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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: DAYTONMarch 20, 2009DeJuan BlairJamie DixonSam YoungDAYTON, OHIO Pittsburgh – 72 THE MODERATOR: Joining us are Pittsburgh student-athletes Sam Young and DeJuan Blair. Coach, if you would please begin with an opening statement. COACH DIXON: Obviously a very good win for us against a very good team. Really happy how we responded to the second half. Adjust to the second half, did some things really well as far as did a better job taking care of the ball. Attacking went to a 1-3-1 which they haven't seen much, and we were well prepared for that and executing good shots against that, and so, once again, very good job by our guys adapting and being ready. Excellent team that we played against, East Tennessee State. I mean, I watched them. This is one of those I watched that team and said there's no way this team is a 16 seed. If you looked at their last five games where they dominated their opponents with the new lineup, they changed their lineup about the last five games of the year, and they were a different team. So this is a very good win against a very good team, and this is a team that's playing their best basketball right now with a totally new lineup than what they had played earlier in the year with. So very great job by our guys as far as rebounding and battling against a team that was really getting after it as well. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes only, please. Q. Sam, what did you think about your first half performance and the effort you guys were showing out there? SAM YOUNG: I think we was playing hard, but I think we were just turning the ball over a little too much. We were a little careless. We came out just a little sluggish, just not taking care of the ball, mostly. I think that's what we did as far as not characteristic of ourselves in the first half. But second half I think we did a little better. Q. DeJuan, how do you go about keeping the team calm, keep your cool? You started building a couple of leads then they would come back and hit some shots, how do you stay cool out there when that happens? DeJUAN BLAIR: Well, basketball is an up-and-down game, especially if you got good shooters and good play-makers on the team. I don't think our defense was up to par where we wanted to be. But they was making shots, and Levance and Sam and Tyrell and Coach Dixon let us keep our head, and we just kept playing, you know. If they make a shot, we'll try and come down and make a shot, and we played defense. I give a lot of credit to the seniors and our coaches for helping us keep our head and letting everybody just play. And we did a good job. Everybody played well and my hat goes off to them. Q. Sam, what was the biggest problem that you guys were having against their press? SAM YOUNG: Like I said before, we turned the ball over a lot. I think we rushed some shots, and then in the press, when we were coming down and we would take some shots, we weren't really getting a lot of offensive rebounds like we would like to. So with us not getting a lot of offensive rebounds and turning the ball over, I think that kind of sped us up a bit. We made some turnovers that were not like ourselves, I think that's what gave us the most problems. Q. For either of you, did it ever cross your mind, "Whoa, we may lose this game"? SAM YOUNG: That crossed my mind yesterday, not just today. Every team that's in this tournament is a good team. So that crossed my mind way before today. So when we came out we wanted to make sure we were aggressive, and we played as tough as we can be, and the mistakes we made, we made sure we were smarter in the second half with the decisions. Q. DeJuan, a 1's never lost to a 16, did you think, "Whoa, we may be the first"? DeJUAN BLAIR: That's my roommate, and we was talking about that. We seen Memphis had a little down game. And I mean, just put this out: We're not like any other team that will beat teams by 40, 50, we're not that type of team. We're the type of team that like to slow the game down and let the game come to us. And I mean, of course, that crossed my mind when we was down by 2, of course. But our defense stepped up. We can't have our mindset on that. We've got to have it on we're going to win this game and we got an advantage. We survived. And that was a tough, hard-fought game. They're an excellent team. They've got excellent players, and we survived. So I give credit to them for fighting like they did. They shouldn't put their head down. They did that against the No. 1 team, that was excellent. So we played hard, but we gotta come out playing hard against Oklahoma State. Q. Are there any advantages to being tested so much in the first round, then? You guys said you expected a hard game, but to actually go through it, do you feel like there's something to gain from it? DeJUAN BLAIR: Yeah, first of all, we can't take every game lightly. And second of all, we know that now every game is going to be like that. Every team is going to give us their best. We just have to keep playing, and we just are going to have to find ourselves and we're going to come out strong this game. SAM YOUNG: I think we have a tough game like that in the beginning, kind of keep you on your toes, because in this tournament every game's going to get harder and harder. So if that first game was a little tough, I think the next game is going to come out even more amped up and a little more prepared than you was the last game. Q. Could you also talk just about the difference in offensive rebounding? They had 20 and outscored you guys 25 to 7 on second-chance points, what did you see their advantage there? DeJUAN BLAIR: That's unusual for us. SAM YOUNG: Definitely unusual for us. But I think they were sending three and four guys to the glass. And I think that's pretty much what allowed them to compete or be as successful as they were, was the second-chance shots. And I think that was mostly effort. DeJUAN BLAIR: They was working. SAM YOUNG: The next game, when we come out we've got to bring a little more effort to make sure that don't happen again. