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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2011Jeremiah KellyOliver PurnellBrandon YoungNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK UConn: 97 COACH PURNELL: I wish UConn all the best as they move on in the tournament. I thought they played pretty well today. I thought our guys battled. We certainly could have played a little better out there but I thought our guys battled against an excellent UConn team. I told our guys after the game that I really appreciated all the effort that they made this year. They as much as any team I've ever had, they try to do what I ask them to do and they make coming into work every day fun because if they weren't ready we got on them and they responded and hopefully we've learned a lot of lessons, not just for basketball and next season but all of our guys including our seniors for life, in terms of dealing with adversity, battling, staying strong, staying together, just a good group of young men. Q. What do you see from this season as much as the results weren't there that you latch on to going forward Na we don't see on the court? COACH PURNELL: We're building a foundation -- obviously some of our younger players, Cleveland Melvin and Brandon, those guys did well for freshmen, but we all need for them to be better. Guys like J.K. understand our system, our way of doing things every day, the way we come to work every day, and the way we practice, we've got, you know, basic offensive and defensive systems and so we're not starting from scratch as we get the group ready for next year. Now, experience starts to be our friend as opposed to inexperience being our enemy so I thought we did a good job of laying the foundation, work ethic, developing a culture that will help us win in the future. Q. Wherever you would be when you have a young team trying to put things together it would be challenging but this year in this league what was it like? COACH PURNELL: How hard is the league? Q. Yeah, for you. COACH PURNELL: Well, I certainly expected the league to be hard. It was a little harder than I expected because I thought at least there was a -- kinda the consensus thinking because -- that the league might be down a little because a lot of good players left last year. That certainly wasn't the case, it was as strong and as balanced as it's ever been and what that means for a young team like us is no nights off, no easy pickin's, and that's why I appreciate these guys battling, and hanging in there together. Because there were no nights off, no one is going to let you up. These guys battled every night and today was a good example of that. For me personally I've been through it before. When I was at Dayton we didn't win any league games the first year and when I was at Clemson we won three, the Great Midwest was a great league, the ACC is not a bad league. I've been through it before so it was probably easier on me than our guys. Q. Oliver, what did you want to correct going into the next year the most? COACH PURNELL: Well, first of all, the most obvious thing when you're building the program is the life blood of our program so upgrade our talent level. We want to get deeper and one of the things we haven't talked about is -- I'm not here to whine and cry but we had guys get hurt, Matt left, we had Devin Hill out for the year, Eric Wallace out for the year, Clev, who is having an excellent year for a freshman, out the last four games. We had a lot of guys get hurt. When you have depth you can absorb that, and I appreciate our guys continuing to battle, we're a man down, a man down, a man down, and they hung in there. We patched it up, we had two post guys in the program at the end and we played four or five guards at sometimes. Upgrading our talent level and our depth is something that I think we've addressed and now it's a matter of integrating those guys into our program and these guys will help us teach them the system and a way of doing things. Q. Having just completed a Big East schedule you know the ACC, that's your history, how would you compare the depths of the league, what would you say to someone who questions 10 or 11 teams going into the NCAA Tournament? COACH PURNELL: I don't think there is a question that the Big East should have 11 teams in. I don't hear that and I don't listen to a whole lot of things but it's the deepest league that I've ever -- not just been a part of but as I've observed college basketball over the last 25 years or so it's the deepest league that I've ever seen and I think it's kind of the consensus. I don't hear anybody arguing that we shouldn't have 10 or 11 teams in. We should. Q. What do you guys want to take into next year? What's important to learn from how tough this year was, moving forward with Oliver if he helm? JEREMIAH KELLY: We've got to keep working, next year Brandon will have to step up and be a leader, but most of all we've got to work hard in the off season. BRANDON YOUNG: Next year I'm not going to be a freshman anymore and me and J.K. will have to lead those guys next year, and we will have to tell them what to look for and to stick to the system and if we do that everyone has to stick together. Q. Brandon, this is a guards league. What did they teach you this year, the guards from the other teams? BRANDON YOUNG: They didn't teach me anything, but I can see it's a guards league and you got to work hard every day to get your name out there and make your team better and also get wins. It's hard to get wins, but if you fight and are aggressive then you're going to get wins. THE MODERATOR: DePaul thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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