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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 13, 2012Tim CluessMike GloverScott MachadoDAYTON, OHIO BYU – 78 THE MODERATOR: Joining us now are student‑athletes Mike Glover and Scott Machado of Iona, as well as head coach Tim Cluess. Coach, an opening statement. COACH CLUESS: I give BYU all the credit for the comeback they made. They made shots, they made plays. We had opportunities, but I think we were 1‑for‑15 on 3s in the second half. You're not going to beat anyone that way. We've had a couple of these losses this year like that and it really stems from the fact that when we don't make shots, we're not the same type of team. We're a small team. They went inside, did a great job of getting it inside and kicking it back out and making plays. So I give them a lot of credit. We weren't good enough in the second half to withstand that comeback. I think giving up 10 of the points in the first half in the last four months when Mike got in foul trouble gave them confidence going into the halftime, and we had a couple of chances when we had it like 12 or 14 in the second half to extend it, and we missed, I can't tell you, countless layups and foul shots in crucial times and wide‑open, wide‑open looks. You can't do that and win, so congratulations to them and thank you guys for hosting such a great tournament. Wish we would have put on a better second‑half performance. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Scott, you guys scored 55points in the first 16 minutes. They get more aggressive with that zone. Can you talk about how that zone disrupted your team offensively? SCOTT MACHADO: I feel they were pressuring more in the zone. It wasn't just like a steady zone, just sitting in the zone. They were pressuring the ball. They were making it hard to get in the lane and make passes into the interior. And I take full blame for driving in the lane and not being able to get the ball to my man, to my teammates, and, I mean, I had five turnovers and one assist in the second half. And I feel like I could have did a better job at that. Q. Scott, everything was working so great in the first half. Can you describe what you guys were feeling when it seemed like nothing was working for you guys at all in the second half? SCOTT MACHADO: Coach hit it right on the money. When we're not making shots, it's kind of hard to be able to press like we were in the first half. It's hard for us to get stops at that end because we're so small. I think the number was 34, or 24, the one that was hitting all the shots. He was just shooting right over us. And his length was just‑‑ I mean, it was hard to guard. And when we're not making shots, we can't press him. We couldn't do what we did in the first half. So it messed up our whole game plan. Q. Scott, can you just describe what it's like to go through that sort of dramatic shift from 55points those first 16minutes and then you go through that tough stretch where I think it's like 10 points over the next 16minutes? Just talk about that shift and just what that's like. SCOTT MACHADO: It sucks. It sucks. I feel like when there's games like this and we're trying to win a game like this, I feel like we all have to make the little things happen. If we're missing layups and wide‑open shots, there's nothing we can do about that. We have to make those go down. And if we're not making them go down, we can't have the second half that we had, what we had in the first half. Q. Mike and Scott, you had a couple of these earlier in the year and had some that got away, did you guys feel that you had moved beyond something like this? Did you feel like you had turned a corner in February where you were beyond blowing leads of this ilk? SCOTT MACHADO: Yeah, I did feel like we did come over that and we haven't had that happen in a while. I think we kind of forgot how that was. And we just let this one slip right by us. That's it. Q. Scott and Mike, can you talk about how you're feeling now now that your careers are over, and at some point will you look back and think you enjoyed this experience, but what are you feeling like right now? SCOTT MACHADO: Well, for me, when I first got to this program, it wasn't a winning program. And we built this program up from a 0‑something season, and then we built it all the way up to a winning program. And I was here at the start of that, and with all the coaches that came through and all the players that they brought into the program helped build that as well. And I just seen the program change and all the love around the school and all the community and everybody just coming back to the school and showing a lot of support for the school, which is an excellent thing. And I feel like‑‑ I mean, we accomplished something, but at the end of the day we lost a big game that we should have won. MIKE GLOVER: I would just like to thank Coach Cluess for giving me the opportunity to even play for the team this year, for Iona College. Me going out as a senior like this is pretty disappointing. I'm just fortunate to play with guys like Scott and MoMo, and this year we've had history to share as far as bringing the team back to the NCAA since I think 2006. So I'm appreciative and just fortunate to just be blessed with the talent that I have on this basketball team. