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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2010Talor BattleEd DeChellisDavid JacksonINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Minnesota – 76 COACH DECHELLIS: I thought Minnesota played very, very well tonight. They shot the ball well. They executed, and we really didn't have any answers for them. And I thought we didn't -- we obviously didn't play our best game. But I give them a lot of credit. I thought they played extremely well. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Talor and David, please. Q. Talor, how were you feeling, and with the shooting, was it just one of those nights, or did the health have something to do with the shooting on your part? TALOR BATTLE: I'm not an excuse-maker. I just had an off-night. You know, one thing I'll say is going to the basket, really finishing, I really didn't have a lot of confidence in my ankle. Or lift for that matter. There's some shots when I attacked the rim, and like I said, I didn't have that lift and that strength that I normally play. But there's no excuse. Like I said, I really didn't play well tonight. No excuse on my foot. Q. Talk a little bit about how much the early turnovers hurt you guys trying to get started. DAVID JACKSON: The early turnovers were, you know, hurting us because they were getting easy transition buckets. It really set the tone for the rest of the game, and we kind of dug ourselves into a hole that we never could really get out of. But I think if we would have eliminated some of those turnovers it would have helped us out and maybe cut their first half lead and maybe it's a different ballgame for us. TALOR BATTLE: I think the reason we had those turnovers, we came out with no toughness. There was a couple plays I think in the first half, they made -- they took about four or five balls right out of our hands, and that's just unacceptable, and that really slowed us from getting any kind of rhythm offensively. It hindered us in that regard for the rest of the game. Q. Talor, what are your impressions of Minnesota? I know you guys had a couple close games with them earlier in the year. They're sort of on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. Do they seem like an NCAA team to you? TALOR BATTLE: I'm not one of those guys that chooses, so I guess it doesn't really matter what I say. They're in our league, and hopefully they get in and make a run. Obviously the way they played tonight, they've been hot. They lost a couple close games here at the end of the season, so they'll hopefully make a run, and like I said, they're a Big Ten team, so I hope they get in. THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach? Q. Points in the paint the first half, seemed to really be killer. Did you expect that? COACH DECHELLIS: We didn't keep the ball out of the post, and believe it or not, we worked on that for three straight days, post defense. We just didn't do a very good job or they did a really nice job of getting it in there, one of the two. I think it was a combination of both. That hurt us early and they went to those guys. Iverson didn't miss a shot. He was 5-for-5 off the bench, and that was something I was really concerned about, their bench play. Their bench has been very good all year, and they did a nice job again tonight. He came off the bench and scored. Q. Talor's ankle obviously rolled in practice. Did you expect him to be as limited as he was tonight? COACH DECHELLIS: Well, he took a good roll yesterday. You know, we were really concerned about it and put him in a boot cast yesterday afternoon and last night. You know, doctor did what he could for him. He didn't have that lift that he spoke about, but he's not a young guy that's going to make excuses, but it did affect his play tonight. Q. Defensively, talk about their defense he have effort. COACH DECHELLIS: Well, they really got into him, and he didn't have the quickness, again, to go back and create like he has in the past, and that's part of it. But defensively we didn't stop them. They just made every big shot. Offensively we weren't great. Believe me, we shot the ball very poorly. But defensively is where we tried to concentrate on a few days here, we've got to defend them and rebound them, and we just didn't do that. I thought that was really poor. Q. Did you feel like there were open looks in the first half? COACH DECHELLIS: Well, we couldn't make a shot. We couldn't make a jump shot early and it just went downhill from there. But you're not always going to score. I watched the first two games, and people weren't making jump shots, and I talked to the team about that, trying to get it inside. But it's about you have to defend. You can't just come down and let people score, and we turned it over and gave them 15 points the first half in transition off our turnovers. That's just really, really hard at this point in time in the year to be able to come back from things like that. Q. It seemed like -- is dejected a fair word? COACH DECHELLIS: Yeah, I think we played as poorly as we've played all year. We've never played this poorly, and that's the worst beating we've had all year. We've been in every game, and that's why we feel bad and the players feel bad. We thought we had two pretty close games at Minnesota and we had decent practices, and we thought we'd come in here and give it a run at it, but it just didn't happen. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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