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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: OKLAHOMA CITYMarch 18, 2010Kwadzo AhelegbeAli FarokhmaneshBen JacobsonAdam KochOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA NORTHERN IOWA – 69 THE MODERATOR: Now up on the podium, Northern Iowa Panthers. Quick. We'll open with statement from Coach Ben Jacobson, followed by questions for the student-athletes, Ali, Adam and KA Joe. You guys can read the last names for yourself: COACH JACOBSON: Well, obviously, a very competitive, hard-fought basketball game. You know, we knew in watching film of UNLV that we were going to see a lot of that pressure. And it's different watching it on film, obviously, than when you get into the basketball game, and when it's come being at you possession after possession. There were times we handled it very well and got some good looks. There were times we didn't, and when we had a chance to get that lead, UNLV did what they've done all year, did what they do best, got themselves right back in the basketball. Very fortunate to beat a really good team. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. Questions for student athletes. Q. Ali, I think you guys had used up all your last time timeouts by 1222. When they time the score and go in, do you know the shot is coming to you? Take me through your final sequence there. ALI FAROKHMANESH: I had no idea that shot was coming to me. If it was your shot, you're going the take it. I wasn't planned or anything. I think we just went with it, and it worked out. Q. Ali, did you think it was good when you went up with it, and what was the plan there for the final player? Was there one or just trying to get something going? ALI FAROKHMANESH: We kind of pride ourselves on defense. We were hopping we were going to get a stop and not need the shot. It worked out like that, and the shot felt good as soon as it left my hands. I don't know. After I shot that, it just felt really good. Q. Guys, that game was a little bit ugly and a lot physical. That's kind of been your calling card all year, hasn't it? ADAM KOCH: Yeah. I mean, I think our game plan always starts on the defensive end of the floor in trying to make it rough for the other team to get any easy looks. So that's kind of how we like it. Q. Adam, can you explain what happened to you guys when you got the 9-point lead, it was the biggest lead either way? ADAM KOCH: You know, I think a lot of it was when we get some stops in a row, we can get in transition looks, get some easy looks that way. That's kind of when we make some of our runs is when we can get stops and get those into quick easy buckets. I think that's what happened in that little stretch. Q. Kwadzo, you made a lot of free throws. I think you made all your free throws in the second half. Combining that with this, you came out early in the first half. Were you frustrated and what was -- do you feel perfectly focused after that? KWADZO AHELEGBE: Yeah. Getting in foul trouble is obviously a tough situation because, I mean, you're leaving your teammates out there to fend for themselves, and, you know, I just wanted to come in focused and do whatever I could do to help our team win. Q. Kwadzo, on the play where you got the shot to Ali, looked like were you kind of dribbling and dribbling. Were you thinking he was going to be a alone on the other side or just kind of your emergency shoot that opened up and there he was? KWADZO AHELEGBE: He uses the emergency shoot all the time. I don't know how that happened. I was trying to dribble out the shot clock. There was no shot clock. I think it was about 35 seconds left. I was trying to dribble it out. They were trying to double me, get me off the ball, and eventually I had to get off the ball because they kept running the big guy to me. I gave to it Johnny, and he got it to the best shooter in the country. Q. Ali, growing up in this state, and we all kind of heard the stories of Maurice Newbie and all, has it dawned on you, you kind of joined that place now, you've made a shot that people talk about for years? ALI FAROKHMANESH: I don't know about that, but, I mean, I'm just happy that we won the game. That was such a tough battle, and honestly, I was thinking when we were in the locker room, I was so excited to know that we won the game. Q. You guys are experienced, you've been together for awhile. The senior leadership, how important was that? KWADZO AHELEGBE: I'm not a senior, but I've been here for awhile. But it's huge. You know, getting in situations like that, we've been in plenty of situations these past two years, overtime and down 9, you know, up 6 and those things come into play, especially in these situations and these type of games when everything has to be laying on the line because it's the last game for you. It came up big. THE MODERATOR: Do we have more questions for the student-athletes? Okay, guys, thank you. Questions for Coach Jacobson. Q. It looked like Kwadzo sort of took over the game down the stretch with his dribble. I mean, attack the rim, doing whatever. Was I just not watching him closely enough, was he doing that all game or did something change down the stretch? COACH JACOBSON: You know, Greg, we didn't see a lot of it in the first half because of the foul trouble. He went to the bench with eight, nine minutes to go in the first half. Fortunately, we were able to survive and