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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: HOUSTONMarch 26, 2010Ben AllenRandy BennettMickey McConnellOmar SamhanHOUSTON, TEXAS Baylor – 72 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement. COACH BENNETT: I'll state the obvious. Baylor's a very good team. I think they played well tonight. And we didn't. But credit Baylor. There's a reason we didn't play well, and some of it has to do with how they defended us at length on the back line. Their guards are very good. They bothered us. So in this game, you know, you get to the Sweet 16. We've had a great year. I'm proud of these guys. You just would want to -- you wish it would have gone different in this game. We didn't have our A-game tonight, and no excuse for that. Just that's the way it happened, and Baylor did. The result wasn't good for us. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. I know it's tough to sort of replicate that kind of size and length in practice each week. But, was it even better than you thought they could be? Or was their defense better than you thought it was? OMAR SAMHAN: No, we definitely didn't overlook them. They were a good, really good defensive team and long. But we didn't hit shots. You know, it's 50-50. They were good, and that's 50% of it and 50% of it is we didn't knock down shots that we normally knock down. Q. Was there anything you didn't expect early in the game about the way they pushed their defense out so far with the zone having so many of their guys at the three-point line with your shooters? MICKEY McCONNELL: Yeah, definitely. They kind of forced you to go into different angles of the court and play in different areas of the court. With their length and size they kind of make it difficult to get looks close to the three-point line. But definitely their size and their length, it's hard to replicate that in practice and everything. We got good looks early, and didn't knock them down, but their athleticism kind of bothered us a little bit. Q. Not knocking down shots, did that make it harder inside or were they packing it in more inside after that? OMAR SAMHAN: Not really. I mean, it's the zone, so it's never easy inside. But knocking down shots or our knocking down shots, I got good looks and didn't make them. I missed a lay-up in the first half and stuff. So it wasn't our guards were not knocking down shots, it was just I didn't play well. Q. Both you guys had great seasons, the team's had a great season. How do you reconcile having such a great season with such an ugly finish? BEN ALLEN: Yeah, it's tough. A lot of emotion in the locker room at the end of the game. Most of us were crying and hugging each other. You just don't want to go out like that. I was talking to Omar on the bench at the end of the game. I was like, This is how we went out. We're still WCC Champions and we got to the Sweet 16. But it's an ugly way to go. Kind of got to look past that and look back at what you did on the season, and we've had a great season. We got this far, and that's nothing to be ashamed of at all. OMAR SAMHAN: I've never been more proud of anything in my life than this team and this coaching staff. So didn't matter how it ended. I can walk away happy and excited for them for next year. They'll be better now that they're getting rid of me and this big guy. Great coaches. They're fathers to me, and teammates that are brothers. So it's a family. Ups and downs. Today was a down. But we've only had six downs and 28 ups, so I'll take it any time. Q. There were some moral victories at the end. You won the second half, you came out with back slapping, a lot of stuff like that. What was your approach to the second half after what happened in the first? MICKEY McCONNELL: Yeah, we just kind of tried to come out with better intensity and compete a little better. The first half we didn't compete as well as we have all year. I don't know if it was just kind of the zone or we just weren't ready. But we definitely just made a conscious effort to kind of get the shooters and compete a little harder. So I wouldn't say there is any moral victories. Because no matter, if you end your season on a loss, it's going to hurt. But it's definitely good to get some guys some experience at the end and hopefully move forward for next year. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Bennett. Q. What did you say to the team after the game? COACH BENNETT: We said a lot of things. But bottom line when all is said and done, I'm proud of what they did this year. We, oh, man, we stunk tonight. Nobody wanted to play that way. We didn't want it to go that way. It went that way. Just there weren't a lot of moral victories. We played a little better in the second half. I was proud. They competed. It's a little easier to compete when you're down 30 than when it's an even game. But, yeah, proud of them. Thanked them for everything they've done. Omar and Ben have been tremendous leaders for us. They left a good imprint for our young kids. What it takes leadership-wise, what it takes commitment-wise. Yeah, Omar will go down as one of the best players that ever played at St. Mary's. The team, the overall feel of the team is what a great year, what a special year. I'm just thankful to be able to coach a group of guys like that. Q. Have you ever found yourself in a situation early in the game to go through two timeouts and not be able to get your offense going like you normally do? COACH BENNETT: You know what's kind of crazy is I thought we were getting good shots early. I thought we were all right. But we weren't getting many stops. We let their guards get off early. I mean, that's all we talked about for three days was defending their guards and how we were going to defend them, and they came out and just drilled us. So it was -- I think it was one of those deals where we weren't -- I think we were prepared and ready in a lot of ways, but we weren't really ready and you have to be. So maybe the stage, the whole deal affected us, because we didn't compete the way we needed to in that first half. Sometimes you can play well and be down 10. Baylor's good. They have good players and they're well-coached, and they've had a great year. We might have been playing all right and ended up down 10. All of a sudden, we didn't handle that right. We needed to dig in a little more, fight even harder to get good shots. Fight even harder to do what we're supposed to do defensively, but I didn't think we did. At the end of that half -- I mean, everything in the first half, we just didn't handle it very well. At the end of the half, we fouled on a three, didn't have it. You never know. Little things make a difference. We had a chance to go in down 20 in the last couple of minutes. Down 20, you can win that game. You can come back and win that. But instead it extended to 29. Yeah, we weren't -- we shot ourselves in the foot the first half by not handling the situations right as far as getting down, getting busted in the mouth a little bit and not handling it right. Q. I guess it's one thing for Dunn and Carter to get open looks and hit threes. But when their bigs are hitting 10, 12 footers and Lomers is kind of holding his own on inside, how deflating was that for you guys? I mean, just knowing that their bigs were doing what they're doing? COACH BENNETT: You know, it seemed like Lomers had 20 against six. It felt like he was a big impact. He had six offensive boards. So that one hurt us. I thought we did a good job on Udoh. That's kind of our deal. We're going to make him beat us without bringing too much help, and help on their guards, on balls and things like that. But we did such a poor job on their guards and their guards played that well. But we didn't give ourselves much of a chance, because they just dominated in that first half so bad. Offensively, we didn't help ourselves, either. We missed shots. I thought, like I said, I thought we had good shots. But those other guys -- yeah, it starts with their guards, if you can't guard their guards, it's going to be a long night. End of FastScripts |
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