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NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOURApril 4, 2011Matt HowardShelvin MackBrad StevensHOUSTON, TEXAS Connecticut – 53 THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with Butler. Coach Stevens, a couple of quick opening remarks. COACH STEVENS: You know, we're just coming out of a locker room that's hurting, a locker room that's got a lot of pride because of the way our kids carried us this year and the way our five seniors have acted their entire career, what they've done for Butler. It's hard to talk about the game and really care about the intricacies of the game when you're talking about the personal relationships and the things that you develop as a team over time. Without question, you know, 41 points, 12 of 64 is not good enough to win any game, let alone the national championship game. I thought we guarded as well as we could. I thought we gambled a little bit late because we had to, because we were just trying to figure out something to generate, you know, a turn of the tide, and we just couldn't. But I was proud of our guys. I thought we got decent looks in the second half. We just missed quite a few. Credit UConn for defending the way they do because I thought they challenged shots better than any team we've played all year. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. Matt, talk about the incredible run of the senior group these last two years. MATT HOWARD: You know, this group has obviously been able to do something that, you know, we've never done before. I feel very fortunate to have been a part of this and be a part of this class, you know, just a part of this whole team. You know, it's really hard to put that into words right now 'cause, you know, we wanted a little bit more. But, you know, maybe at some point I can look back and be proud of what this group has accomplished. Q. Shelvin, could you talk about how Lamb affected you with his defense. SHELVIN MACK: I wouldn't say I was frustrated. They're a great team, great defensive team. They did a great job of contesting every shot. They just weren't falling today. Q. Mack, can you talk about the difficulty of getting shots up early in the game and how that set a tone for your offense later on? SHELVIN MACK: They're a great defensive team. I kind of put myself in bad situations sometimes just holding the ball. They all got ball focus, wanted to get my teammates involved. They're very athletic. They would contest shots that people normally wouldn't be able to contest. Q. Was there a point when it seemed like you were trying to win it basically by just shooting three-point shots because it was impossible to score in the paint? MATT HOWARD: I felt like we kept trying to go back inside. We had quite a few pretty good looks. They just weren't going in. You know, I didn't think or feel like we stopped attacking inside. When you're not scoring inside, you know, especially when you're getting good looks, it can be real tough to get going and get the points that you need. SHELVIN MACK: Started relying on the three, might panic a little bit. They're a great defensive team. They were able to contest every shot we shot. I just give them all the credit in the world. Q. The second half there was a stretch that seemed to snowball. You couldn't make a shot. Was there a moment that you look back and just the frustration of, How can this be happening on the biggest game? MATT HOWARD: I don't know if anyone necessarily was getting real frustrated. I know there was a little bit of frustration on a couple plays defensively where everyone wasn't doing their job. But offensively I felt like people, you know, we kept telling each other, Just keep shooting; some shots are going to go in. It just wasn't happening. SHELVIN MACK: You know, we all have confidence in each other. If you have a wide open shot, you might as well shoot it. Same as Zach and Shawn. They just weren't falling tonight. Q. Matt, could you talk a little bit about even though you didn't get the results you wanted two years in a row, you've been given a national platform to show what's different about Butler and yourself. MATT HOWARD: Talk about what's different about Butler? I mean, I think we got really good players that really believe in the system that we have. We have a good system. We got great coaches that always have us prepared to play. They understand the game really well and they got a great game plan for us. I think you got to have a great coaching staff. I mean, you're going to have to have the players, too. But when all the players buy in, you know, and you believe in each other, I think you can achieve a lot of things. You know, that's absolutely what I saw in this group. Q. Matt, during the stretch in the second half when you weren't getting the ball in at all, was your sense that this was going to end, you just kept trying to push forward? MATT HOWARD: Yeah, I don't think that ever really wavered. We kept telling each other, Shots are going to go in, keep shooting, shooting the shots you do, it's going to be fine. That belief is always there. You know, I don't know that I could tell you that we shot as