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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLEMarch 20, 2010Jason BohannonTrevon HughesJon LeuerBo RyanJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: Let's get some questions for the Wisconsin student-athletes. Q. For any of you guys, just what have you seen from Cornell in your preparation, and how difficult are they to defend, particularly from the three-point line? JASON BOHANNON: Cornell is a very good team. We watched them play a little bit against Temple yesterday, and you know, they do a very good job of finding the open guy. They play very well together and they're a very smart basketball team. So we're expecting a very tough match-up, and we've got to come ready to play tomorrow. TREVON HUGHES: Defending the three. We basically want to run them off the line, make them play on the floor and make some plays inside the perimeter. JON LEUER: Yeah, they have a lot of smart, talented guys, and like you said, they can shoot it really well, so we're going to have to try to limit that and just prepare as best we can. Q. Trevon, they used a little bit of one three one zone, they mixed and matched yesterday against Temple. If they come out with that against you guys what's going to be the key to attacking that defense? TREVON HUGHES: Making smart decisions with the ball and especially get it down in the post. That's the key for the defense, so if everybody collapses we can kick it back out to our shooters. Make sure we're not hesitant, make some crisp, smart plays, and we'll be fine. Q. Jon, yesterday you had a height advantage down on the low block, and if you're matched up against their big guy Foote tomorrow it's not going to be that way. I'm curious what type of problems he might present you with that his length? JON LEUER: Yeah, anybody you go up against somebody as big and tall and long as him, he's able to alter shots and do some things defensively. But we've gone up guys that big before, and you just have to play to your strengths and just make smart plays. Q. Jason, Wisconsin has a great record this year, particularly when they're leading with about four minutes left and holding on to those leads and closing games out. Can you talk about why you feel like you guys have been that good in those situations this year? JASON BOHANNON: Well, it's always key to close out games, and we've got to play smart all 40 minutes of the game. You know, a lot of guys on our teams have experienced droughts where we haven't done so. We've had those droughts where you don't close out those minutes or any four minutes throughout a game. We've struggled with it. We haven't necessarily won the game. This year's team, we've been focusing on playing all 40 minutes, making every possession count, and we've done a good job of that so far, and hopefully it continues. Q. Jon, Coach Donahue mentioned he tried to recruit you. Do you remember that? And secondly, do you see those similarities between these teams and programs? JON LEUER: Yeah, I think I remember talking to him, I guess. But obviously there's some similarities. I think we both are both fundamentally sound. We both take care of the ball and just try to get good shots. Any time you play a team like that, it's going to be tough to get what you want because they're going to try to limit us and play to their strengths. Q. Who have you played, or have you played anybody that reminds you of Cornell in any way? JASON BOHANNON: I don't know. It's hard to label one specific team, but you know, through the course of the year we've played a lot of different teams that have presented different things that Cornell does, and so I'd say that a combination of all those teams that we've played really has helped us prepare. But Cornell is a different team than any other. They're a very smart team, play well together, find the open guys, hit the open shots and play good defense, so they're a solid basketball team. Q. Temple obviously statistically is one of the best defenses in the country just like your team. Can either one of you three talk about -- is there something you can take away from the mistakes they made yesterday in preparation for Cornell since you both are defensive-minded teams? TREVON HUGHES: Just watching a little bit of the game yesterday, we seen a couple of mistakes Temple made, and that's going underneath a ball screen. When you do that and you have a good guard, they're going to sit behind that screen and pull up, and we can't give them easy looks. We want to chase them off the three-point line, and like I said before, make them make plays inside the perimeter. So basically all we have to do is basically put a hand up at all times against their shooters, make everything tough. Q. Is there any advantage to already having played a very close game in the tournament that came down to the final few seconds and having won that? JON LEUER: Well, any time you're in a battle like that, it shows what you have in your locker room. You know, we were obviously tested that game, and we had to handle some adversity, and we stepped up to that challenge. So I think that says a lot about the coaches and the guys on this team. But we're just moving on to the next round and trying to learn from our mistakes in that game and try to correct them. So we're just going to keep improving and hopefully move on again. Q. Trevon, Wittman has been able to use his size