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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: GREENSBOROMarch 19, 2009Kevin BroadusReggie FullerD.J. RiveraGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Duke Blue Devils – 86 COACH BROADUS: I'd just like to start off by saying that's a very good Duke Blue Devil team. They proved and showed why they were number one for a few weeks in the country this year. They just wore us down. A good ballclub, ACC championship. They're going to go a long way in this tournament. People are already saying they're going to lose in whatever rounds. I tell you, they're good, and I don't see them losing any time soon. They've got really good shooters. They've got good players. They've got McDonald's All Americans and a great coach. We gave it our best shot. At the end of the day, they were the better team, they wore us down, and there was nothing we could do. I'm proud of my guys. We left it out on on the court, and we had a great run this year. 11 straight, American East Championship regular season tournament. We gave it our best tonight against a very good Duke Blue Devil team. We knew at some point it was going to have to end. Like I told my guys, I'm proud of them. Why not lose to one of the best in the country? And I think Duke is one of the best in the country. Q. Just kind of talk about first of all what was working so well for you guys, and in the first half you were able to keep it close and keep it within shooting distance of them? D.J. RIVERA: We played tough defense in the first half. They missed a lot of shots in the first half. I don't know. We just kept in there. We didn't want to go down big before halftime. We tried to stick around with those guys. They're a talented team, and we did a good job in the first half. REGGIE FULLER: Well, I think we were just focused and locked in the first half. Of course they didn't make the shots that they did in the second half. But we knew that we just had to make it a close game in the first half. We didn't want to come in at halftime and come back from a large deficit. So we knew what we had to do on the defensive end. Q. How much did the early fouls and the number of fouls early on, how much does that hurt you guys? D.J. RIVERA: That's something we really can't control. It goes your way, it may not go your way. Like I said, it's something you can't control. So we couldn't really worry about that that much. Q. In the second half especially the first couple of minutes when they went on on that run, what was the biggest difference, do you think? REGGIE FULLER: They made shots the second half. That's the biggest difference for us. They made the open shots. They made hard shots. They just made every shot. Q. The first trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history. What does this team now take from this week and this experience and put towards next year? D.J. RIVERA: This is a great year for us. It was a learning process. Like you said, it's our first trip to the NCAA Tournament. It was a great experience, you know. Me and my team just took all the good out of it, and learned from our mistakes and things like that. Hopefully we'll be back here next year. Q. It's your last game playing for Binghamton. Can you just talk about the emotions and thoughts that are going through your head right now? REGGIE FULLER: Well, I gave it a good run the two years I was at the school. Like Coach Broadus said, you have to go out sometime, and luckily we went out to a good team, a good university today. Q. Obviously, like you said, they were hitting shots during that run to start the second half. But were they doing anything better or differently defensively in that run to kind of keep you guys from scoring? D.J. RIVERA: We just didn't make shots that we normally make. They're a great defensive team. They take you off your sets and things like that. We just didn't make shots that we normally make, and they got off to a good start and we didn't. PHIL WARSHAUER: We'll continue with questions for Coach Broadus. Q. Like I asked the guys about Duke's run to start the second half, on both ends of the court, what did you see going on that was different from the first half? COACH BROADUS: The way they came out, and I emphasize at the half, they're going to come out with a lot of fire. Because I thought we kind of sustained a lot of things that they were trying to do in the first half. I told our guys the first five minutes would be critical, and they did everything I thought they would do. They stepped it up defensively, and they made shots. I mean, they got separations just like that from us in the first five minutes of the second half. You know, we were playing uphill from there. I just thought by them playing so many guys, we were way down at some point and they didn't. I tell you, looking at this it states 23-8 from the bench. The bench is that good. They have a lot of players, and that's where the separation came. Q. I just want to ask the two questions I asked the players. What did you see, how did you see the early fouls affecting the team, and two, what do you see this team taking from this experience? COACH BROADUS: Well, the early fouls, you know, you can't control. That's the way we play. We're going to on get fouls. We've had fouls like that all year, and we can't complain about that. We try to play aggressively defensively. We just, five guys had five fouls in the first five minutes. We've been used to it. We just got to suck it up and just play hard and just play smarter. What was your second question? Q. Just what this team now takes from this? COACH BROADUS: Yeah, like I told them in the locker room, this is when you get better. You take off a few days. You get your classroom stuff in order, you know, because you've been on the road a lot. Then you get better. This is the off-season. You get in the weight room. What we take from this is as we're getting better. We know we belong here. We have to keep getting better. We have to keep working. Now that awe have that bullseye on our back, teams are going to be gunning for us next year and we can't take no one for granted. We have to step up and make ourselves better, more so than anything else. This is when the off-season is when you get better, you don't wait until the next year. Q. What must be done to sustain the success you guys have had? COACH BROADUS: Well, like I said, the off-season guys got to put a lot of time into the weight room. Individual workouts. The new guys next year, the older guys have to be better leaders. Now they know what to expect, and they've got to make sure these guys that are coming in be ready for the task. Because, like I said, the league that we play in, it's going to be really good. The American East is really a good league. We have some good teams, Vermont, Boston, Stony Brook, New Hampshire, Hartford, Maine. Did I miss anyone? Albany. So, no, they're a good ballclub. Albany's a good ballclub, all of them. Albany's a NCAA ballclub, and they've still got players from their team. The league is a good league. It's an up-and-coming league. I think we've raised the bar this year. Just hoping everyone on our team understands that. No one's going to sleep on us anymore. We've just got to be better. Q. In the first half kind of you guys shot the ball well, a little sloppy at times, what did you see you guys doing well in the first half? COACH BROADUS: That's how we play. You know, I sit there and get frustrated. But that's how we play, you know. One guy gets on a hot streak. I think at one point, Tiki got on a hot streak and we fed off of it. We were 7 down. We never could get closer than that. I wish we could have gotten a little closer to I change the way I wanted to do things. But it wasn't permitted, so we just had to take what they were giving us. Just how the ball bounces when you're playing a good team like Duke. You can't get all that you want. Like I told on our guys we weren't going to change anything because we were playing Duke. We had to stick to what got us here. Just wasn't good enough today. We weren't good enough. They were the better team. Q. What happened on the technical foul? COACH BROADUS: I just was saying to Tony that I thought our guys were taking charges and calling it tight on the other end. I just said please call a tech. You know, when you're dealing with professionals like those guys in the bigger league, you know, I guess me coming from Binghamton, little Kevin Broadus, and they listen to Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams and some of the greats, they're not going to take it from me. So he just gave me a technical. So I guess I should have said Mr. Green, instead of hey, you know, that was -- but that happened. It was the heat of the battle. And it was a technical. Q. Did you think anything of Tiki kicking the ball the final 2 minutes there right before you took him out? COACH BROADUS: Oh, no. He kicked his leg out trying to -- he didn't do it purposely, no. That was part of the play, you know. Kids do that. It wasn't like he was kicking it in frustration, no. That wasn't something he was doing to show someone up or anything. End of FastScripts |
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