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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: WASHINGTON

March 17, 2011

Darryl Shazier

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Connecticut Â– 81
Bucknell - 52

MODERATOR: We are joined now by Head Coach Dave Paulsen, student-athletes Darryl Shazier and Mike Muscala. Coach Paulsen, if you can give a quick opening statement and then we'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes first.
COACH PAULSEN: You know we told our guys in the locker room after the game, it was a really bad way to end a terrific season, and this group of guys was incredibly coachable and worked so hard and were so focused and had such a great run since December 1st winning 23 out of 25 coming in.
We knew we had a tall order coming into this with UConn. Certainly we're disappointed. I don't feel like we competed nearly as well as we could have. Certainly you gotta give a ton of credit to UConn.
But on Monday, Darryl in a teleconference reiterated something I had said to our seniors three years ago in the locker room, that they were going to see kids that they played with playing in an NCAA Tournament and they'd be a part of it.
I just want to tip our hat to our three seniors, Darryl, G.W. Boon, and Stephen Tyree. They're going to have a part in hopefully seeing the guys they played with not only get back to the NCAA Tournament but win a game.
MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Guys, did you kind of shoot the ball better than you thought was that the Big Ten surprise of the night? If not what was?
DARRYL SHAZIER: Well, they definitely did shoot the ball better than they have this year. But we knew they were Division I players, good players, and they would be able to knock down some shots. But they got hot tonight and a lot of credit to them and their talent.
But I think we had a game plan and we went out there, and that was one of the things that we weren't necessarily going to give up, but that was one thing that we would -- that they would have a better chance of. We were going to try to keep them out of the lane, and they did hit some shots tonight.
MIKE MUSCALA: Yeah, I mean, they made a lot of shots. Our game plan was to try to contain penetration, which I thought we did a pretty good job of, but they're really good players so they knocked down a lot of shots.
MODERATOR: Other questions for the Bucknell student-athletes?

Q. Darryl, there was a lot of talk about Kemba being possibly tired coming in here because he played five games. Did he look tired at all to you, and is he one of the fastest guys you've seen this year?
DARRYL SHAZIER: No, he didn't look tired at all tonight. But we didn't think that was going to play too much of a factor. I think they had five or six days off prior to coming into this after the Big East Championship game, so we really didn't think of that as being a factor. But he's a great player, great quickness and he's a scorer, a great scorer.

Q. Mike, you mentioned it before the game that the boards were going to be very important. How tough was it to keep those guys off the boards? They had a couple, three guys who were relentless.
MIKE MUSCALA: Very tough. They're a very good rebounding team. Oriakhi and all the way down the board, they're big guys, and that definitely gives me some motivation in this off season to get stronger and work on that area of my game.
MODERATOR: Any other questions for the Bucknell student-athletes at this time? Okay, guys, you guys are all set.
Now we'll open it up for questions for Coach Paulsen.

Q. Coach, you mentioned leading up to the game that a lot of teams have paid so much attention to Walker that allows for a lot of space for his teammates. Is that kind of the risk you run and you just hope some of those other guys eventually miss some shots?
COACH PAULSEN: Yeah, I think that's a real risk. And just looking at the stats, he had 12 assists tonight, so he didn't shoot as many shots. We felt like we were going to have to pick our poison to some degree. We wanted them to have to beat us from over the top.
I thought we did a pretty good job early. And again, you're going to have to make some choices, but to give up 13 offensive rebounds, I thought that was more problematic and then we were stuck on 20 for seemed like about two years offensively.
And if you're going to beat a team or compete with a team like UConn, you also have to score because that just -- it shrinks your defense. And we are kind of like that football team whose defense is on the field the whole time and the offense three and out, three and out, three and out. It just -- there's a cumulative effect of that.

Q. Coach, you talked earlier that you guys really had to get on the glass. That was the first thing you said Sunday night when you saw the announcement. Your guys get out-rebounded 49 to 23. Is it just matter they have so many guys going to the glass?
COACH PAULSEN: Yeah. They're really physical. They're really tough to box out. There is that danger when you're trying to contain Kemba Walker that somebody's got an avenue, not necessarily for a shot, but to get in the glass.
And we certainty contributed with a lot of missed shot opportunity for them to rebound as well. So that contributed a lot to the rebound differential.
But we had one offensive rebound for the entire game. You're not going to win too many games playing like that.

Q. Dave, we talked to the kids, but did the shooting of Lamb and Smith surprise you at all as to how well they hit the threes?
COACH PAULSEN: Well, no, because they were in a great rhythm. I felt like we wanted to contain their penetration. We wanted to stop them in transition I thought we did a good job stopping them at transition.
But then they got a couple decent looks, and then they had their confidence going. And obviously if they shoot the ball like that and they didn't shoot from 3 great in the Big East Tournament, we were at a decided disadvantage athletically and size-wise. We were going to have to make some adjustments and then knocking down those shots.
And certainly at the beginning of the second half, making it very clear that any thoughts we had of kind of narrowing the margin, they erased that very quickly.
MODERATOR: Any other questions for Coach Paulsen?

Q. Dave, you talked before the game about you played man all year and you were going to stick with man. But when you were hired, you said about hoping Pat Flannery would leave the notes for the zone that he used to play in the drawer. Any thoughts on going looking for those now after this game?
COACH PAULSEN: Well, I think if you look at the body of work, Chris, we're tenth in the country in field goal defense and all those types of things among all teams in the country. Best in our league in scoring defense and all those types of things. And Jimmy Boeheim's known for a pretty good zone that UConn didn't have too much trouble with in the Big East Tournament.
MODERATOR: Any other questions for Coach Paulsen? Okay, Coach, thank you.
COACH PAULSEN: Thank you.

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