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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: PORTLANDMarch 19, 2009Ali FarokhmaneshBen JacobsonAdam KochPORTLAND, OREGON Purdue - 61 Northern Iowa – 56 COACH JACOBSON: We were a little slow going in the first half. I know Purdue was aggressive and defensively I thought they were very sharp. That's something that you watch on film. Our guys, from a film standpoint, were prepared for it. Obviously different when you step on to the floor and the game gets going. They're physical players. They did a great job of taking some things away from us to start the game. Once we settled in, I think, everybody would have seen in the second half, we settled in and our offense was better and we played much more like we have for the better part of two and a half months or so. Purdue is obviously very good. We knew that coming in. I really liked the way we played in the second half. Q. They call it tournament jitters. Could you speak to what some people would call tournament jitters, the first TV timeout, maybe the second TV timeout you seemed to survive. Did you have jitters after that? ALI FAROKHMANESH: I think we had some jitters starting off in the game. You could tell by the way we were playing. We were hesitant. They were getting the ball and we weren't taking it very well. It took us a while, I'd say after the first 10, 12 minutes we started settling in a little bit more. They brought the game to us and we kind of let them take it to us a little bit, too. ADAM KOCH: I guess there's just so much new stuff going on, new team, new facility, and all that. And maybe that takes a little bit to get used to. But I don't think it's a big deal affecting our team. Q. Both of you just maybe talk about, you had several opportunities there in the second half when it was at a six point game, where you had a couple of looks at a three. I believe there was a charge in there, as well. Talk about those opportunities that you had maybe to slice the deficit with still four or five minutes to go. ALI FAROKHMANESH: Definitely I think we missed some opportunities. We were set up to make a run right there with a five, six point game each time, probably three different times it was a five, six game. We come up short on the open three. It was a charge block call or just a missed three there. Those were plays we've been making the whole year, but we came up short a little bit. ADAM KOCH: We're in a position at the end of the game where we could have made some plays and pulled it out and won the game. We just came up short on a couple of the shots or a couple of those close plays maybe that we've been making a lot this year. Tonight just didn't quite go our way. Q. Adam, talk about how physical they were, it seemed like they were able to get some second and third opportunities that let them extend some possessions and get some second chance points. ADAM KOCH: Yeah, they do a really good job of attacking the boards offensively and defensively. You could tell watching on film there were times when they sent 3, 4 or 5 guys to the glass on offense. We knew coming into the game that was going to be something we had to try to stop, let them get those second chance points. There were definitely times today they were getting the boards and that was helping them out. Q. Can you speak to the second chance opportunities they got in the second half -- excuse me, the first half. Seemed like they had a lot of second opportunities, is that frustrating for you guys that one-and-done would have fueled a come back. ADAM KOCH: It was frustrating. We knew we had to do a good job because they attacked the boards. When they get a second or third look at the basket it's not going to be good for you. I think they did a good job of getting those looks in the first half. Q. Just talk about the resiliency when you show you do get down 10 or 12 and you were able to make a game of it the second half. ALI FAROKHMANESH: We've been down a lot early in games. We've never been a team that jumps out for the lead. We've been the team that comes from behind a little bit. Towards the second half of the year when we were getting all those wins, we were coming from behind half those games. I think this team is so resilient, we're not going to give in. I think it's just a tribute to Coach Jake, too. He tells us when we were down 12 at halftime that this is where we wanted to be, most coaches who are down 12 at halftime, but he's confident and that makes us confident, too, that we can go out there and make it happen. Q. Could both of you guys talk about -- I know disappointment right now, but what you were able to accomplish this season, and where you were at two and a half, three months ago and what you were able to get out of it? ADAM KOCH: Right now it definitely hurts. But in a couple of weeks we'll be able to look back and be pretty proud of it and we've got pretty good memories that came out of it. Right now it's just tough knowing that we had that chance and we couldn't quite get it today. ALI FAROKHMANESH: Yeah, I definitely agree. It's going to be great to look back on it two months from now, but right now it's