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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTON

March 16, 2011

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by ASU coach Lewis Jackson and student-athletes Jeff Middlebrooks and Tramayne Moorer. Coach, an opening statement.
COACH JACKSON: Well, that was a tough loss. I thought that we came out a little lethargic, playing too tight and too timid.
And Texas San Antonio took advantage of the things we were not doing well. We were not transitioning back on defense well. And we were not covering their shooters very well.
So the first half they got -- everything that they put up seemed to fall for them, and we were trying to stop the bleeding, and we would make a run or two, but we'd turn around and make a bad play and they would get right back into it, what they were doing. And Johnson just had a phenomenal game there in the first half. He had 25 to our 21.
But we wanted to try to regroup at halftime and come back, and the guys came out with a little bit more energy, a lot more fight, and tried to put the pressure on them, tried to get the ball inside to our bigs to make some baskets. Jeff was able to get some shots to go down from the perimeter. And our intensity started to pick up as we started to score a little bit. But we put on the fire line there too much in the second half.
But I have to take my hat off to Texas San Antonio. They had a good game plan and very well coached. And I take my hat off to the men here for Alabama State. They came out and fought and left it out on the floor there in the second half.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Tramayne, you guys had to think you had a real shot there, you cut it to nine and you guys had the ball, and just take it from there. What was going on from there on?
TRAMAYNE MOORER: Can you repeat that question one more time.

Q. You cut it to nine and you got the ball back, took the shot. Just explain the action from your vantage point.
TRAMAYNE MOORER: I'll start the first part of the game. We started the game off slow, for one. And, two, we didn't do the things we were capable of doing like playing defense, like we used to play in the previous season, play defense. We don't let one guy get 25 points in the first half. He outscored us.
And the last five minutes I felt like we played really hard. The remainder of the second half we played hard. When it got down to nine points, I felt we could have did some things but we didn't get the calls we should.
But I take my hat off to Texas San Antonio. They played a good game.

Q. When it was almost -- you guys were almost down 30 in the first half. Were you starting to get the feeling that we made it all this way and we're going to get blown out?
JEFF MIDDLEBROOKS: I mean, we really just started out slow. We pretty much felt like we could be in the game, but we put ourselves in kind of a bad situation. Being in the second half we have to make all of our shots. I had some good open looks. I just missed him. He had some good looks and he just missed them.
But we shouldn't have put ourselves in the position where we had to make all of our shots being down by 30 in the second half.
TRAMAYNE MOORER: First half, we didn't make no shots, what was the percentage, Coach?
COACH JACKSON: 18, 20.
TRAMAYNE MOORER: 18, 20 percent from the field in the first half, that's bad.
We couldn't get no 3-pointers to fall. And nobody couldn't make nothing. The second half was our half. I felt like if we played the first half like we played the second, we would have come out on top. It would have been better for our game.

Q. How do you account for that first half just coming out so lethargically or however you describe it? It's a big game, NCAA Tournament. Did you see that coming at all in practice or warmups or anything?
JEFF MIDDLEBROOKS: I don't feel like we came out bad. I feel like I put our team in a bad situation because I picked up two early fouls. If I would have been in the game, I would have been able to control a lot of the momentum of the game, and I really hurt the team by picking up two early fouls with 18 minutes left in the first half.

Q. How do you think these guys will match up with Ohio State? You've probably seen Ohio State on television. How do you think UTSA will match up with them?
JEFF MIDDLEBROOKS: It should be a pretty hard-fought game. No. 31, if he's on like he was tonight, it should be a pretty good game.
TRAMAYNE MOORER: To me, I feel like they both are college teams, they both put their shoes on the same way. But who knows. They both just gotta play the game. Whoever gets out on top is the better team.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, Jeff kind of offered his opinion, but it was a lot more than just not controlling the tempo, like you said. Defensively they were just getting a lot of open looks and just that first half, very lethargic, across the board. What do you attribute that to?
COACH JACKSON: Well, I'm not sure -- it's just hard to put a finger on it. But our intensity was not there like we normally would come out of the game with, with a high level of intensity and things like that. And we were missing assignments. They were down screening, sending stagger screens. And the guys were trying to switch, and we had two going to one, and one guy was coming open on the other side.
And, again, Johnson just got good look after good look, and he also made some tough shots.
And when we're unable to score and teams are scoring, sometimes guys, they hang their heads and things started to go south for you.
But just to pinpoint one particular thing, we was not getting any offensive boards, nor were we getting defensive boards. I think they had six to eight offensive rebounds in the first half.
And that's what we normally do, crash the offensive boards well and put our guys in position to get second and third attempts.
But they were doing all the things in the first half there that we normally try to do when we start the game initially.

Q. Can you talk about -- you've already mentioned Johnson a little bit. Can you talk about the job you guys didn't do on him? And then, conversely, the job you were able to do containing Devin Gibson?
COACH JACKSON: Well, our game plan was to -- what we didn't do was our game plan was to be physical with them there in the first half. Because he's a great player, great slasher, he has a good step-back jumper. But he made some tough shots.
When you're defending guys, they make tough shots. You want to continue to play the same type of defense and make them make tough shots every time. But he got some good looks. He got a dunk going to the basket there, and just got on a roll.
And it trickled down to everyone else because all the other shots they were putting up they were falling as well. He had a lot to go, and they made one right there at the halftime with the shot clock running, the first half running out.
So everything was going their way. And we wanted to come out in the second half and try to shut them down, try to be more physical trying to keep them from getting the basketball, and we were able to do that for a good part of it. But Gibson controlled the game for them and made good decisions with the basketball.

Q. The pressure, especially when you stepped it up, it didn't seem to bother them. You had to like that aspect of it, didn't you?
COACH JACKSON: I thought we played a good second half. We wanted to score and get into our man press and try to create some turnovers. And it worked there for a while. But we had cut it to 20, with 17 and some change left, we stopped them three or four times, but we came down and turned the ball over three or four times.
So we didn't get anything out of it. But overall in the second half I thought our energy was good, our effort was great.
We executed there. We missed some easy shots. And like Jeff alluded to earlier, when you're down that many points, you have to do almost everything right to come back and win it. You can push and fight there, but you gotta make almost every shot and hope that they miss some. But they did enough to hold on and keep the lead stretched out to four or five possessions.

Q. Do you mind me asking, from your vantage point, how do you think UTSA matches up with Ohio State? I would think you looked a little bit at Ohio State, but what's your feeling at that?
COACH JACKSON: Basketball is a funny game. There's always teams that you expect to win and they go out and may lay an egg, and teams you don't expect to do anything and they go out and play well.
So I anticipate a good, scrappy game. Texas San Antonio, they play hard. They have a good offense. They play great defense. But it's just going to be a hard-fought battle.
I don't want to say who is going to win. I don't really know. I just hope that it will be a great game and the best team will win on Friday.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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