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. Questions for Coach. Q. Did the slower starts in the first half, does that bother you at all? And what could you do to maybe kind of get them going maybe a little bit better in the first half than they have in some recent games? COACH DIXON: We adjusted in the second half. We'd like to play two great halves, but it's hard to do against a really good team. We adjusted in the second half. Cut down on our turnovers and cut them in half, more than half. And we did a good thing as far as coming out and executing better in the second half. I mean, they're a very good team. I know what the seed is and what they were. I knew they weren't a 16 seed. I watched them play. I saw what they did the last five games. And we could have done a better job, but, again, we played against a very good team. We responded and, you know, we defended well. We made them shoot 30 percent. I thought we guarded. But what they did, and we talked about, was they'll take some tough shots and they kind of shoot them to go get them. And that's what they do. And we talked to our guys about that, preparing them for that. And they were going after it. And we missed some -- I don't know how many break-away or lay-ups that we didn't finish, and I think that was a big part, too. I think second half got going there. We started finishing, but we had some breakaways, we had some point-blank lay-ups we didn't make, didn't shoot it great. Second half we had some shots, and again, you're not going to play perfect for 40 minutes, but I liked how we played in the second half. Q. You guys come from a very physical conference. It's supposed to be called much closer to the vest in an NCAA game, but how physical was this game compared to some of the games you played this season? COACH DIXON: Pretty similar. I think anybody that watched it, anybody that's seen us play would say the same thing. They got after it. They played hard, we played hard, and I think it was very, very similar. I think it was a well-called game. And I didn't agree with every call, but I thought it was very consistent and very similar to what we've seen. So I think anybody would see that there weren't a lot of fouls called, but both teams were playing very hard. You could see that it was athletic, a lot of athleticism, a lot of big bodies out there, and, again, that's a very, very good team. Coach Bartow is a very good coach, and this team has gotten better as the years have gone on. I've seen some games early in the year and late in the year, and this is a different team the last five games of the year. So this is a very good win for us. Q. Ashton had some more minutes again tonight, came out with a couple of big shots. Could you talk a little bit about the contribution he made for you down the stretch? COACH DIXON: He played, obviously, very well. 10 points, didn't miss a shot, two assists. I think it was a couple of things. First of all, Jermaine was in some foul trouble, and he was a little banged up, Gilbert's been a little banged up. We went with him. And to have another guard in there, ball handler, and he hit his shots. And good free-throw shooter at the end of the game, too, we figured he'd be at the free-throw line. So that was big. And I thought he played better defense. He's getting better as a defender, and that's what we've really preached to him, and he's responded. So, again, he's a very good freshman, very good player and made big plays throughout. So we have a lot of confidence in Ashton Gibbs. Q. What did you see from Pigram and Tiggs? You were able to hold them to a low percentage, but they still hurt you at times. COACH DIXON: I figured that was going to be the case. They were going to get their shots up. They were going to shoot a lot. I figured we would make them take tough shots but they're going to make some. And that's how they play. And they're different. I mean, how Tiggs play is we haven't played against a guy like him that bats you down from the perimeter. It's unique. And so it was different for us, but we held him to 6 for 21. We held Pigram to 7 for 23. I saw the game when Pigram hit 10 3s against Mercer, I watched that one. And I knew what he could do, and Smith goes 3 for 14. So take care of the ball a little bit better in the first half for us. Rebound, I think they got a bunch in the second, at the end of the game, too, they got the rebounds at the end. So that number got a little bit higher. So I wish we could have done a better job on that. But, again, I can't stress how good this team is and how well coached they are. Q. I know you guys talked to DeJuan coming into this game about laying off early fouls. The fact that he was able to do that, how key was that for you guys in this game? COACH DIXON: I think everybody pretty much stayed out of foul trouble. I think it was pretty consistent. We went through it at the end as they were fouling us. But I think that was pretty consistent. Jermaine got in some foul trouble. But I think it was obviously a big factor for everybody involved. But, again, you want everybody on the floor. They want everybody on the floor. And I think it really was the same case, the same way. I think it was a very consistently called game. I think you have very good officials here at the NCAA Tournament. It's to be expected. And these are guys that are at the top of their profession. Q. Levance said yesterday that when he's out on the court he's 100 percent. How would you physically, considering what happened after the game, how would you rate him out there? COACH DIXON: I think you have to talk to him exactly. I didn't get a chance to talk to him right after the game and get a number. So I know you guys like numbers. But he battles hard. I thought he played really well in the second half. We asked him to go get the ball more against the press, and he did. And he did a very good job taking care -- I thought his defense was good against a very good player in Pigram. This is a guy that scored 2,000 points for his career. He's a fifth-year guy. He's 23 years old. Smith, same thing. They're older kids. And very experienced team. So we did a good job against them. Obviously we'd like Levance to have been healthy this last couple of weeks, but that's not the case. And we're trying to play through it. But the longer we go, the better he'll feel, and that's how we're looking at it. He felt better today than he did last week, that's for certain. Q. Were you starting to get a little superstitious about this building? I realize it's a small number of games you've played here? COACH DIXON: No, not at all. I never even thought about it. Because we lost last year, is that what you're talking about? Q. Yes. COACH DIXON: No, I mean, different players, different teams. I'm not a big superstition guy. We played hard. This game went exactly how I thought it would. I didn't think we would turn it over as much. It was exactly, but I had so much respect coming in for this team, our players did, and our coaches did. We knew how good East Tennessee State was, and, again, this is a different team than I saw the last five games than when I saw them play against Campbell, when they struggled earlier in the year. They're playing different people. They're a better team right now than they were. And this is to be expected. So this is a very good win against a very, very good team, and it was amazing watching them now versus where they were earlier in the year. I watched about seven, eight tapes, and it was an amazing transformation. So they're a much better team than their 16 seed indicates. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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