poorly as we did. I knew it was pretty bad. But, you know, we kept thinking the shots were gonna go in. That's the mindset you have to have. Q. The feeling at halftime, you hadn't played well offensively, but you hit the big three to take the lead. What was the feeling of the team at the half? SHELVIN MACK: We went in at halftime knowing we could play better. We wasn't satisfied just being up three. A few plays could have changed the outcome of the game in the first half. The 50/50 balls, we wasn't able to come up with those. You know, kind of give them momentum, get them going offensively. But, you know, it's just a rough night for us on the offensive end. I think we did a great job on defense, we always try to hold someone under 60. We did a great job of doing that today. MATT HOWARD: Sorry, I don't remember the question. Q. Just how you felt at halftime, that you had the lead even though you didn't play well offensively. MATT HOWARD: We felt pretty good. We realized we weren't getting a lot of the 50/50 balls. We knew that there was a lot of tough plays that we weren't doing. We need to get to that. You know, maybe in some way that sort of set a tone and carried over into the second half. Q. Last year you lost on a buzzer-beater. This wound is a little more fresh, but not obviously as close of a game. How do you balance the two championship games? MATT HOWARD: Uhm, I mean, I don't really know. At this point this one's pretty frustrating just personally. You know, I wish from my standpoint that I was able to give a little bit more to my team. It was just one of those days. It's really frustrating now looking back at it a little bit, realizing we had our chances there. SHELVIN MACK: Last year really doesn't matter to us right now. We all upset about the game tonight. It's very frustrating when you have your chances and your opportunities and you just let them slip away, just not being solid. The ball just wasn't falling in. THE MODERATOR: Matt, Shelvin, thank you. You can go back to the locker room and we'll continue with questions for Coach Stevens. Q. Can you take me through some of the emotions going through your brain right now. Also, does this loss sting a little more than last year's? COACH STEVENS: I think anytime you lose it stings and it's going to sting and you're just competitive by nature, so that's why you feel that way. But, you know, the only thoughts that are going through my mind are for these guys. What they've done is remarkable and can't be overstated. You know, our seniors, what they've given to Butler, what they've given to our basketball program, the example they've set. You know, when you see the freshmen in there bawling their eyes out because they know they're not going to get to play with Matt Howard again, or Zach Hahn, Alex Anglin, Grant Leiendecker, Shawn Vanzant, you know you have something pretty special. Seniors always get upset. When everybody's upset, that's a unique thing. Q. Being from Indiana, can you describe the whole experience, what this means to the state of Indiana that you got to the championship for the second year in a row. COACH STEVENS: I don't know right now I can. I'm sure in a month or two I'll be able to have a better feel for it. When you're in the middle of it, you're not the person to ask probably because you're just trying to do your job and see if you can figure out a way. Tonight had a lot of frustrating moments because we couldn't score. You know, I think our kids and our staff and our school recognizes the magnitude of the accomplishments. Q. What do you think the legacy of this group will be, not only for Butler, but just in the larger context of college basketball? Did you think about going to Khyle Marshall a little more? Andrew was clearly struggling. Why not go with Marshall? COACH STEVENS: I didn't think either of them were getting great looks. I thought Andrew, with his size, had a couple nice post moves and got off jump hooks. I'd love to put the exact guys in spots to score. But both of them are good players and both of them are going to have good careers. You know, I don't know why I didn't go with that instead. But as far as the legacy goes, they're just good guys. You know, I mean, they're good students. People at Butler really like 'em, not because they're basketball players, because they're just good guys. And they treat people right and they're engaging and smart. They're going to be very successful. You know, I was talking about all the opportunities they've already had and all the opportunities they will have. You know, some of it will be a result of basketball as far as people will know of them, but the way that they conduct themselves and what they take from this experience, it's hard to put into words right now. I think it's what it's all about. Q. On a personal level, how painful is it to watch guys you care about so much just struggle so mightily on the biggest game? COACH STEVENS: Yeah, really hard. It's really hard. But, you know, as I told 'em, I don't care if they make shots. I don't love 'em any less because we lost. You know, they've been terrific. You're not always going to make shots. That's part of the game. Very rarely will