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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 19, 2009Niccaeus DoaksKevin GoffneyJohn ShulmanPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Connecticut – 103 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Chattanooga student-athletes and Coach Shulman. Coach, we'll start with an opening statement by you, please. COACH SHULMAN: My only comment, never be ashamed to dream. Never be ashamed to believe. And never be ashamed about getting beat in the NCAA tournament. We played really poorly. It doesn't take away winning a championship in a great league. I hurt for our kids. I hurt for our program. I hurt for our -- I feel, Commissioner Iamarino, like I let you down. We have a great league. And Davidson did an amazing job representing it last year. We didn't hold up our end of the bargain. But still not ashamed. Disappointed, but not ashamed. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes, please. Q. KG, describe for me how you kind of felt it slipping away throughout the entire first half. KEVIN GOFFNEY: I mean, they get to the foul line maybe 20 times in the first half. That's big right there. They was getting out of transition. Two things we wanted to take away. When they get that, they pretty good. So, I mean, they kind of ran away with that. Q. What was going through your mind as you get five points in the last 12 minutes? NICCHAEUS DOAKS: We wasn't executing our offense. We wasn't getting stops defensively. We fouled way too much in the game. We just didn't execute the game plan the way we should have. Like coach said, we didn't bring our best game. We played pretty bad out there. The offense wasn't flowing like it normally does. And we really didn't do the things that we worked on in practice on offense. And we tried to play a little more one-on-one. And, as you see, that didn't work. Q. Thabeet, have you played a guy like him? NICCHAEUS DOAKS: No, I never played anybody 7'3" and athletic who blocks pretty much anything. But he's a good player. Not taking nothing away from him. But it was good playing against him, I guess. I really don't know. We shouldn't have shied away from him, I think. I think we kind of shied away from him. He does change offense a little bit because he does block so many shots. I still think we should have went at him more instead of shying away from him, played more inside out. We got guys who can shoot him. We put faith in Kevin and Stephan and Keyron. If those shots drop, we change the whole game. Q. KG, describe how the game kind of changed once Keyron picked up his second and third. KEVIN GOFFNEY: I mean, Keyron is a big game changer for us. He can push the rock up the floor, play good D, make shots. I mean, that was huge. We missed him a lot. He caused havoc out there. Not to have him out there really changed the game for us. Q. It's such a fine line to do what your coach wanted you to do. Obviously he wanted you to move the ball, make those guys play a little defense. When you get an open shot, you have to take the shot. Try to describe what a fine line that is to walk. KEVIN GOFFNEY: Yeah, we kind of knew going in we probably could get any shot we wanted, about you we can't always take that first shot. That's kind of what we did tonight. When we came off the screen, Thabeet was there. It's a pop. You got to take it. Like you say, you never know if you're going to get that shot back. But, I mean, like Doaks said, the offense didn't go like we wanted it. It's a bad night for that to happen. Q. What goes through your head, if you can look back on it now? You weren't thinking about it at the time, but you're going up against a team like this. You in the back of your mind might want to prove what you can do. Does that have anything to do with going one-on-one? NICCHAEUS DOAKS: I think offense got stagnant. Sometimes when the offense gets stagnant, we're not moving, it's not flowing like it should. We start thinking we got to score the ball. Whoever got the ball, they got to go score. It's not about trying to prove anything against them. We already proven ourself because we got to the tournament. That's the main proving factor right there that we're a good team. It ain't worrying about individual players. On the court, we're five players and we're a team, man. But we played a little bit too much one-on-one tonight. It just happened. It was just a bad night for us offensively. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. We'll continue with questions for Coach Shulman. Q. You look physically exhausted. How mentally and physically taxing was not only tonight but this entire season? COACH SHULMAN: It's been a long year. Been a long year that we battled, persevered. Everybody counted us out. It's been a long year. You know, it breaks my heart that we finished playing poorly. You know, no 16's ever beat a 1. What you want to do is you want to come up here and play well. Win or lose, you want to play well. And I hate that our seniors who have done an awful lot for our program have to play their last game and remember that. But I tried to explain to them, it's not -- nothing to be ashamed of ending your season in Philadelphia in the NCAA tournament. We were just expecting more. That's why I said, you know, we dreamed it. Whether that's right or wrong, I ain't ashamed of that. I think if you can't have dreams, someone needs to shoot me. So just really disappointed for our kids. Q. You played a lot of really talented athletic teams, especially early in the year. Were these guys a cut above? COACH SHULMAN: Their length, you know, their length, their length and their physicality. Adrien's physicality. Robinson is special. You know, Thabeet, he's a pretty good player. His length, his size. They defend. They're solid. You know, Tennessee was different. Kind of played us different in the full court. This is something, you know, we're not real used to, to tell you the truth. We had to have an unbelievable night shooting that ball. I don't know if I put too much pressure on Steph. We played Memphis in a very tight game earlier this year - very tight - without Goffney, who I think kind of makes us go. You know, Steph had to have a night where he made eight, nine threes in order for us to have a chance. He didn't, and it slipped away. Q. What did they do to Steph? COACH SHULMAN: They got good size, they got good strength, they got good athleticism. He got good looks. This is a different venue for us. I ain't gonna lie to you. It's a different venue to come out 3:00 on a Saturday - I don't even know what day it is - on a Thursday afternoon in the Wachovia Center on CBS. You know, I'm just going to tell you. And you step out on this stage, and you understand what's on this stage. I'm just going to tell you, I got great respect -- got great respect for UConn, but I got great respect for everybody's playing in this tournament because you're stepping on a stage. Let me just tell you something, the worst thing that can happen on this stage is what just happened to us. And don't think it ain't embarrassing. But it's probably more embarrassing not to try and be on this stage. Q. Describe for me how that first half just kind of slipped away and how much foul trouble with three starters sitting next to you. COACH SHULMAN: I don't play guys with two fouls. You know that. I don't play guys with two fouls in the first half. I had a whole team full of guys with two fouls. What we did, we went out there and we were crazy. We went out there and didn't execute what we did all season long. It was like a different -- like we had a different team. You know, we can handle inside stuff. But we were trying to block shots. Steph got a foul trying to block shots. Our double-teams weren't she good. Keyron is the key. And I knew that. He picks up three fouls. But, I mean, our goal coming in, no transition baskets, no second shots, and keep 'em off the foul line. Take a look. They went to the line 39 times. We went to the line 10 times. Coming into the game, we had gown to the foul line more than any team in America. I guess the officials just didn't believe me. Q. I was watching you behind the bench trying to keep it together with bailing wire. You got to the second TV timeout. Did you feel at all encouraged? You guys were hanging in there. Must have been thinking, If we can just hang around. COACH SHULMAN: I thought we weathered one storm. I didn't know a monsoon was coming. You know, I thought we took care of a storm, weathered a storm a little bit. I think we were down two at that time-out. We came down, ran a set, got a good look at it from three. It would have been nice to go up a little bit. But, you know, I've got freshmen out there. I got Chris Early out there. It should be Doaks out there. We had to play too many people that we hadn't been playing. We hadn't played a whole lot of people. We play our seniors. I wanted to let our seniors do the deal. They're sitting over there in foul trouble. UConn is very good. I respect them and they're very good. They didn't get our best shot. I'm not saying our best shot was good enough. But if I don't sell our team on it, then I ain't a very good coach. So, I mean, we dreamed it - dreamed it. I just wasn't meant to be. I'm sick, to tell you the truth. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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