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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Rick BarnesJ'Covan BrownClint ChapmanMyck KabongoKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Texas – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with the Texas Longhorns and Coach Rick Barnes. The student‑athletes are Myck Kabongo, J'Covan Brown, and Clint Chapman. Coach, your thoughts on tonight's Texas victory. COACH BARNES: I told our guys right after the game that I've coached a lot of basketball games and we've had a lot of different teams, but I'm not sure we're any more proud of the effort these guys gave tonight. They really‑‑ from the start to the finish, they just really did a tremendous job in what we're trying to get done and really proud of the fact we only had six turnovers. But defensively we fought. And I thought we stayed with our game plan from start to finish better than any point the entire year. But just really proud of the effort. I thought not just these three guys, but everybody. It's a great team win, and I'm just really proud of them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. You've said before that crazy things happen when you spin, but did you have a bigger spin move than you had in the last 30seconds? Can you go through that play and what you were thinking? J'COVAN BROWN: Coach called top, and I came up and Chap had a good screen and the 3 ball wasn't there. So I drove left, three whole dribbles, and when I felt him on my side, and I had to spin it, and I did. And Christopherson came over and fouled me. I knew I had to get it on the rim, and it was a good play call by Coach, really. Q. Myck, seemed like you did a good job controlling the offense today. Talk about how well and how the game slowed down for you today. MYCK KABONGO: Coming into this game, the biggest thing has been pace. Coach has been preaching to me about pace and pacing myself throughout the whole game. And that's all I try to do, just pace myself at the whole game. My job is to run the team and get us into stuff, and that's what I tried to do tonight for our team to win. Q. Myck, when you were running in the second half, felt like you got in the lane almost seven or eight possessions in a row. Was that purposeful? Was it something you talked about at halftime and helped you get in a run? MYCK KABONGO: No, the biggest thing is spacing. When you have good spacing on the court when you're playing basketball, it opens up things. My teammates opened up things and we opened up gaps for us to drive. That's the biggest thing. We came into this game thinking it was driving gaps and trying to get in there, and it was open because of our spacing. Q. J'Covan, are you saying the first option could have been a 3 on that play? J'COVAN BROWN: Just whatever defense is giving me. Could have had closed the gate on me, you know, quick. He's a great defender. That's what great defenders are going to do, make you do your second option. He gave me a lane, able to drive left. When I took it, he cut me off and I just spun. And just tried to go make a play. And I had to. And just give credit to that. Q. Myck, it seems like all of us, all we ever want to talk about is how young you guys are. Tonight did you guys feel you have really matured from the beginning of the season? Was tonight a statement that you guys are ready to take that on? MYCK KABONGO: Not young no more. When we came back from the break, that's when we had to‑‑ we've grown up. We've shown strides, every single one of us, the six freshmen. It goes to the help we got from our older players, guys like Chap, Lex and J.B. that's on us every day and they don't cut us any slack. So a big part of us growing up is to those guys that pushed us every day. Q. Clint, 27minutes, have you ever played a harder 27minutes, particularly in terms of what you had to do defensively against White? CLINT CHAPMAN: I really don't think so. Obviously a great player. There's so much he can do with the ball that obviously there's a lot you gotta be ready for. And I think the last time I played that much that hard was the last game up in Iowa. So I don't think so. Q. J'Covan, not to veer away from this game, but looking ahead to tomorrow night, can you tell us a little bit what you see from Marcus Denmon and what he brings? J'COVAN BROWN: He's a great scorer, not just a shooter. He can put it on the ground, 1‑2 dribble, shoot it, get to the rim. He's a versatile player. But we're going to go out there and guard everybody, the shooters, because that's what they do. They're catch and shoot. They try to beat you in transition to get going. So we're just going to watch film when we played them home and when they was home and just go from there. Q. J'Covan, how would you describe the intensity of this game with everything that was on the line, and what effect did that have on your team? J'COVAN BROWN: Tournament time is always a great thing to play in. The crowd, I think we only had like a couple of fans. But they had a great amount of fans. You love to walk into other gyms and quiet their fans. So we just went out there, just gave it our all for 40minutes, like Coach said. He never gave up on us. So we didn't. It really starts with Coach. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Good part of the second half you were using four guards. Was that fouls or just wanting to maybe get a quickness advantage? COACH BARNES: Well, it was fouls, some of it, and it was a hard physical game, and we knew we may have to do that obviously with Lex being down. And we did a good job with it. And once we got it going a little bit when we spread it open there, that's really when we got the lead. And actually in the first half I think they kind of sized down to us a little bit. And Fred has done a great job with this team. They missed some shots around ‑‑ we missed some, we missed a lot of shots early, too. But overall we have worked on that a little bit, and I think it helped us tonight. Q. Rick, did these guys grow up a little bit tonight? COACH BARNES: You know, I thought it was the best. And you look at there's a lot of things that we did tonight really from start to finish in terms of staying with our game plan, we did. We really did. And I thought Myck‑‑ again, I'm really proud of him. I talked to him a lot about understanding the situations, and he came running over to me in the last minute and he said, Coach, let's get Jaylen in the game so we can switch everything. I told him after the game of all the things he's done this year, I said, I'm telling you, you're heading in the right direction. Because he thought the game‑‑ he got a little excited a few times, that's going to happen, but I thought he did a really great job. He's done a great job on Christopherson. You come into this game, Christopherson I think averaged 21points over the last five games. Tonight you look at what he did. Those two 3s came from out‑of‑bounds situations, and one of them wasn't Myck. But as hard as he had to play, because as Christopherson is a tough guy to guard, and we were really concerned about their dribble penetration. And Chap said‑‑ and the question what he said was it was the hardest he ever had to play because our post guys had to get out there and help with the dribble hand‑offs, ball screens and get back. There was a lot going on for our post guys, but they did it. As a team, again, it's just a great team win. And there's no question this year from start to finish we stayed with what we wanted to do. Q. At halftime you got 20minutes that could decide your whole season left and you come out and give up a 7‑0 run. Is there any panic, worry, just concern? What happened there, the way it started, and how did you get it turned around so quickly? COACH BARNES: What I told them, I did get upset because we started the half with‑‑ took a quick shot. We drove the ball. We wanted to be aggressive. We didn't just have the angle. Then we threw it out of bounds. And it was our offense. Because all year we've guarded. And we did a really pretty good job for the most part getting back in transition. Not every time. But I did. At halftime I told them. I said, Look‑‑ and, again, in terms of the NCAA Tournament, I think I've said from the very beginning everybody‑‑ I mean, it's amazing when people talk about who is in, who is out, all that stuff, how things have changed in 24hours. It goes back to what I've always said: You put it in the book and at the very end you'll see. But I did tell the guys this. I said, You know what? Let's just say we are on the bubble. Let's just say that. All right. Now, if I wrote down NIT or NCAA, which one would you put your name under right now? And I said, So whichever one you want, I can assure you you're going to have to earn it. And when we came out, yeah, I was upset, because I didn't think we came out and did what we needed to do. But we fought back. But this team has done this all year. Q. Following up on how you guys stuck to your game plan, they shot 5 for 18 from 3. Can you just talk about are you pleased with that number, obviously? COACH BARNES: Well, where we were able to do a good job there was we were able to stop a lot of‑‑ they turned the corner so hard. And, again, you gotta give it to our guards for really working. And we talked about it for two days. It's being on edge, away from the ball, because they're an extremely hard team to guard. And White's as tough a matchup as anybody we'll play against. But not only did it take the guards being ready, but the post guys had to do their job. And we told our guys we've gotta do them both. We've got to try to close down the lane, but we've got to get back out there on the catch. But the key would be stopping dribble penetration, and for the most part we did stay in front of the basketball so they couldn't drive and kick out. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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