over the course of the year to get shots off and over defenders. What do you feel like you and your teammates need to do to get negate any advantage he may have in size on Sunday? TREVON HUGHES: You know, stay in his grille. Don't give him anything easy. Like you said, he can use his size against us, but if we have our hands up in his face every time he tries to shoot and make everything difficult, it's going to be difficult to come away with something good on the offensive end. Make sure to harass him, make him put the ball on the floor and see what he can do from there. Q. Since you all were able to watch a little bit of Cornell yesterday, what was it like just sitting there? I mean, I don't know if you -- probably hadn't seen them on television all year, and then to watch them just take Temple apart like that. Was it startling to you? Was it impressive? As you're sitting there watching, can you relay your thoughts about watching them yesterday? JASON BOHANNON: I mean, watching them yesterday, you know, they show why they're in the tournament. They certainly proved that they're as good as anyone. Any time in the tournament right now is going to be playing their best basketball, and you know, that's what we strive for every game is to be playing our best basketball, and Cornell is certainly doing that. They continue to keep playing well, and we have to come here ready to play tomorrow. Q. Coach Donahue from Cornell talked about Princeton being one of the best defensive teams in the country, and he used you all in the same breath. Have you looked at Princeton at all, their principles and your defensive fundamentals that are similar to Princeton? Is there any comparison there? TREVON HUGHES: We have not looked at Princeton at all, but Bo Ryan, he predicates his style of play off of defense. And if we can't get it done on the offensive end, he always tells us you never have an off day on the defensive end, so get it done there, and the offense will come. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thanks a lot. Coach, good afternoon. If you could please give us your opening thoughts about the game tomorrow. COACH RYAN: Well, needless to say, it's exciting for our players, our fans, our -- the people who follow us all year, so I'm happy that they get a chance to see us for another 40 minutes and that our players get to play together for another 40 minutes. I've always felt very strongly about the experience that postseason gives to our players in different towns, different teams you're playing, the excitement and to be a part of this is a pretty good thing. And we know our opponent. I know the coach very well, and it's going to be an extremely competitive game, and our guys are looking forward to it. Q. Steve talked about a, quote-unquote, Philly coach. What does that mean to you? COACH RYAN: Well, you know, whenever you're in a town like, say, Cincinnati has Xavier and Cincinnati, and you look at some other cities and they have this school and that school, but from the time I can remember as a kid, five, six, seven years old and going to the Palestra because my dad would take me, my uncle would take me, you just grow up on that, and that's all in the Philly area, the playgrounds, all the competitive venues that people would play in and meet, and things -- it just seemed legendary to me at a young age to want to be a part of something that was really good. So if you could be a part of Big 5 basketball, be a part of Philly area basketball, and of course we always had the competitive match-ups with the Celtics or the Warriors -- I'm so old I want to Warriors' games and Sixers' games, of course. But the college influence in Philly has always been strong, and the high school tournaments -- I got a chance to guard and play against Geoff Petrie at the Swarthmore College tournament, played against Bobby Lloyd, Reggie Jackson, all those guys, which you remember me talking about a little bit. But the playgrounds, some of the battles on the playgrounds, things like that, it's about a love for the game, I think, from the grassroots level all the way through. Q. Temple obviously had a very strong defensive team just like your club. Cornell was able to obviously do some things to have a great degree of success. What can you take away from what Temple tried to do and was unsuccessful, and what will be some keys for your defense having a better run at them? COACH RYAN: I don't know if I can answer your question, but I can tell you this: Some friends in coaching that I have, I don't have Facebook or Twitter or Tweeter or Tooter or whatever that is or anything else, but I got some messages from some coaching friends who said, a coach's worst nightmare is to prepare for this Cornell team one day. So I guess you'll have to wait until the game is over to find out if we've come up with some things. And Fran knows them probably as well as anybody else around, knows what Cornell can do, what they were looking to do, and Cornell just went out and did it. So you've got to find a way to just take them out of some kind of comfort zone offensively. But they've played together so long and in such competitive environments with pretty much the same players, not just this year but over the past few years, their timing and how synchronized their offense is on their reads, it's as good as any team I've seen. And I've been around a couple years. Q. Is there a team you've played