference with adjusting or on not adjusting to LSU's length and speed in the first half that you guys managed to correct in the second half? SHELVIN MACK: I just think we just settled down a little bit more. Made strong cuts and strong leads. And when the pass is coming to us, we came to the ball instead of waiting on it. That's big. That's a big adjustment we made. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Stevens. Q. I know Butler achieved a lot more than what a lot of people thought. But what, I guess, what kind of steps do you think that you maybe took even in this one game that would carry over into next season since you really accomplished a lot more than what so many people expected you to do with such a young team? COACH STEVENS: Well, I would not include myself in that group of people. I have high expectations for everybody in this program. We expected to be really good. I thought that we tried to make that clear right from the git-go our guys had a nice year. You know, I think of anything you take from this game, you no longer have this chance. The chance is now gone, and, you know, nothing is guaranteed. You have to, you know, for us, we have to be terrific in the regular season. If we don't win our conference tournament, and we recognize that. So you have to maximize every day. You have to play to the best of your ability every day, and maybe the thing that you take from this is if -- you know, just to continue to do that. I thought we played well. I thought we've played well all year. We just weren't quite good enough today. I thought going into the game unusually for us, because we've held people down, I felt if we could hold them under 70, we'd win. We just didn't do that. You know, they scored it, and they found ways to score. My hat's off to them. They did a nice job. End of FastScripts |
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