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

March 18, 2011

Mark Turgeon

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Florida State - 57
Texas A&M - 50

GREG GREENWELL: We have Texas A&M head coach Mark Turgeon and student-athletes David Loubeau and Khris Middleton. Start with an opening statement from the head coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.
COACH TURGEON: That was a weird game. We started out so poorly. I couldn't believe we were up at half. Then you start the second half and you get up eight, have three straight more possessions, where you can build on that. You think, well, God, we're going to run away with that game. Of course we didn't. They scored seven straight points. I don't know how many they scored. They got to 31-30, then it was 34-31. We were on 31 forever. We just didn't execute. They shoot 55 percent in the second half. We shoot 27.
The James kid was the whole difference. We fouled more in the second half and just seemed like they were the aggressors.
I give them credit. They were really good. Their zone helped them. We didn't make great decisions against the zone. Got the ball in the paint, which is what you want to do, but you got to know who's in front of you.
Didn't feel like we finished around the basket at all, except for maybe David. Feel like they finished a lot around the basket.
I'll be honest with you. I think we could have beat quite a few teams in this tournament. Florida State was a tough matchup for us. They were really long and big, and we struggled against those teams all year. They say it comes down to matchups, there's no question about that. Give Florida State a lot of credit.

Q. David, you finally broke the seal on that 13-0 run on the rim there. What was kind of going on there that it didn't seem like you guys were even getting good looks at the basket?
DAVID LOUBEAU: I think we weren't being aggressive, and we were really caught up in the moment, like too excited. And just rushing every shot.

Q. David, you just kind of touched on it. Were you guys rushing shots there? Were you guys worried about who was in front of you and what you had to get the ball over?
DAVID LOUBEAU: We just weren't being patient, just trying to hurry our shots. Really weren't being smart.

Q. Khris, after Nate hit the shot clock three to pull within two, how big was Singleton's three to come right back? That was huge. First game of the month for that guy, but he had maybe the biggest shot of the game.
KHRIS MIDDLETON: It was a big shot. We still came back on the end. I think we scored on the other end or just after that. But it was a big shot, I guess.

Q. Khris, you had 11 points in the first half, then it seemed like they focused their attention on you. You could hear him yell where's Middleton? Where's Middleton? Could you feel that at all? Were you getting frustrated at all?
KHRIS MIDDLETON: I wasn't getting frustrated. I just really didn't want to force everything. I tried to attack on the glass, not on me, but on everybody, and I shot it past most of the time.

Q. Can you guys talk about what the difference was when they switched to the zone and from the man to man to the zone?
KHRIS MIDDLETON: Just couldn't get any good looks.

Q. Why?
KHRIS MIDDLETON: They just made everything difficult on us. That's all. .

Q. Just want to ask you about Singleton's big three in there and right after that.
COACH TURGEON: We were showing hard on ball screens. He picked and popped. When he shot it, I was kind of glad he was shooting it because he hasn't played in so long, and he drained it. He's a big time player.
It was the shot. We had the momentum, cut it to two. Finally made a shot against the zone, and that was big. Because, you know, took our spirit right back right there.

Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about B.J.'s game? It seemed like his stat line's not going to look good at all, but he seemed like the one guy who wanted to try to take it to the big guys and try to force them to make a play as well.
COACH TURGEON: I thought early especially, when we couldn't score -- I disagree. I don't know if we were rushing shots. I think it takes time to get used to their length, and I think that took some time for us to get used to their length, and then we were much better to finish the half.
We just make a free throw in the first half, we're up a lot more. It's been that kind of year. I don't remember your question.

Q. B.J.?
COACH TURGEON: Yeah, B.J. was aggressive early. Second half I thought he made some bad decisions going in there on those guys. I thought we got it in the zone great. I disagree with Khris, I thought we got a lot of good looks. I thought we had a lot of wide open shots. I thought we took two or three really bad ones too. Our passing and catching wasn't very good.
But, no, B.J. was aggressive. But he's got -- I thought late in the game he wasn't very -- he didn't make great decisions. He went in when he shouldn't have and probably should have passed a couple when he didn't.

Q. Coach, the toughest thing about your season coming in, just the seniors and those five guys that put a lot of sweat in the bucket the last few years.
COACH TURGEON: They've been great. I told them that. I feel sorry for them. I don't feel sorry for the rest of these guys or me or anybody else.
Darko earns a scholarship, plays big minutes in a game, tournament game, shows you where our program is right now. B.J. and Nate, I weren't sure were good enough for play for us. They've had great careers, won 97 games. To lead this team to the NCAA Tournament is an unbelievable accomplishment. I was proud of them.
Marshall and Derrek Lewis didn't get to play as much. Came to practice every day and did a great job. I was really proud of those guys. I told them that after the game. Those are the guys I hurt for because they won't be able to put it on, put the A&M uniform on ever again.

