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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Anthony MarshallMike MoserDave RiceLAS VEGAS, NEVADA UNLV – 56 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UNLV. Coach, some remarks on tonight's game. COACH RICE: Absolutely. I think the first thing is, extremely proud of our guys. For a majority of the game our defense was as good as it's been all year long. When you hold a team like Wyoming with the balance they have on offense with Waddell and Washington inside, Cruz and Martinez, you hold them to 3‑24, you've done something right. We shot 40% both halves. That's a credit to Wyoming's defense. At times this year, as you saw tonight, something happens to us. We get a big lead and we miss some shots and we just didn't guard the same way. Yet very proud of our resiliency to come back and close it out at the end. Even when we hit stretches in the first half when we didn't make shots, we continued to guard. These two guys were terrific tonight. Anthony has become such a good leader for us this year, become a go‑to guy. He's been terrific. Then Mike played like Mike. He was terrific tonight in terms of all the things that he brought. The thing probably with Anthony, along with Mike, those are our two best rebounders on our team. They've both been in double figures in rebounding the last few weeks. Credit to Wyoming. We played them Saturday. We knew what a difficult game it was going to be with the turnaround. It's one of those deals where we watched a lot of film of Wyoming before we played them, knew how good they were from when they beat us in Laramie. Almost became paralysis by analysis with our staff. Tried to find something to do to counter what they do, but our defense was terrific tonight. Got some run‑outs when we couldn't get off to a good start offensively in the first half. We continued to guard. So for tomorrow we know what a challenge it will be against a very good Lobos team. We saw the games today. Other than the second game, SanDiego State is terrific, wins at the buzzer against Boise, then New Mexico built a big lead like we did, and then Air Force was resilient, came back, made a little bit of a game of it, and then New Mexico won going away. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Mike, what were you doing defensively in the first half? MIKE MOSER: We really just came out intense on defense, just bodying through a lot of screens. Wyoming really does a good job of setting away from the ball screens. We'll trying to be physical and not give up any easy shots. ANTHONY MARSHALL: Yeah, kind of what Mike said. I felt like our defense triggered our offense. If you watch the games where we play our best, we play really good defense. When you stop on the defensive end, it allows you to get rebounds or deflections and make something happen in transition. That's our game right there, playing in transition. Credit goes to our defense. Q. Mike, you had a tough stretch in February, since March two straight double‑doubles now. What's different now? MIKE MOSER:  I don't know. Maybe a little fatigue. Maybe a little something else. I don't know. I just struggled in February. But I feel like I got my legs back, my confidence back. My teammates were positive with me the whole time. I think that helped a lot, too. I mean, I kind of left February in February and just trying to get it going right now. Q. Can you talk about the third meeting with New Mexico. How much have you been wanting to face them again? ANTHONY MARSHALL: Been wanting to face them again since the buzzer sounded in New Mexico. We're looking forward to the challenge, which is to get to Saturday, to be the last team standing, we got to get through them. Like I said, it's going to be a good challenge for us. MIKE MOSER: Just the same thing really. We've had that bad taste in our mouth for a long time now. Getting back on the court back against them is definitely really going to get our blood going and I think we're going to come out and be really ready for this game. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student‑athletes and take questions for Coach Rice. Q. I believe there was a time in the first half when Mike had 16 points to Wyoming's 9 or 11. How does that sort of individual performance affect the rest of the team going in towards the end of the first half? COACH RICE: I think the thing that got us the lead was the fact we were taking good shots. One of the things that at times has been a negative by‑product for us for the offensive system we're trying to play this year is we do have a difficult time managing shot selection sometimes. Want to give our guys freedom and confidence, sometimes we take some ill‑advised shots. Going into this week we talked about the importance of taking good shots. The first half we did that.  As we built a lead in the second half, we got up I think 22 was our biggest lead, we took some tough shots. Unfortunately at the other end of the floor we quit blocking out, we quit guarding for a period of time. Then it's very hard to turn it back on against a team like Wyoming who at that point has nothing to lose, high‑character kids. People forget how experienced that group is at Wyoming. We lost our focus a little bit. That's something we'll come out of when we watch a little bit of film tomorrow of tonight's game before we move on to New Mexico with the guys. We showed our resiliency, came back and closed out the game. Credit to Wyoming, during that stretch there were four or five times we took the ball to the basket, threw it in the post, dribble penetrated it, they made great defensive plays. A credit to them. We made a concerted effort at that time to throw it inside and try to get to the line. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH RICE: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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