that has any kind of a system similar to Cornell, or is their style just totally different? COACH RYAN: We've played teams that had a system where they make shots. Cornell makes shots. They make them inside, they make them outside, they can make them off the bounce. Northwestern does some things with their offense that's similar. Some other teams with ball screens and fade screens, we've played teams that have that. But the combination together with the same group, just looking at some of their games since yesterday, looking at them last night and this morning, they have a lot of different looks that they can give you. So that's the dilemma on that end. And then defensively they do some things where they try to take you out of your comfort zone, too, which is why they're in the NCAA tournament. Q. Just getting back to that Philly thing one more time, do you see anything in Cornell where you say, yeah, that's a Philly guy coaching them? COACH RYAN: Steve is a tough guy. I mean, he's a tough guy. When I say "tough guy," it doesn't mean you're going to go into a fight and beat people up. Toughness is measured to me in other ways, and he has that, that tenacity. But yet the smarts, the basketball IQ, he knows what he wants, and he gets his players to do it. So if you want to succeed, that's pretty important. But I think what Steve can do is he can take his personality and put it into his players as well as his teaching ability, and so they buy into that, and just watching them make shots, watching them run their stuff, and if you make a mistake defensively, they're going to burn you with something or at least get a good look. Now, if those shots aren't going down, they're like anybody else. But they've only had -- we've had some of those where the shots don't go down. They've had maybe one or two. But if either team struggles through that tomorrow, then that's -- that will be the difference it would seem to me. Q. Bo, Jeff Foote, I know you haven't seen probably too much of him, but what you have seen on tape and what you saw yesterday, could you compare him to anybody you've had or appraise his skills? COACH RYAN: Well, I don't like to compare players that I've either had or -- either guys I've had to compare to one another. But Foote has good foot work, and that's not -- I'm not trying to be humorous -- good balance, good poise, in that he doesn't rattle. He can kick it out with the best. He knows how to find post opposites, for guys who he hits the post. And Jon Leuer is pretty good at that, at hitting opposite players at the post where he receives it. And he's tenacious. He's not a guy -- sometimes big guys when they're young, they're a little moody. They have their ups and downs. I haven't seen that in him in the films that I've seen. Q. Have you seen many teams or any teams that can put four -- an array of perimeter shooters around that hit threes? Have you seen many teams like that? COACH RYAN: Well, I'm sure there's some out there that we've -- there are times that Illinois when they're on the court with certain guys, there's certain lineups that teams can put out there, how often they've done it I can't really say, but we've faced some teams like that. We're going to have to have our bigs guarding shooters, and people say that about us, that they have to have guys that can guard our bigs that can shoot outside as well as inside. So I think it's a rarity, but we have seen it. Q. You had a game last week with Illinois. You were down nine, I think, with a minute to go and you come back and you have a chance to tie in the Big Ten tournament. What is it about the makeup of the last minute where a team is down by 10 or 12 and they're trying to scramble back in it? How much do you try to influence where the ball -- who catches the ball on the inbounds for the team when you're trying to chase somebody? Do you try to influence that a lot to get it to a poor foul shooter? COACH RYAN: We mention in our scouting report or at the time-out over at the bench who to foul if they're on the court. Sure enough, as soon as you say, okay, foul Smith or Jones, Smith or Jones was substituted for during that last time-out, and then the guys look over, well, who's next, coach. So we say, look, if somebody catches it and there's X number of seconds, you've got to foul the person that catches it. At other times, you double hard, have the player with the ball think that you're going to foul. And we had a perfect setup against Illinois where we were not going to foul, we double teamed, and it was a matter of opinion, and their opinion is always the right one, is that they called a foul. We weren't looking to foul, but the guy held it for six, seven seconds. We were going to get a ten-second call or a jump ball, because we had the next jump ball. It didn't work out that way. But you still have to know time and score. And there's situations that we've gone through in practice where guys have a good idea what we're looking for. If I gave away all my secrets, then we'd have to go play out of the country maybe. Q. Do you think there's any situation in the last minute when a team is down by 15 where referees should have a discretion to call intentional fouls, that when it's obvious that's an intentional foul? COACH RYAN: Whenever that's asked of me I say, what was the record? What did Maryland come back from? Anybody in the room remember? What was the deficit, how much time on the