|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Steve FisherJamaal FranklinChase TapleyXavier ThamesLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 65 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by SanDiego State. Coach, your remarks on today's game. COACH FISHER: Our game, I believe, is indicative of how close the level is in our league. It's an outstanding basketball league where there are no upsets. People would have talked, had they won, big upset. We had a two‑point game at our place, they missed a three at the buzzer. I told Leon after the game, I'm sorry a game that was this hard‑fought would end the way it did. Obviously I'm excited we won. We never played Boise till this year. As I watched the job that Leon Rice has done with that team, when you look down the roster of all the kids he's playing, all the freshmen, the important minutes that they're playing, he and they have done a wonderful job. Sometimes it doesn't reflect right away in your record. But he's an outstanding coach. That's a good team that we played today. It was a good team. We feel fortunate that we're moving on. But we got guys that make plays. Right to the end where Jamaal was Jamaal. He's unafraid. Drive it or shoot it, he had the option, made the basket. I thought Chase and Xavier were both terrific in the second half for us. We guarded so much better. X came off ball screens, and Chase went back to the Chase Tapley when he was making every shot he took. He had a huge stretch for us to get us the lead. We're proud of the fact that we're still here and we know that tomorrow will be also very difficult, but we feel good about our team and we will be ready to play tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll open it up for questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Jamaal, talk about the last possession. When the ball left your hands, did you think it was going down? JAMAAL FRANKLIN: I believed in myself. I always practice the last shot. When it left my hand, I felt it was going to go in. Q. How would you say the defense was on that play? Were they right in your face? Easy look? Tough look? JAMAAL FRANKLIN: Very tough look. X did a great job giving me the ball because they denied me all the way out to basically halfcourt. X did a great job giving me the ball. My first object was to get to the rim. They kind of double‑teamed me. I just shot the three. Blessing to God, it went in. Q. Xavier and Chase, are you surprised anymore when Jamaal does stuff like this? CHASE TAPLEY: I'm not. I know he wants to be that guy to hit the last‑second shot, like he says. Spot shooting in practice, he goes five, four, three, two, one and knocks it down. I'm not surprised at all. He's got two under his belt this year, UNLV, now Boise. XAVIER THAMES: I'm not surprised either. He practices it every day. Worked hard over the summer. Both sessions he stayed. All credit to God, like he said. Q. Jamaal, earlier in the game you were down. You had that dunk off the missed layup. Seemed like that got you on the big run. Take me through that play. JAMAAL FRANKLIN: We're a team that we stride off each other. I felt that that dunk made my team stride. Plays before that, I stride off of X, I stride Chase making a shot, I stride off James' defense, James played great defense today, I stride off DeShawn rebound. We're just a team that stride off each other. Q. There was a stretch in the second half where you didn't score for four or five minutes before that final shot. How did he not go cold? JAMAAL FRANKLIN: Just got to stay composed. We had the lead. Chase was keeping us in the lead. Chase is always a great shooter, doing a good job of scoring. You just have to stay composed and let the game come to you. I'm just thankful and blessed that my teammates have the courage to give me the ball at the end of the game. Q. Jamaal, I know you're going to say that was a play that was drawn up. What was discussed in the huddle before? JAMAAL FRANKLIN: It was a play drawn up (smiling). It was a play drawn up by Coach Fish. We ran it a couple times in the game. We ran it at the right time and I got a basket out of it, thanks to God. Q. Chase, not to be negative, but at the end when you threw that ball back, did you not know you had a timeout? CHASE TAPLEY: I didn't think we had a timeout. So I didn't try to call a timeout. You know about that episode. I just tried to throw it. I saw X, tried to throw it long. It kind of hit the backboard. That's a play that shouldn't have happened. Too experienced to make that kind of play. I should have known the time, having a timeout. I should have held onto the ball and made a better play. That's not going to happen again. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student‑athletes at this time and continue with questions for Coach Fisher. Q. A lot has been discussed about Jamaal's progress from last year to this year. Are you surprised by what he does anymore? COACH FISHER: Jamaal has turned into an extremely talented, confident basketball player who has steadily pulled reins in on himself to play within the confines of what we want to do. You have to have wiggle room, so I give him a little wiggle room. But Jamaal is unafraid. The point that Chase made, I think, every day we do a couple things. We do offensive moves for eight minutes, and we do different kinds of spot shooting where it's their time. The last one, Jamaal waits and waits and waits and he shoots one as the clock hits zero. If he makes it, he falls down. I think he's unafraid of the moment and he has gotten so much better. Obviously opportunity allows you to grow. He's had opportunity to do things. He takes a lot of shots but he's making a lot of baskets and he's a very good player. Q. This is not a question. This is from somebody that's watched college hoops for four decades now. I've heard major talk over the last five, seven years that Steve Fisher is not the best X's and O's coach. I want to tell you this year anybody that's watched SanDiego State basketball, you have done a miraculous job. It's been a lot of fun to watch you and you have a lot of support here in the Vegas area. COACH FISHER: That's nice of you to say. If my wife were here and heard somebody saying something bad about me, even with the new hip she got, she'd want to fight them. I've done this so long that if you worry about people say and write and do, you are in trouble. We all want to have people say, What you did. Well, you're doing a great job. I for years have felt I've done a pretty good job ‑ better than pretty good, a really good job. So it's nice of you to say. The most important thing is when you have success, everybody benefits. Everybody benefits. From the walk‑ons to the office manager to the head coach. That's happened at SanDiego State. We've won and all gained recognition and notoriety from it, myself included. Q. The last few minutes after you got the lead, you seemed to slow it down. Was it all intentional? COACH FISHER: No, it wasn't. I don't know that we did. I'm going to have to go back and look at the tape. I do know that we were on a wonderful roll, we're 11 points ahead. DeShawn Stephens gets fouled, misses the basket and gets fouled, misses both free throws. Out of the run, out of the flow, they hit a three. Five‑point play. So instead of 13, it becomes 8. Then we had another play where Jamaal had the ball. I don't mind him making a behind‑the‑back pass if that's the proper thing to do. But he did it to DeShawn, who is on a dead run, misses a dunk. He swears he was fouled. They go down and hit a three. So these are huge momentum swings. I don't think that we really changed a lot. Maybe the last couple minutes. But we were looking to score, I thought. It changes in a hurry when a guy misses a shot and another team makes a three. They did that to us a couple times. I do think that we were spectacular with our second‑half defense. Early on we gave them some open looks, and they're good shooters. Second half we guarded. We made shots. I think that's what got us the run. Then all of a sudden we missed a couple, had the free throws, on and on. You can't just say we're going to hold it for 30 seconds and shoot it in 5 seconds. I don't think we did that. At times it might have looked like it, but that was not our intent. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. 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
|