|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Steve AlfordDrew GordonDemetrius WalkerKendall WilliamsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA New Mexico – 79 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by New Mexico. Coach, some remarks on tonight's game. COACH ALFORD: I was very, very pleased. I thought we had some lapses defensively. They did a very good job of running their offense with a lot of good pace. We got back and had a little bit more than we did in the first two games. We took the three‑point shot away from them. They only made five on the night. They shot a high percentage because of that. I was really pleased with our offense. I thought we ran with really good pace. We got the stops that we needed. When you're in this part of the season, it's about win and advance. I thought our guys did a job every time Air Force made a run at us, we seemed to get a basket, make the stop to stop the run. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Kendall, how much did Demetrius give you a spark when he came off the bench? KENDALL WILLIAMS: Our bench been doing it all year. So tonight was Walk's night. He's been real efficient all year, him and Jamal. Cameron was real effective tonight. We've been doing it all year off the bench and with our balance. It was his night to hit a lot of shots. Usually he comes in and hits a lot of clutch rebounds. Q. Demetrius, what were you feeling out there? DEMETRIUS WALKER: Yeah, I feel like I had a real good week of preparation and practice offensively and defensively. First and foremost, I just wanted to come in and provide a spark, whether that's offensively or defensively. Tonight was offensively. I know coach is probably upset with me about a few back‑cuts, but we'll discuss that later tonight (smiling). Q. Demetrius, your game has improved quite a bit the last week, two weeks. Talk about what's clicked for you lately. DEMETRIUS WALKER: Just practice, man. Just going hard in practice. Coach is putting a lot of emphasis as far as us taking every practice seriously. So I've been trying to pick it up in practice. My teammates have been picking it up as well. I feel like offensively and defensively that's helping me get better. Q. Drew, do you feel good when this team spends a lot of time at the free‑throw line? DREW GORDON: I know we're a talented team when it comes to free‑throw shooting when we actually concentrate. I think we struggled a little bit throughout the year. But when it comes down to it, I'm confident in our team, making the free shots that we get from the free‑throw line. Q. Kendall, it's tough to beat a team three times. How were you able to make it look somewhat easy every time? KENDALL WILLIAMS: You know, this one wasn't really easy. I don't think any three were really easy. The first time I think we had a fortunate situation with them having a coaching change. I think we match up well with Air Force. Coming to a neutral site, they fought us all the way through. Luckily we had a couple of players make plays. We stuck to our game plan. We always have a pretty good game plan of knowing how to defend. Like Walker said, we got cut back a few more times than we wanted to. At the end of the day, we match up pretty good against them. Again, we pulled out another win, so that was good. Q. Drew, what did they do different? They fouled you a lot in the first half. Was it something they were doing to try to be more physical? How did you try to keep plugging along doing your thing? DREW GORDON: I don't know. Q. Could you talk about how hard it was to get in the flow with all the free throws, how hard did that make it? DREW GORDON: You know, it was tough. They blew the whistle a lot. Like you said, our team is good at shooting free throws when it comes down to it when we concentrate. Air Force was trying to climb back in it the whole game. It was something we really need to concentrate on. I think down the stretch I came in big in for us because there were so many calls called. Q. Drew, we know you had a chip on your shoulder, the whole team has, not being ranked. Do you have more now after the post‑season awards that were released? DREW GORDON: Oh, definitely. There was a lot of people that said they were going to vote for me that didn't actually end up voting, which is hurtful to me with the way that people present themselves. It's something that really fuels our fire. I feel like a lot of people should have been nominated for things that they weren't really nominated for. I think something should have happened for a defensive award or anything like that because our defense has been, you know, so good throughout the season. It's definitely fueling us to get through this tournament and hopefully look back on it and laugh. At this point right now you can't really think about it except for motivation. Q. Kendall, would you agree that as a whole the team defense is really the standout as opposed to a superstar defender? KENDALL WILLIAMS: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. If that's an excuse, why no one got the defensive awards, we're not too worried about individual awards here. We have tunnel vision in our approach to how we're approaching season three and four. We handled business season two. If it's lack of respect or whatever, you know, we're going to keep that chip and we like that chip on our shoulders. You do see what happens when you do appreciate anything we've done. We're going to keep having that swagger to us, building whatever stories we need to build in our head, and we're going to keep getting after it. We all lock up, we all play for each other. That's all that matters at the end of the day. Q. Drew, if it is UNLV tomorrow night, how much are you looking forward to that game considering how the regular‑season went down here in Vegas? DREW GORDON: I look forward to both teams winning. I know it's not possible. Both times we faced both teams, it's been kind of a dogfight. Regardless of who comes out victorious later on tonight, I know it's going to be a fun game to watch and a fun game to play. So I'm excited for it. Q. Drew, do you think you should have won, that you deserved to win Player of the Year? DREW GORDON: I mean, it's neither here or there anymore. They came out with who they thought was most valuable. You know, it's not like anything's going to change about it. From here on out you just got to play as hard as you possibly can and take our team out on a good note. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss our student‑athletes and continue with questions for Coach Alford. Q. Can you talk about your team's ability to get to the line in the first half? COACH ALFORD: Well, if you look at conference‑wise, we haven't been great doing that. We started emphasizing a little bit more because we feel like those are some free points you need to get to. If there's been something that has been missing in our offense it's been the ability to get to the line consistently. Tonight it was great. We got there 37 times. We're a pretty good foul shooting team. The stats kind of don't tell the truth about our foul shooting because there's been so many games we've gotten there maybe just a little bit. We have games where we go 6 for 10, don't get in a rhythm. But that was the game plan. We wanted to go inside, we wanted to drive the ball hard. We're obviously bigger than they are so we wanted to attack them inside. The guys did a very good job of doing that aggressively. Q. You're down one and then Demetrius comes off the bench. Can you talk about that run? COACH ALFORD: Our bench has been terrific all year. Whether it's been Demetrius or Jamal, Cam was really good tonight, Phillip obviously comes in and does a lot of good things for us, Chad has had good moments for us this year. Our bench has been very deep. I think, in fact, the first time we played Air Force our bench might have outscored them. That tells you how big our bench is, how important our bench is. Tonight we got off to a good start with our bench. Demetrius spearheaded that. But I thought Cam had some good moments off the bench for us, too. Q. When you play a team three times, they pick up a lot of things to do different. What did they try to do differently in this game? COACH ALFORD: I didn't see anything different. They got some back‑cuts on us. But other than that, it was the Princeton offense, for the most part the matchup defense. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH ALFORD: Thank you. 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
|