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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DENVERMarch 19, 2011Mark FewSteven GrayRobert SacreDENVER, COLORADO BYU – 89 THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with Gonzaga. Coach, if you want to just begin with some opening remarks. COACH FEW: Hey, they were the far better team today. They shot the ball extremely well. We did not play as well as we've been playing down this stretch, especially on the offensive end with the turnovers. Just kind of some rushed shots. BYU deserves a lot of credit for that, getting their hands on a lot of balls, just stepping up and making big shots, timely shots. Without a doubt, when they shoot it that well, I mean, they're a handful. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Robert, it seemed like they were collapsing three guys around you at all times. How difficult did they make it on you tonight inside? ROBERT SACRE: I think I just didn't handle it the way I should have handled it. It's on me. I knew they were going to come and double-team me. That's what they did in Wofford or whatever. But I just didn't handle it the way I should have. Q. Could you talk about Jimmer's range and how that extends the defense, how difficult that makes it for a team. STEVEN GRAY: You know, I mean, he can shoot it out just about anywhere, as soon as he steps on the floor. You know, you always want to have a gap help and make him see eyes. You know, we just didn't have recovery to the other guys, let other guys hit threes, that just spreads you out even more, just opening the lanes up for him. You know, when they're all hitting like that, it just spreads the defense. It's easy to get caught up in worrying about where your man is and not so much in help. I think that's a bit of what happened tonight. Q. Robert, I saw a few times you were even trying to make Jimmer go around you. There's always been a thought that putting length on him is the best way to defend him. What did you think of putting so many different guys on him? ROBERT SACRE: Well, we wanted to limit his threes because he has no range. He can shoot from anywhere on the court. When I guarded him, I was just like, Might as well make it difficult, too, for him. That's what I focused on when I would match up with him. Q. Steven, your last game at Gonzaga. Any thoughts, four years being over? STEVEN GRAY: You know, it's been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed being a part of this program. They have taught me a lot - not just on the court, but being a man. Not the way you want it to end. But, you know, I've had a blast over these four years, especially this last year. You know, there wasn't another group of guys that I would have wanted to spend my senior year with, you know, fighting day in and day out. So, I mean, I love this program. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you very much. We'll continue with questions for Coach Few. Q. Given Fredette's performance was pretty phenomenal, how well did you feel you defended him? COACH FEW: Believe it or not, I felt we defended him okay. I mean, I think there was one instance where we got caught scrambling around in help where he got a pretty good look. But, you know, I mean, he got 34 on 23 shots. Disappointing thing for me was, you know, we really didn't want Jackson Emery to get going. We helped off him a couple times when we weren't supposed to. That got him going. Gave up a couple other threes. Just, you know, the complementary guys, we gave up 10 points to Rogers in that first half. I thought that was a big, big part of that. Q. After watching BYU play on Thursday and some of the other games you watched, did you anticipate this team would play this well in this game? COACH FEW: They played as good as we've seen them play since, you know, the Brandon situation. They did, they came out, they were hitting on all cylinders. Again, we wanted to have our toes on the line, take some things away. But that's a difficult guard. They put four guys out there, Jimmer gets a lot of dribbles. You obviously want to shade his way. I thought Goodson did a nice job on him, made him take some tough shots. We wanted to keep him off the line. He got I think five free throws. But, again, it was the complementary players which stepped up and hurt us, which we had talked about, hoping that that wouldn't happen. Most of it was, again, playing to their strengths. They can kind of stand and shoot. You have to pick your poison. When you got a guy that can get 50, he creates a lot of help situations. Those other guys have not been shooting the basketball as well as they shot it tonight. Q. Goodson had to leave with two fouls early, then Gray picked up a foul and you went zone. That's when Jimmer started. Do you think that got him going? COACH FEW: He hit one. Again, it was a short preparation. You get one practice. The zone, we thought we could guard the perimeter really good. But one of our guys slid down to protect the backside like we normally do in our zone, and we wanted to stay high. They switched the ball screen. We guarded it fine the next trip. He comes off that thing. If you're not dialed into what you're supposed to be doing, he can make you pay in a hurry. And he had a couple dribble-up transition threes. That's a hard guard. He's coming at you full speed. He puts a lot of foul pressure on you. He gets a lot of calls as he dips into you. Then he pulls up on a dime from 30 feet. He's a heck of a player. But, again, the big thing for us was just the turnovers. Having 15 turnovers against a soft zone, soft man-to-man, we have not done that for quite some time. I think that really hurt us. Especially, we came out at the start of the second half, turned the ball over five times. You know, it was a seven-point game at that point. You cannot do that against a team this potent. They scored on every one of those turnovers. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH FEW: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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