you go 12 of 64. But UConn had a lot to do with that. The credit deserves to go to them. Our guys fought and fought and fought. For whatever reason, we just couldn't make 'em in that time. Certainly it's frustrating at the time. I think what happens in a game like that is they guard you so well, when you start to get a few open ones, you know, you're not feeling comfortable. And we've done that to people on the other end. We've just never done it at that level. Q. You mentioned earlier about trying to get a chemistry mix late in the game. Can you expound on that. COACH STEVENS: You know, yeah, just trying to trap. A brutal team to play against when you're behind because Napier, Lamb and Walker all shoot it great from the line and they're all terrific with the ball. They just spread you out. So it's a brutal team to play against when you're behind. It's almost impossible. So we were just trying. We threw zone, we tried a 1-3-1 one possession. We were trying to find the right mix. Finally I just went four guards to see if we could penetrate, kick, spread the floor a little bit more. Our four guards are all little. We're not talking about 6'5", 6'6" guys, we were 6'3" and under there. It works occasionally during the season, but not for very long stints. Q. I've been watching Matt over the past few days. It seems when you're talking, he pays attention to everything you say. Could you talk what he's meant to you as a coach and to the Butler program. COACH STEVENS: I think the freshmen could answer this the best, the sophomores, the juniors. Matt never took a day off in four years. Even when he got his concussion against UIC, he was mad as heck at our trainer because our trainer wouldn't let him play. He was right there in practice yelling at everybody, talking to everybody, communicating with everybody for four years, 6 a.m. practice after 6 a.m. practice. That kid never took one day off. In the classroom, he's Academic All-American of the Year for a reason, because he works harder than everybody else. It's on the court. He's a heck of a basketball player. For what you think he was able to accomplish in his four years in college with 117 wins, the way that he conducted himself, the different roles that he played, I can't put it into word. I told him in the locker room, I don't have time to talk about all that you mean to our school. Beyond all that, I think everybody at Butler would be the first to say they'll be telling stories about when they watched Matt Howard and how he acted towards them. Q. Kind of an interesting dynamic the way Napier is used, seven or eight minutes go by, he's not used in the game. How do things change when he's on the floor? COACH STEVENS: I thought he was good. I think their length bothered us more than anything. Obviously, he's not overly long. We didn't turn it over a lot. We got shots. But he's a really good player. I think the biggest key is, again, at the end of games, if you're behind, who you taking the ball from? You going to trap Walker, then Walker is going to split the trap and go make a play for one of those guys. You're going to go after Napier, same thing. Lamb is a great player. They're really good. They're really good. Q. As resilient as this team has been, how surprising was it for you the way you shot tonight? How do you deal with it as far as the team is moving forward? COACH STEVENS: Well, I think you can talk about shooting in terms of resiliency, but I think we talk about 10 or 15 other things before that in terms of resiliency. Sometimes shots don't go in, and that's basketball. But, again, I don't want to say shots just didn't go in. UConn had a lot to do with that. So, again, the least of a coach's concern is whether or not shots go in; it's how you're acting, how you're operating, how you're screening, how you're getting to the point where your shot is taken. Then you trust that the work you've put in, the preparation you've put in, will help you make that shot. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. That's why great teams give themselves a chance to win, even when they're not shooting well, as UConn did. Q. Jeremy Lamb, no points in the first half. What can UConn do in their halfcourt offense differently in the second half? COACH STEVENS: I thought they did good stuff. I thought our guys did a good job guarding us. They got us on the one play where they curled the back screen, they dunked it. Other than that, it wasn't like they were scoring off, you know, unusual actions. They were scoring off pin-downs and screens and those type of things. Lamb got fouled on the first jump shot of the half or whatever it was. You know, it wasn't stuff that we hadn't seen or weren't prepared for. It's just a matter of, you know, sometimes he can just raise up over you and shoot it. Especially, we've got small guards. I thought our guys did a pretty good job on him throughout the night. If you would have told me, Walker and Lamb combine for 27 shots, score 28 points, I would have felt pretty good. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH STEVENS: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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