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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTON

March 15, 2011

Steve Shields

DAYTON, OHIO

UNC Asheville Â– 81
UALR - 77

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UALR coach Steve Shields and student-athletes D'Andre Williams, Solomon Bozeman and Alex Garcia-Mendoza. Coach, an opening statement.
COACH SHIELDS: I guess I'll start by talking about these five seniors that we had on this year's team and the run they made right here toward the end of the season. I couldn't be more proud of these guys, their tenacity, their togetherness, and their toughness through the end of the season.
I have to give Asheville a lot of credit. They showed some toughness of their own by their finishing it when you've got Primm and Dickey as excellent guards, both of them had 22 points.
But I think coming off our year we had a year ago where these five seniors were juniors and the recommitment they made coming out of that season after we lost Mike Smith in our first conference game to start last season and how we didn't handle adversity as well as we would have liked, I'm proud of these guys. Solomon and Alex were captains and Courtney Jackson, a junior, and I think they've led this team extremely well.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Solomon, how would you describe how Dickey got away from you guys in the second half? What was he doing?
SOLOMON BOZEMAN: Just coming off of a lot of ball screens. He made some big-time plays coming off of ball screens and coming out of staggers. And we wasn't able to contain him.

Q. Coach, how much would you contribute this loss to Leeper and Bozeman not being in in the end?
COACH SHIELDS: Obviously that hurt us not having those guys in the game. I mean, anytime you've got a guy who is Player of the Year in the league and MVP of our conference tournament sitting over there with us, it certainly hurts your team. And Gus has been very solid for us lately, especially defending ball screens and positioning from a defensive standpoint.
And as Solomon alluded to, we didn't guard their ball screens in the second half as well as we have been as of late and as well as we needed to tonight.
When you look at the first half, and we had held them to 35, 37 most of the half, percentage from the floor. A goal of ours is 40 percent or less, and the last three and a half minutes they made a little run. It's 45 percent from the floor in the first half, and then 55 percent from the floor in the second half, and then 2 for 3, 67 in overtime.
And we just struggled to guard in the second half and get stops without fouling.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. Steve, being here with this First Four concept and participating in it for the first time, improvement over the play-in game? I know you weren't in the play-in game before, but what were your thoughts on the whole setup here?
COACH SHIELDS: We haven't been in a play-in game. I'm sorry. I thought you said we were in a play-in game. We were excited to be here.
And we weren't just satisfied with being here. And that's the thing that I think these five seniors showed with their start of the game. I mean, we came here expecting to win, as Asheville did.
And that's why there's so much disappointment in our locker room over there. And gave ourselves a chance to win. You think about down there at the end the way the finish was with -- I believe it was Dickey that knocked down the 3 to tie the game, 10 seconds left, and we come back and run a little rub action and get D'Andre in the paint who pitches to an open look in the corner.

Q. You guys shot 53 percent the first half. What did they do in the second half to limit your shots and make you only go 8 of 22?
COACH SHIELDS: Well, I think, number one, they went to the zone. They played more zone in the second half. I thought we did an excellent job starting the game, really sharing the basketball. At one point in the first half we had nine assists and one turnover.
We finished the first -- and we had a stretch there where they made a run at us where we weren't as sound defensively, and we didn't share the ball as well as we were to start the game, but we finished the half with 12 assists and six turnovers.
In the second half, I thought we had some decent looks. There were several possessions where we really moved the ball versus zone. We get a good look. I can think back to Gus knocking down a short corner shot off of several passes.
But we weren't able to get the ball to the paint as much as we wanted versus their zone. Cunningham has four fouls I think with 11 minutes to go, and we were trying to go back inside toward him and go at him, and we never could get real good looks in there.
And so much of what we do with the strength, for those of you who haven't seen us much throughout the year, we've been a very good 3-point shooting team throughout the entire year. And the strength of our team is our guard play this year.
I thought Marlo did a good job with some good looks inside. And he couldn't get it to the paint as often as we wanted versus their zone.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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