clock? Q. It was 10 and under a minute, right? COACH RYAN: It was under a minute, I know that. You know, play it out. Just play it out. If people don't like being at the game, they could have left by then, or if somebody is watching on TV and they don't like it. But the kids deserve 40 minutes. Players deserve that. Were you thinking about calling it? Is that what you were going to say? Call the game early? Q. No, I was just curious what you thought about it. I wanted to know if you thought that intentional fouls when it's an obvious grab in the last minute should be called intentional two shots with the ball. COACH RYAN: Yeah, because I think you need to teach your players to be actors. I think you need to teach them to go in after the ball. We do. We don't grab shirts, or at least we haven't that I know of. I mean, go after the ball. We foul going after the ball, not grabbing from behind or whatever. We don't teach that. If it happens, it's out of a player momentarily making an incorrect decision. Q. What would it mean for you and your team to get back to Syracuse in the Carrier Dome and play in the Sweet 16 again? COACH RYAN: You know, I just -- it would mean we're -- if we're in Syracuse, the NCAA paid for it, and that means we've taken care of business Sunday. So I'll go with you to that point. And would it be exciting? Of course. Good basketball venue. We've had a chance to be in there before. But believe me, my thoughts aren't up north right now. My thoughts are south. Q. We have a little friendly debate about 96 at the end here. You advocated it yesterday strongly. My problem with it as a fan is that there would necessarily be a bye for the first 32 up top and you won't get any Ohio-Georgetown games or any of those kind of games -- COACH RYAN: You'd be surprised what you'd get. You don't know what you would get. Q. You'd get a lot of Minnesotas. COACH RYAN: When they jump from 32 to 64? You've got to remember the tournament has expanded in the past, and there wasn't this knee-jerk reaction from media types and coaches and players and -- I mean, everybody is like, well, why or what or yeah, it should be. I've stated this for one simple reason. There are more teams in Division I now, basketball. Our players are under the brightest scrutiny, lights, heat to produce in a sport that pays 90 percent of the bills for the NCAA. Why not give the student-athletes and basketball the same opportunity for postseason extension and practice and camaraderie and be with their mentors and experience postseason play while other sports have a higher percentage than men's basketball and volleyball and softball and so on. Why? Q. Well, I can't argue against that. COACH RYAN: That's my argument and I'm on the NABC board of directors and I'm speaking as a member, not for the NABC. But for coaches, for student-athletes, for all the right reasons, why not another week or two with our guys? Q. Well, if you wanted to go to 128, then fine. But what I'm saying is you give the big boys a bye, all those 32 big boys, they never have to risk -- I know it's not pleasant for coaches of big-name teams like -- any of them, to have to risk going against a Robert Morris, and it's -- COACH RYAN: It's a really good team. Who cares about the name? There's a lot of good teams out there. Q. That'll never happen. COACH RYAN: That'll happen. There will be plenty of match-ups like you just mentioned no matter what. Q. Well, not in the first round, not for you, not for a really high seed. That's all. That's all I'm saying. COACH RYAN: We haven't been a high seed every year. Q. Well, any high seed. COACH RYAN: We were 12 last year. Q. You had four turnovers yesterday. You said that was a little bit high -- COACH RYAN: No, I said coaches would always say it's four too many. Q. What number are you looking for? COACH RYAN: I don't set a number. I just -- it's what you're teaching your players. Be responsible. If we're getting looks, let's make sure we're getting a good look. That's all, just make good decisions, ball fakes. We do a lot of drills around passing and catching like everybody else does. But I don't say you have to have this number or you have to have that number. It's just all about a point that you get across, that if you're going to respect the game, respect the basketball. Q. Can you talk a little bit about your senior class to get here four straight years, which is difficult enough, but then to win a game and at least move on, which adds another degree of difficulty and just your thoughts on that accomplishment to not only get here but win a game each of the last four years? COACH RYAN: Well, I like their spirit. I like their preparation. I like the way they banded together. I think any time -- there's so many things that can go wrong. That's why a streak like this is really neat to be a part of, because I've seen so many good teams, so many good coaches be in a situation where things just went haywire in a year or any particular year or maybe two, and things -- injuries, not go well, not make the tournament. So for this group to make it four years in a row, that's great. But we're also playing a team tomorrow that's been in it several years in a row with pretty much those same guys. And so that'll be on both sides one heck of an experience and one heck of an accomplishment. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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