going to hurt for a while because this isn't where we wanted to be. And this isn't where we thought we'd end up. It's great to be here, but we don't want it to end right now. Q. Talk about how difficult JaJuan Johnson was, it seemed he stepped out several times when you hit that 12-foot jump shot which deflated a chance to make it closer? COACH JACOBSON: He made a couple, the ones you're referring to in the second half, they were important shots for their team, because we had some momentum. They were also shots that I was okay with, he's shooting it anywhere from 15 to 18 feet, that's a long two. And he missed for sure one. He may have missed two, when we got it to six and a chance to get it to three. When they got down to around the five minute mark, he missed one or two of them for us. And with the number of options they have, we didn't want them posting. We didn't want Hummel shooting threes. Johnson is good on the block, and if they were going to end up with an 18-footer by Johnson, I was okay with that. That wasn't Jordan or Luke ever guarding them. That wasn't their mistake offensively, I was okay with that. Q. What did you feel was the biggest adjustment you did make in the second half that let you creep back into that? COACH JACOBSON: I just think we just started to play a little bit. In that first half, to Purdue's credit, they bounced us around a little bit. And to their credit. They were able to take some things away from us. We mishandled the ball a few times just on the dribble and didn't get our hands on a couple of rebounds, but that was because of the aggressiveness that Purdue played with. It took us a little while to settle in. More so than anything in the second half we just played and played the way that we've played for the better part of two and a half months. I was really proud of the second half. That was -- that's all we talked about was coming out here and playing the way we've played. And in the second half we did. And we were in position to win the basketball game. Q. I know it's different teams, different eras, but now four straight NCAA games all decided by five points, did you even think about that afterward? COACH JACOBSON: I did not. I'm going to have to get that fixed one of these times. And I don't mean getting beat by a different number. We're going to win a game. I don't have any questions about that. And I think this -- this group more than anything is proof of the rule that we're going to have an opportunity to play in the tournament again. We're going to win a game in the tournament. These guys did such a good job of standing up for each other when they had to in early January and just making things go our way. And that momentum really got going for us and they fed off that. I felt like a little bit of it might have slipped last year, the things we've worked so hard for five years to get in place. I thought last year maybe slipped just a little bit in terms of the way the guys trusted each other and just some of the important things to our program. And this group brought all those back. It was a lot of work by a lot of people for five years to get it there and I'm really proud that this group has brought back the important things to our program. Q. What's the rest of the tournament going to mean to you? Will you watch these games? What do you do or are you ready to get away from the game for an while? COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, I'll watch some of the games. I'll probably be recruiting tomorrow and over the weekend and spend some time with my family and recruit again the next weekend. But I'll watch the games. My son, Hunter, likes to watch the games and we get a kick out of them together. I'll watch the games. Obviously I'd rather be playing on Saturday, but -- no, I enjoy it and I'll watch the games. Q. Forgive me if you've already answered this. Early in the game Purdue had that 14-0 run and their players kind of thought that having played four days ago they were fresh -- not fresh, but had played a lot, and you guys had had a few days off. Robbie Hummel said that's quite a bit of time off. In retrospect was a key to that 14-0 run, because you never could get all the way back from it? COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, you know, I don't know. And I don't know if I'll ever know that answer for sure. If it was the fact that we had been off for ten days and Purdue was coming off a great weekend and had a lot of momentum and to be able to get right back on the floor after winning games in their conference tournament. Obviously they had a lot of confidence and a lot of momentum and that carried over early. I don't know if it was so much the fact that we were off that amount of time or if it just took our guys a little bit of time to get their feet on the ground. And again a compliment to Purdue, because they really took the game to us. And were really aggressive at both ends of the floor. If that was a result of their just playing on Sunday, then it certainly would have had a part in this game because they were very good in the first half. End of FastScripts |
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