|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 23, 2011Jason ClarkHenry SimsJohn Thompson IIILAHAINA, HAWAII Georgetown – 91 THE MODERATOR: We welcome Coach Thompson, Henry Sims and Jason Clark to the podium. We'll open it up right away for Q & A. Q. Coach, you guys played three tough games here you leave 2‑1. Your impressions of the tournament? COACH THOMPSON: The tournament in and of itself is a terrific tournament. No one covering or watching the game does not know that. It's the in‑season tournament to be a part of. The hospitality of everyone on the island is great. Obviously, I wish we had won Monday night, but walking away from it 2‑1, having played two of the best teams in the country in two very tough games and how we responded in both of them, even in the Kansas game, I think we did some things today and hopefully it's growth. In the Kansas game, I told our guys we made mistakes coming down the stretch that we can control. Where tonight we made plays as opposed to making mistakes at key points. So hopefully that's growth for this group. Q. Henry and Jason, can you guys just talk about how much you learned in just three days about your team? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I think we're a very tough team. I've known that since we started working out over the summer going through the championship. I think that the team is getting better with dealing with adversity. We're getting better. I think we responded well after the loss after Kansas. I think everybody's starting to pay a lot more attention to what we need to do on the court offense. STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Same thing as him. This team plays hard, and that's all you can ask for is your team to play hard and allow other things to take care of themselves? Q. Coach, can you just talk about what does it say about this tournament? I know you talked about it, but just you're playing the number 8 team in the nation, and what a ballgame. COACH THOMPSON: It was. I think that you have to thank the staff, the committee that put this field together. It's unbelievable. It's like an NCAA Tournament atmosphere. The gym is small, but the atmosphere is the same. The emotions are the same. The teams very well may be the same. It was good for us. It was good for us. This team, our team, has a lot of room for growth still. We were very, very‑‑ and we have high expectations of each other to achieve that growth. I think we took some steps this week, as Jason said, after that game the other day of understanding just the attention to detail, that you have to pay attention to the details. Then to have the toughness to execute. The toughness to execute the game plan and execute the details. One thing I think this group does a good job of is they believe in each other. They believe in each other. As long as we maintain that and everything else, we'll get better. Q. Could you say the most important thing that your coach did for you in the last three games? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I think just stressing that we have to play hard the whole game. I think stressing that since we started playing. He always told us if you play hard, things will take care of themselves. So we've just been stressing playing hard, playing hard and competing with the other teams. STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Attention to detail, which I think we did today in the latter part of the game at least. He stresses that a lot too, attention to detail. I think this team just tried their best to do that today. STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Just little things. Helping each other on this play and that play. Q. Coach, can you talk about your defense and the defense there at the end of regulation and at the end of overtime, what to do? COACH THOMPSON: I think we got fortunate. Our guys are working hard. Depending on the lineup that we have on the court, we literally can switch everything because I have some taller guys that can guard on the perimeter and guard in the post. I have some smaller guys that are tough enough to guard in the post. A couple positions in regulation we might have gone zone. I don't remember. I don't remember what defense was at the end of regulation, but when we're in there, we have to lock up and guard them and they're going to come at you. When I say they got lucky, they have a good offensive team. They had five players on the court. They can do like we do. I thought they did a terrific job coming down the stretch, particularly in regulation getting a shot. Joe got to the middle of the lane, and made a decision on what they had to do, and that's what they wanted to do. I thought they did a pretty good job of executing. We just had some lucky bounces, and Greg Whittington got a terrific offensive rebound to put it back in, which was a key, key play to put it into overtime. Then Henry got it going, and he got a little confidence down there. The one thing I've stressed to Henry, first thing I told him after the game is don't worry about scoring. Just play hard. Play hard and make the hustle plays. He starts thinking about scoring‑‑ let me think about his scoring for him. As long as he plays hard. I thought he talked about the points that he had, and a lot of those eight rebounds were hard rebounds to get. They were earned rebounds, not ones that just fell into his lap. So that's what we need out of him. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|