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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2011

D'walyn Roberts

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Missouri Â– 88
Texas Tech - 84

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Texas Tech and coach Pat Knight and student-athletes D'walyn Roberts and John Roberson. Coach, opening comments.
COACH KNIGHT: If anybody's looking for a house in Lubbock, Texas, I know seven of them that are available in varying sizes, each of them have different bedrooms and different baths. If anybody is looking for any real estate in Lubbock, I know seven places available at a good price.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. John, you had a hell of a game. What was it like to have that one get away?
JOHN ROBERSON: It sucks. But, I mean, we fought hard. Everybody came with a lot of intensity. We all wanted to win this game for our coach. And we just came up a little short.

Q. D'walyn, your teammate just said you tried to win this for the coach. What were your thoughts coming into this game given what's happened the last couple of days?
D'WALYN ROBERTS: Just take it one game at a time and don't leave the game with any regrets. I feel like we didn't do that. We have no regrets at all.

Q. What did you think of Coach Knight's suit tonight?
JOHN ROBERSON: I think he should have been wearing that all season. He looked good in it.

Q. John, you guys had the ball, down three with about 20 seconds left or something like that. What was your thought process? You went in for the layup, missed it. What was the game plan going into that possession?
JOHN ROBERSON: I was trying to get a quick 2, and I knew we had enough time to foul again. But I missed the layup. Reese had a chance to follow it up, we just both missed. I was trying to get a quick 2 and try to foul again.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. How would you sum up your career at Texas Tech?
COACH KNIGHT: Ended on a disappointing note. But it was a great chapter in my basketball career. Ten great years: Seven as an assistant, three as a head coach.
It will always be special to me. It's a little different situation than what we went through at Indiana. I love the people, the city, and I love the college. It's not like next year you're going to be sitting there rooting against them or wanting them to do bad. I wish the best for them.
I worked for three great guys in Mr. Hance, Mr. Bailey, Coach Myers. I'd say to the next guy who is going to be there, he's going to work with some first-class people. I wish we would have won some more games, and I'd love to continue there. But I have no regrets. And I love it there.
So I'll always have no problem ever coming back, seeing people. I'll stay in touch with everybody. It's nice ending it this way because I've been involved and seen things in this business where it doesn't end very well.

Q. Have you talked to your father?
COACH KNIGHT: Oh, yeah. He's not as understanding as I am. But I've talked to him. But that's between us, father/son stuff. But it's tough on him. I think it's even more tough on him than it is on me right now.
But I loved it there. It's a great place. And whoever is the next coach there is going to be fortunate enough to get the job.

Q. What about -- I know you're close to Sean Sutton. And you guys are in similar situations, kind of the head coach in waiting, and then once that happens you're following your legendary dads. I'm not asking for regrets on your end, but was that difficult for anybody, much less than the sons of legends to replace them?
COACH KNIGHT: It's tough. I really think Sean got screwed. I didn't. If I would have won, but I -- see, I'm in a little different situation. Now that I'm fired I can talk about it. He got screwed. They didn't give Sean enough time. And I think it's a travesty how they treated Sean there. And I feel good I can say that now. I've had to be quiet about it. He's one of my best friends. It was wrong what happened to him. But I'm in a different situation.
But for more on your question, it's tough to follow two guys like our dads, but we talk about it, when they offer you a position you can't turn it down. We're not the type of guys that go through life I wish we could have or maybe we should have done that.
They give you an opportunity to coach at two Big 12 places, you've got to take the opportunity. And it's unfortunate we both ended up getting fired. But at least we tried.

Q. Can you say what went wrong in Lubbock or what went right? You didn't win enough. I know you told us at the start of the year you were worried that we had seniors, this might be tough because they had lost a lot and we thought that might occur.
COACH KNIGHT: We just never could get over the hump. We came so close. Again tonight, this is our ninth game we've lost maybe in the last minute. And it's tough. And I don't want to call players out, I don't want to get into all that, but I know from a coaching standpoint some things that can be done differently.
And it's really not a talent thing. To me it's more personalities and having a killer instinct and more chemistry. But I do know but for me it's not really for me to talk about publicly.

Q. Just a little bit on the decision to wear a suit?
COACH KNIGHT: If I'm going to go out, I'm going to go out in style. I might as well look good. And so that's what I did.
And I surprised my staff. I made them all wear their red shirts and I showed up, so they were a little shocked when I did it.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about what you were able to do late getting Missouri a little frantic and get the game close again?
COACH KNIGHT: Well, we started pressing them. And we were able to get a lot of turnovers off of that and capitalize and score once we got them to turn it over.
Our guys like that style of play. With a motion offense, by playing faster, you're going to get a lot of shots and a lot of opportunities to keep staying in the game. Even if they got up on us by some points, we always felt, you know, we just keep our head. As fast paced as the game is, the way our offense is, we can probably cut back into the lead.
But really I thought the guys' back end was we start pressing them, trying to get back in it, and it worked. And you're taking a chance, too, because they're such a good team, good guards. But it worked. I think we turned it over three, four times just by pressing them.

Q. You almost seem, I don't know, relieved that you've done everything you could and it just didn't work out and you're comfortable with what you did, basically.
COACH KNIGHT: Yeah, it wasn't without great effort. I gave everything I had. To me that's all that matters at the end of the day. It's not what anyone else thinks.
Fans, administrators, or even your family, it's yourself. You're the one that's on the hot seat. As long as to me you can look at yourself in the mirror and be satisfied, that's all that matters at the end of the day.
So, yeah, I feel -- not that I'm relieved, I'm at peace with it. I did everything I could. I do wish we could have won some more games. But, like I said, I really have no regrets. It was a great experience.
It made me a better coach, made me a better person going through all this. But, yeah, I'm at peace with it.

Q. Can you talk about going out with this group of seniors, a group that you kind of took over when they were freshmen when your dad left and how much does it mean to be able to go out with these guys?
COACH KNIGHT: It means a lot. You get close to these guys being around them for four years. John's going to go down as one of the best guards to play at Tech. But they're good kids. The great thing about this team is no matter what they say about the record, these kids never quit. Never once quit. There are so many teams out there if they had gone through what we had, they would have packed it in. But these guys played all the way to the end tonight. They're not quitters.
So to me, I'm really proud of that, and proud to be associated with a group of guys like that that don't quit.
So I have no problem knowing that they're going to be fine when they get out in the real world. They don't quit going through these circumstances, the real world's going to be -- I think it's going to be easier for them.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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