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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2010Jim LesSam ManiscalcoAndrew WarrenST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Northern Iowa – 57 COACH LES: I guess I'll start by telling you what I told the team. Sometimes you've just got to take your hats off, and, you know, they were the better team tonight. I thought they played extremely well. Doesn't mean we have to like it, but I thought they were aggressor from the git-go. And they played well. I thought the contributions in the first half from their bench was huge. If you had told me going into the game that Farokhmanesh and Moran were going to go 6 for 28, I probably would have liked our chances. But I thought Sonnen and James coming off the bench in the first half, made shots and really did a nice job for them. In the second half, I thought we came out a little more intensity on the defensive end of the floor. Got some stops and turnovers. It seemed that we had a lid on the basket because we had four point blank opportunities to score the ball. Which I thought would have cut the lead into the single digits or around there and get us going. But we couldn't seem to get it down. But hat's off to Northern Iowa for being a very good basketball team. Q. How did they defend you differently today and how did it affect you? SAM MANISCALCO: I thought they hugged me. We knew that was going to happen. We watched that in film. It's just unfortunately the ball didn't drop for me. The ball didn't drop for any of us. I thought we let that affect us on the defensive end. When shots aren't falling, you can still always play defense, I thought they out-toughed us today and got the 50-50 balls and that was kind of the story at the end. Q. Andrew, the beating in the second half of the first five minutes, they couldn't get any shots to fall. Kind of looked like that was going to be the time you guys could make a come back. Take me through that period a little bit. ANDREW WARREN: Yeah, it was somewhat the game we played them in our place. We were down in the half, and got them back in the game with our defense. And if we wanted to turn this thing around, we had to get some stops, and we did that. But like coach said, we couldn't get any shots to fall. But if you stop them and you can't score, you're down, and the team has more points than you do. It's harder to strengthen that lead, and we couldn't do that today. Q. Sam, did you believe that maybe it was cold shooting or just their defense that held you from scoring? SAM MANISCALCO: I thought it was a little bit of both. Their record shows they're a great defensive team, sometimes they force you into taking some off-balance tough shots. But those are shots that some of the time we normally make. Like I said, unfortunately, they didn't fall for us tonight and that was kind of the story of the game. Q. Andrew, you guys started the second half with a lot more intensity than you started the game. Could you take me through maybe why that was? ANDREW WARREN: Well, we were down. We were down in the score, but we had to do something. So, you know, you control what you do defensively and that's what we had to do to try to make them and force some turnovers. We had had to get stops. We did that, we just couldn't score, you know. I think we held them in the 50's going through the game. We talked about how we're going to win, keeping teams in the 50's, maybe low 60's to give ourselves a chance to win. We did that but didn't convert and make plays. Like Sammy said, they got a lot of offensive rebounds and loose balls and things like that that we needed to come up with to give ourselves a better chance to win. Q. Can you speak to this season as a whole and how it's gone for you guys? ANDREW WARREN: Like a roller coaster, very up-and-down. We've had good stretches; we've had bad stretches. And to have a good season, you know, you have to be consistent. And we weren't very consistent this year. I think that's something to look forward to working towards for next year this is Andrew speaking. But you never want to say the season was a bad season, there are a lot of good things that you can pick and choose. There were some highlights that we can definitely take for next year with the core group of guys we have coming back. Definitely take this summer and build upon it. Sammy's back, Taylor's back, the young freshmen that gave us great contributions throughout the season, they're all back we can work together and be healthy this summer. I think Coach is excited and looking forward to really helping us come together and work on some of the things that we need to correct that we learned from this past season. Q. Talk about the second half in terms of you had some good looks. You shut them down defensively. Can you just take us through that? COACH LES: You know, I can't fault the effort to start the second half. You know, we just talked about guys stepping up and making plays and getting their hands on balls and making them miss and imposing their will on the defensive end. Then using that energy to get us going in transition. You know, it played out exactly the way I wanted it to, we just couldn't complete some of those point-blank shots. And I think that got a little frustrating for them also. I wish I could explain it, but it almost seemed like there was a lid on the basket. That intensity that they came out with, I thought was encouraging. Like you said, if we dropped three or four of those maybe it cuts them to single digits and gives us a second life. Q. Can you talk about what your seniors meant to your program? COACH LES: They've been great. I think in the locker room for their contributions of the program, they're great young men. Excellent student-athletes, they represented our program in a first-class light. We talk about being a family and that doesn't end when the playing days end, that continues on. So we're proud of all their contributions and thankful. And I think they've had a good student-athlete experience at Bradley because of the way Bradley treats our student-athletes. Q. What are some of the things that you could have done to turn this game around today? COACH LES: I think initially we had some impatience offensively which plays into a good defensive team's hands. And I think Sammy said it in that, you know, it was a little bit of both. We missed some shots, so you have to give credit where credit is due. And their defense is awfully good. It speeds you up. As they were making shots and getting separation, we tried to kind of put our head down and take matters into our own hands without being patient. That plays right into their tough, solid, gap defense so they led us down the trail that allowed them to get some separation. Q. Yesterday's win seemed like it was such a kind of leave-it-all-on-the-floor-emotional-type win. Then getting down early today. Was there any running-out-of-gas type feeling on or anything like that? COACH LES: You know, we might have been a little low on energy. But I don't want to make excuses other than that was an awfully good basketball team, and we were going to have to play well to win, and we didn't. Q. I know you're disappointed with today, but can you talk about now we sit again waiting with the CBI or CIT possibly. Can you talk about the possibility of extending your season, and would you like to play in one of those tournaments again? COACH LES: I think with the emotion of the game and the aftermath of it, no decisions have been made. After the weekend I'm sure Dr. Cross and President Glasser and I will sit down and talk about what's best for the university and the basketball program, this basketball team, and make a decision going forward of what we're going to do. But we haven't talked about it, thought about it, and I hate to make any decisions right now after the emotion of a game. Q. This tournament seemed to present the Bradley season in a microcosm. Great win yesterday followed by today's effort. Could you just kind of speak to that statement and how frustrating it must be for the program? COACH LES: Well, with youth comes immaturity and inconsistency. I think all year that's reared its head at different times. Today probably in the first half it reared its head in different instances. And that's a product of growing up and the growth process you need to make as a player and just getting experience. So that is something that -- one of the things I told them is just getting a year older doesn't make us better. There are some things we need to work on and get better at. And they're not all just physical, some of those are mental. End of FastScripts |
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