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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 19, 2009Lee CummardJimmer FredetteDave RosePHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Texas A&M – 79 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by BYU student-athletes and Coach Dave Rose. Coach, we'll ask you to make an opening statement. COACH ROSE: Well, I think, first of all, I'd like to give a lot of credit to Texas A&M. It's a very good basketball team. And they came out and really got a great start to the game, especially offensively, which made it very difficult for us on both ends of the floor. But I thought that our players recovered from that and we were able to get into a zone a little bit, a little zone defense, get some misses. And then we had an opportunity there in the second half to cut it to 5 or 6. We had a couple threes. I thought that was a being turning point in the game, if we could have got one of those two shots to go in, we could have made a run at the end. But it wasn't to be and Texas A&M finished the game well, deserved to win. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes, please. Q. Lee, you got into a hole and were playing catch-up. There were a couple times in the game where you had two or three possessions in the row where you missed shots that were open or had turnovers. Talk about that kind of uphill battle where you couldn't get over the hump. LEE CUMMARD: Yeah, we had some chances, especially in the second half. I think we had two or three possessions to cut it below 10 and then cut it again. And we were just unable to make shots. Q. Lee, can you talk about their start. Was it a matter of energy or focus or what happened there where they were hitting everything and you guys were missing everything? LEE CUMMARD: Yeah, I think we had a little bit of -- well, not a little, but too much energy. Just got out there and we were rushed a little bit offensively. Then defensively they were getting after it. I think we knew what they were doing, but we were giving them a little bit too much space early on. I believe they hit, you know, eight or ten in a row. That's just hard to crawl back from. Q. Jimmer, your thoughts about the hole you got into and the efforts had you to come back. Lee, this is your last game for BYU. Some thoughts on that. JIMMER FREDETTE: We got off to a really good start again. It was kind of the same thing as last year. We made our first shot, they went on and made their next 10 shots in a row I think it was. You know, that's a credit to them. They did a good job of getting open shots and their big guys were making, you know, tough shots in the beginning of the game. You know, they just continued to play from there. They, you know, kept putting it on us. And every time that we would come back, they would make a big shot and get it back into double figures. We had a couple chances, got it down to six points or so, and the game turned from there. LEE CUMMARD: Just on my time here, it's been a great experience. Had a lot of success. You know, when the time comes, when this game it put me behind me, it will be a much better time to reflect on my time here. Q. Jimmer, Coach Rose alluded to the situation with a couple three-pointers. What do you recall about that sequence? Did the ball feel good coming out of your hand at that point? JIMMER FREDETTE: Yeah, it felt good coming out of my hand. I think it just drew back iron and we got another shot with Jackson. Tipped it back and Jackson shot it. Just both of them didn't go in and they got a tough rebound and came back down and scored. So it kind of changed from there. Q. Jimmer, Lee is really the only player in the lineup that's not going to be back next year. Can you talk about some of the positives you can build on going on from here? JIMMER FREDETTE: Yeah, you know, Lee was a great player for this program. He was our leader. Whenever we got into a tough spot, we could just get the ball to him and he'd go make a play for us. That's something that obviously we're going to be missing next year. So we're going to have to have guys come back and step up and play and lead the team. So, you know, we got four guys that are returning starters, then we got a lot of guys that had some experience this year coming off the bench. It's good to have that experience for the whole team. So we just need to go out and be able to fill that leadership role. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. We'll continue with questions for Coach Rose. Q. What kind of thoughts were going through your mind watching that start? COACH ROSE: Well, a couple things. We were trying to figure out different things we could do to try to get them into a tough shot. I thought a couple of shots they made were very difficult shots, actually shots that we probably going into the game would want them to shoot. But they came out with a lot of confidence and made those shots. Then the other thing that kind of went through my mind was the fact that, you know, we've -- we've been able to deal with a lot of things. We can come back if we could just get going, get some positive energy. Q. It was the seventh straight time you've been behind at halftime. Obviously you know that. What did you say, what did you talk about in the locker room? What was the feeling? Was there a thought you could come back on them? COACH ROSE: Yeah, I think our guys were really positive about opportunities that we had missed in the first half. We had a lot of opportunities. We needed to just capitalize on those opportunities. And I think we came out in the second half, you know, with a good attitude and got ourselves in a position to where we could have cut that down. It didn't happen. They made a couple two quick plays that really kind of deflated us and took us a while to recover from that. But there's no quit in this team, and they continue to fight. Although we weren't as successful as we wanted to be offensively, and defensively it was a tough assignment trying to guard them, they made some big plays. Q. It's been all these consecutive years of losing in the first round of the tournament. What does the program need to get over that hump? COACH ROSE: Well, I think that we need to play better. I think that we played a really good team tonight, Texas A&M. I think we had opportunities this game like we've had in, you know, past NCAA games, and we just didn't make enough -- take advantage of those opportunities and ended up on the short end of the stick. Q. You're going to be the guy that's going to take this on with so many guys coming back. What positives do you take from this to try to build on for next time? COACH ROSE: Well, these are tough losses. I mean, when you get beat in the tournament [oops]. You want to look towards all the good things that the team has accomplished. But it will take a little while to recover from because our expectation was to come here and win, to advance. That's the next step for us and for this group returning, is, first of all, to qualify for the tournament, and then to advance. Q. In the past sometimes you talked about opposing team's guards speeding things up. Did their big men do some things to force some shots tonight? COACH ROSE: Well, I think where they were really good, especially early, is protecting the basket because we had opportunities where we would drive, which we wanted to do, and get to the rim and try to finish, maybe get fouled, get to the free-throw line, and not just rely on perimeter shots. I think they had two or three different times where they rotated over and got a foul called on us, an offensive foul. So I think those are big, long, athletic guys. They make you think really quick. You've got to make quick decisions and then be able to finish. You know, I thought they made some really good defensive plays in the first half. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH ROSE: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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