just be down 1 at half. He didn't play as much as he's normally going to in the first half. He had a lot of energy. We knew that our best chance in playing against UNLV with their trapping and the run and jump and the things they were doing defensively in the full court, our best chance was to attack the rim. Kwadzo, as we saw today, Kwadzo is our best guy to do that, and he was able to get loose and make some good plays for us. Q. Your first -- your school's first NCAA win in 20 years. Are you a history guy? Is that something you pay attention to? COACH JACOBSON: I think, you know, it gets talked about a lot around our place and in a positive way, Tony. It's something that our program is very proud of, the win that we had 20 years ago against Missouri. And so it gets talked about, it gets written about, and it should. That was a -- certainly a building block in our program and something that even these guys, even though they wouldn't of course know anything about it, but what they've read, they take a lot of pride in that. And so being able to win a game in the tournament now after 20 years is -- I think it's significant. I think as you continue to build your program, it's a big part of that. Q. Coach, are you aware, you probably seen that Maury Newbie shot a bunch of times. Ali hit it about the same spot roughly, probably about a foot deeper. Is that kind of wild to think about? COACH JACOBSON: I guess I hadn't thought about that. You know, Ali said it, and I'm obviously thrilled that the shot went in and these guys are really happy that our team won, of course, and that's really what -- where our thoughts are. Q. Coach, did you see Greg McDermott was there. Did you know ahead of time he was going to be watching from the stands? COACH JACOBSON: I had talked to Mack and knew he was going to be here, yes. Q. Does that help? COACH JACOBSON: No question. I mean, there's -- there's no bigger supporter or fan of this basketball program than Mack. He's been on the recruiting trail and watching a bunch of games and able to sneak away to be here, and that continues to mean a lot to our program. As I've talked about this, this guy started nine years ago because of what Greg McDermott did with our program. He changed a lot of things about this basketball program in five years. Because of that, we're in the position that we're in today. It certainly means a lot that he's here, yeah. Q. Can you take us inside your huddle with the no-timeout situation and your philosophy? Multiple times do you have to remind them so you don't have a Chris Webber moment? In that sequence, what are you talking about to your kids? COACH JACOBSON: Yeah. Remind them every chance we can. There were a couple different opportunities with a timeout that UNLV had called and the stoppage to check the clock. There was two, three opportunities to have the guys in the huddle and remind when they come in, remind them when they go out, certainly. reminding the officials that no matter what I say or do, don't give me a timeout. Anything you can, everything you can, because you're so used to having a timeout at that point in the basketball game. So, you know, these guys are experienced. That helps. But you're not in that situation very often, so you want it to play out the way it did tonight. Obviously making the shot makes it great for us, but you want it to play out without anything crazy happening at the end of the game. Q. Coach, in that last 30 seconds, were they truly improvising, or do you have a set thing that you guys run that you do no timeouts, things like that getting the ball in or was it really just a fire drill? COACH JACOBSON: It was a lot of -- closer to a fire drill than a set call. Now, the thing that was different about it, you saw a couple possessions before that where we had our three guards high on the floor and we had Koch and Luc down on in the corners. That's that we were going to do again, let it get all the way down with Kwadzo, and a lot of times you'll have the freedom to do that when the basketball game is tied. Well, Coach Kruger obviously with his experience and knowing his basketball team, he kept sending a guy at Kwadzo to make it really difficult to run the timeout. So we were going to go with our three guards high on the floor and put our two bigs in the corner and run the clock that way. They didn't let us do it very well. That's why it looked as hectic as it did. Kwadzo, that was an unbelievable possession by Kwadzo to keep the five count off, to finish it with the play to get to Ali. That was an unbelievable possession by him. Q. Coach, an emotional win, last second isk shot. For your troubles now, you're going to get the No. 1 one team in the nation. Just a couple of thoughts on that. COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, if that's who it is, most likely that's who it's going to be. Regardless of whether it was us or UNLV that won our game, it was going to be a nice reward, if you will, for either one of us to get Kansas. You know, we'll dig into the film tonight. I've seen them play throughout the course of the season. They're a terrific basketball team. We'll put together a game plan, and we've got a day and a half to do that, and we'll play as hard as we can on Saturday. THE MODERATOR: Last couple of questions for Coach? Okay, Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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