Q. If you don't mind playing analyst for a second, how do you think a good shooting team like Notre Dame matches up against a Florida State defense?
COACH TURGEON: I didn't watch the Notre Dame game, haven't watched any tape on them. But Florida State can guard guys. They can flat out guard.
I know Notre Dame can shoot it at all five positions. So that's going to be tough until they sub, I think. I don't know if all their guys can when they sub. Should be a heck of a game. Should be a heck of a game.

Q. Yesterday some of the guys -- some of the players said that they felt like the two teams, you guys and Florida State, mirrored each other. Just curious what about the matchups maybe turned out to be more difficult than some of the guys thought it would?
COACH TURGEON: Well, we did mirror each other except we gave up about 17 inches in the starting lineup and across the board. So I don't know how much that's mirroring. Khris gave us some height advantage there.
You know, we didn't do a good job against the zone. That's what it comes down to. We've had zone beat us more times this year than I can even think about and want to think about. You know, guys didn't make good decisions. We've got to get the ball in the high post. We had it spread.
I guess we rely too much on the jump shot. That was the whole difference. They're a little bit older, a little bit more experienced than we are. They got some old guys over there. We got some young puppies playing.
I couldn't believe we had the lead. And it was a two-point game with five, seven to go. I thought, holy cow, we're in this thing. Couldn't believe we were up at halftime. Had an eight-point lead. Our guys were trying. We were really, really trying. We just didn't play as well as we needed to.

Q. Coach, how would you, if you could, put a wrap on the season, how would you characterize it? Looking ahead, where does this team need to improve the most?
COACH TURGEON: I'm a broken record here. Really proud of this group. It's an amazing accomplishment we were in this tournament. We earned it. I even thought we earned a little higher seed. We didn't play like that today. Finished third in our league, good league. Won a lot of close games, executed, showed a lot of toughness.
But with that said, one of our keys today was little things lead to big things, and we just made so many little mistakes defensively in that stretch. You know I've been on this team about commitment, practicing hard, and I was on their tail Monday to practice hard. We got a lot of growing up to do.
Our seniors did a great job to get us to this point, but we've got some good guards coming in. We've got one sitting out. We've got two guards coming in. Got most of our bigs back except for Nate. Got Daniel Alexander redshirting. So we'll be a much deeper team.
Nash got a hip pointer, just trying to play. Hopefully a little deeper team. I don't know what lies ahead. You never know when you coach a team.
For us to get 24 wins, I'm thrilled. It was a great win for us.

Q. Dash with his hip point injury, is he doing okay. Is he doing okay? How big of a difference do you think it made not having him at 100 percent the rest of the game?
COACH TURGEON: It's hard to say. He's going to be okay. He got it out and tried to play. I don't know if it made a difference or not. You know they zoned. Dash struggles against the zone a little bit anyway. He could have penetrated for us.
We just didn't have the depth without him. I think we would have been a little bit fresher and a little bit more. But that's -- I don't know if it would have changed the outcome.

Q. Coach, late in the game Nate hits a big three, kind of gave you a chance. And then seemed like they had a couple more chances to take some threes and didn't. Did you think that guys got a little tentative with that?
COACH TURGEON: I know there's one guy that did. I'm not going to mention any names. He's got to shoot the ball.
They do a good job of close-outs. Yeah, you sit over there and got team zones and you space them out. Guys have shots. It's kind of a helpless feeling sitting over there as a coach and hope guys can make plays. We just didn't. We missed a couple three wide open shots.
They're so long. Rebounds that we normally might get, they snared them. Took balls out of our hands during that stretch. It was frustrating sitting over there, but give them credit.

Q. Coach, this is your first class from freshman to senior full class since you've been at A&M. How's it been to watch these guys go from day one to today?
COACH TURGEON: Well, like I said earlier, I had three scholarship players, B.J., Nate, and D. Lou, continue to get better. Marshall and Andrew had great careers. They represented us the right way. They're all five going to graduate. Never have to worry about them, lose sleep at night worried about what they're doing. Great character kids.
That's the great thing. I'm going into the summer, and I've got great character kids. That's nice. I'd rather win with great character kids than win a little more with not character kids. We've got great character. Those guys have great character. They'll all graduate, and they're going to be winners. They'll all be very successful in life because of what they went through and who they are.

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