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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2010Jim ChristianRonnie MossEdvinas RuzgasLAS VEGAS, NEVADA BYU – 95 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by TCU head Coach Christian and student-athletes. We'll start with an opening comment about your thoughts on the game, Coach Christian. COACH CHRISTIAN: I mean, I thought it was one of those games I thought our kids competed. Obviously in the second half Jimmer took over the game. He's a great player. It's difficult 'cause we tried everything we could do. You trap him. The other guys, they hit so many timely shots as a team, it's hard to take out one guy, especially when he can pass the ball and the other guys can play. I was proud of how our kids competed. We came ready to play, which I knew they would, especially coming off the game they embarrassed us at our place. Just didn't have enough depth to sustain it for 40 minutes. So obviously BYU is a fantastic team and a very, very, very good offensive team in all aspects of the game. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. Tuffy, you talked about how you needed to respond every time you took a punch. Do you think you did that for the first 30 minutes tonight? RONNIE MOSS: Yeah, for the most part throughout the game I thought every time they went on a run, we didn't back down, we came right back at 'em. Towards the end, it just didn't happen for us. But we still fought. Q. Ronnie, you and Jimmer seemed to have quite the battle in the first half. Can you talk about the battle that you had. RONNIE MOSS: You know, it was just me trying to do things for my team as best as possible. And it was not so much him going at me or him trying to go at me. I think we were both trying to compete and trying to play to win. Q. Can you also talk about maybe what changed in the second half. RONNIE MOSS: We just didn't hit shots and they hit shots towards the end. Q. Ed, can you talk about the difference between last Saturday and then tonight for you guys. What was your number one priority coming in? Did you accomplish it? EDVINAS RUZGAS: The main thing for us was definitely to compete because after losing by 30 points at home, I mean, everybody had to come together and just play their hardest. I think we did that for the most part, except like we couldn't stop Jimmer. He had his night. That led to the loss for us. THE MODERATOR: We'll let the student-athletes go. We'll continue with questions for Coach Christian. Q. Have you seen an opponent, one player, this season take over a game like that against y'all? COACH CHRISTIAN: No, not this season. I mean, he's a special guy. He has a unique ability to get angles to the basket. Again, I think a lot of it has to be given credit to the whole team. The system is good. They also have so many other weapons that when you help, he finds the right guy. It's more than just Jimmer Fredette. He's a great player, but the other pieces that go with it make him such a good player. All year long, different guys have dominated games, but nobody dominated points like that. There's some great players in this league. There's some guys who can dominate games, he's without question one of them. Tonight he was just terrific. He plays at a great pace. He gets great angles to the basket. You know, he splits traps, found open men. He played a fantastic game. Q. Where did you start with this team after losing at home to BYU by 30? COACH CHRISTIAN: You know, I think I didn't have to do much. They were really disappointed with the effort they put forth. My job was just to rebuild their confidence a little bit, get them ready to play. We did. We pulled out all the positives from the game. We did a lot of good things in that game, though it was so glaring they beat us so bad. With 24 turnovers you're not going to look good at times. That's where we're starting. The main goal was not to give them a lot of points off our own turnovers. That's why we were able to be in the game and have a one-pointed lead at the half. I think in the second half, they're so good, good teams can dominate you for a stretch, and that's what BYU does. They take one stretch of the game where they can dominate you and that's when I think the lead blew up to 12. From that point on they make you play catchup. So now the things you do are a little bit rushed, the shots you get are a little bit tighter. They're able to do that. That's the ability that great teams have. That's what I want our team to learn. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach Christian. COACH CHRISTIAN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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