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, I know you guys like to play fast, keep the ball moving. It seemed as when they went into the zone you guys were shooting quickly, not getting a lot of ball reversal. Was that a big problem for you? COACH CLUESS: Absolutely. I think we were holding on to the ball too long. I think their length stretched us out a little bit more than we like to be stretched out. We were starting our offense a few steps over half court. I think they did a good job of that. And we weren't making the extra pass. Part of it was like our guards didn't drive the gaps to kick. They stood out there and just made passes. And even when we threw the ball into a gap, we didn't reverse the ball quick enough. We just seemed to eat the ball for a second or two, and that allowed them to recover. And they do a great job of recovering with their length and size and moving really well. And I think we should have been better with the basketball, as far as movement goes. Q. Was there a point when you get to a timeout there where it was really starting to get tense with the guys, and what did you try and do, if so, to try to turn it around? COACH CLUESS: We just tried to talk to them about being in the situation before and making plays and just trying to still trust each other and not trying to do things you can't do, but to get more movement going again and to move the ball better than we had and to also defend better. Our pressure hurt them in the first half. Second half we didn't have that many opportunities to get into it because we didn't score the ball. But when we did, we weren't as aggressive with it and we just kind of allowed them to get into their half court sets. And, again, a lot of their success came with big size that could just make plays over us. And when we're not making shots and they're starting to get a comfort zone, that's a big part of the run of that start because they're feeling good about themselves. We got good looks, we got layups and foul shots and open 3s and open pull‑ups, and it felt like there was a lid on for all of our guys. It's a point where these guys have won games for us, we tried them, and I have my trust in that, I can't go away from that trust because they've done it all year long, outside of a game here, game there where we've had bad shooting games. We know we're built right now to have to make jump shots. So when that's not occurring for us, we know we're in a lot of trouble. Mike Glover, 6'5", 6'6", plays his tail off, gives us everything he can. He's very much undersized. You saw when he got swallowed up inside with BYU's size, and we don't have the next guy to go to yet in our program. That's an area where we need to address in our recruiting areas. Q. Did you play fast enough early to neutralize the height and was that part of the strategy coming in? COACH CLUESS: I thought we did a good job in the first half doing that. We actually made them I think put two point guards in together at a time and only have one big in. But when Mike got his second foul about four and a half, five minutes to go, somewhere around that, in the first half, the whole momentum of the game swung right there. The guys who went in for him, they were getting second shots, we weren't controlling the boards. Early on we did a nice job on the boards and not getting beat there where it hurt us. That started to turn. And some of those shots we had that could have kept it a 20‑point game going into the locker room, which is a whole different mentality, the same guys who were making them earlier in the half just, unfortunately, missed it that time. It's a game of streaks. We knew or I knew they were going to get better than the way they were playing in the first half. Obviously we didn't think we would fall off that much. Q. I'm curious, did you‑‑ there's nothing obviously you can do about the height, but did you see in your guys the same tendency sometimes to perhaps not pass it as much, to not move it as quickly, to try to do a little bit too much individually that you saw in Fairfield, that you saw‑‑ COACH CLUESS: In the second half? I saw the decision. I'm not going to say it was a conscious effort not to do it. I just think some of the decisions we made were not great decisions. And I think all of our guys gave everything they had. We didn't make great decisions in execution or delivery of the basketball. And that comes with young men. There's times that every coach has to deal with this maybe not to this magnitude. And that's our job is to try to get us better at it and obviously I didn't do my job well enough. Q. Coach, are you aware that this is the largest comeback in NCAA Tournament history, and if so does that make it more difficult to maybe put it behind you knowing it's a part of history now? COACH CLUESS: You know what, I said that in the locker room not knowing that, because I just imagined it probably was. And it's going to be one that we have to live with the rest of our lives that we had an opportunity here to win in advance. And, again, you're looking for answers out there, looking for guys to make a play and had we been able to make one or two, even late in the game when it was a game again, we have a layup point‑blank by one of our better players, he comes up short. We have two foul shots by him he misses both. You go down to the other end their good player is drilling it with guys in his face and draped all over him and knocking him down. And big time players have to make big time plays. And we're going to have to live with this one because it's a tough one we let get away. No excuses. I'm taking all of it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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