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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: NASHVILLEMarch 16, 2012Demitrius CongerAndrew NicholsonMark SchmidtNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Florida State – 66 THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with an opening statement from coach, followed by questions only for the student athletes, and then the student athletes will go back to the locker room, and then we'll take questions for coach. Coach? COACH SCHMIDT: I'm really proud of my team, our team. We gave great effort. Just didn't make enough plays. Hit some big shots to come back in the late seconds of the game. Give Florida State credit, they defended very well in the second half. We did what we needed to do. We came here to win the game and we were very close. It was a great college basketball game, great environment. Appreciate our fans for coming out, they were terrific. Couldn't ask more. I'm just proud of our team, the effort that they gave. We just came up short. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes. Q. Can you just talk a little bit about what they did defensively, if anything, to you in the second half to take away some of the looks you were getting in the first half, Andrew? ANDREW NICHOLSON: They played physical. They were fronting the post so denying the entry, and so we just had to run plays they gave me off the block. I had to step out and shoot. THE MODERATOR: Other questions? Q. Demitrius, could you just kind of talk about what it was that they did defensively in the second half really as a team. You guys went on a stretch where it was maybe two points in six, seven minutes at the end there. Can you kind of talk about that. DEMITRIUS CONGER: It was pressuring the ball, packing it into stuff and things like that. Made it a little bit difficult to drive and everything, but, I mean, they're a good defensive team, so... Q. Demitrius, you're not known as a 3-point guy, but you hit two huge zero ones late. Circumstances just kind of force you to do that? DEMITRIUS CONGER: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I just caught the ball at the 3-point line. Needed a 3, so just shot it. I mean teammates just found me. Credit to them. They found me when I was open. I shot the ball and it went in. Q. Demitrius, on that last possession, then, how badly did you want to get the ball in your hands and what happened? Were they able to shut you guys down defensively? DEMITRIUS CONGER: I don't know. It wasn't me getting the shots, it was just about us getting a shot, but they played good defense, so... THE MODERATOR: You have a follow-up? Q. Were you guys trying to yell to Da'Quan, trying to get him to know you denied a 3? What happened on the last play, do you guys know? DEMITRIUS CONGER: Can you be a little more specific in what you're trying to ask? Q. You went in for the jumper and then missed it. Did he know how much time was left? Were you guys yelling at him to step back out? DEMITRIUS CONGER: We were just trying to get a score, that's all. Q. Can you just talk about from your vantage point the missed free throw that they had in the 1-and-1 in the beginning with you guys down 2 with 25 seconds left, White was able to get in and tip that out, just what you saw on that play. THE MODERATOR: Who is that for? Q. Either of them. ANDREW NICHOLSON: Shot the ball, had a bad bounce. We didn't really block out well and got the rebound. Nothing else to say. Q. You guys had that thrilling win over Saint Joe's in the first round and the way were you able to hang on despite some of the things going on against UMass and the way you beat Xavier. Did you feel like when were you making some of these shots at the end of the game today that this is going to continue to happen here, we're going to find a way again to be able to win this game? DEMITRIUS CONGER: I mean, we go into every game, you know, with the mindset of trying to win. So... THE MODERATOR: Anyone else? Q. Just the physical nature of the game, you did mention, Andrew, they let you guys play. It was a physical game. Is it the type of game you wear down, they kind of wore you down with what you had depth-wise, especially in the front line? ANDREW NICHOLSON: Yeah. Q. For either of the student athletes, when you look back at this game, and I know you're disappointed right now, what is going to be your favorite memory of this whole experience? ANDREW NICHOLSON: I guess making history at Bonaventure, we won the Atlantic 10 tournament. Made an appearance here. It's a great environment to be here. It's just part of the game. You win some, you lose some. DEMITRIUS CONGER: Even though we wanted to win the game really badly, just the fact that we made it to the NCAA Tournament and a lot of teams don't get to do that, you know, it's going to be a very good memory when I look back. THE MODERATOR: Any others? Is that it? All right. Thank you, Guys. We'll now take questions for coach. Just raise your hand if you have a question. Q. What is it were you hoping to get on the last possession, obviously? It wasn't a 2, I don't think. COACH SCHMIDT: A good shot. We were trying to -- it was tough to get the ball in-bounds. It was in the corner. They were switching everything, so we tried to pull the ball out and trying to get a shot to tie the game up. Q. Mark, would you have been helped maybe if you had another timeout left to kind of set up that last possession, do you think? COACH SCHMIDT: Yeah. I wish I had five more timeouts. You always want to have a timeout if you can, but we didn't. Q. Is there anything special they did to keep the ball more out of Andrew's hands in the second half? COACH SCHMIDT: They're the fifth best defensive team in the country. We were right there with them. There's no negatives about this game. We lost. But we gave a great performance. I am so proud of our guys, and there's some questions about what happened at the end of the game. We played a heck of a game. I'll really proud of our guys. And did we make enough baskets? Absolutely not. But they're a great team. They won the ACC tournament. The last time I found out, the ACC is pretty good, and we played really well and I'm really proud of what we accomplished. Q. Mark, I know it's a little tough this soon after a tough loss to be reflective. In as many words as you can, how much does that guy that's sitting right next to you mean to you? COACH SCHMIDT: He's everything to me. He's everything to this university. He's going to go down as one of the greatest alumnus of this university. He brought us back. He brought us back from the ashes. And without this guy next to me, I'm not sitting up here. We are not where we are. The program is back because of Andrew Nicholson. He's going to go down when I'm dead, 50 years from now, he's going to go down as one of the greatest student athletes to ever play at St. Bonaventure, if not the best. Because where we came from, he took a chance with us and where we were five years ago, where we were nine years ago and where we are today, it's him. I said it before, he may not be as good as Bob Lanier, but he is our Bob Lanier. Q. Can you talk a little bit, a lot of locker room conversations are off limits. What did you convey to the team after the game? COACH SCHMIDT: That's between the team and myself. Q. Mark, at this point, is it too close to the end to be able to appreciate fully in your mind what exactly you guys did over last couple weeks, also the last couple of months and certainly over the last couple of years? COACH SCHMIDT: Whenever you lose, you're disappointed. You know, what our guys accomplished -- when we lost -- it's not written a lot, but when we lost our sixth man one minute into the first game, we lost our starting two man who is going to be a thousand point scorer in our seventh game. People had us dead. Lot of media people had us dead. We fought. Our guys came back. We had great bench play. Our young guys really developed and, you know, whatever happened in 1970, whatever happened in 1977, when we left yesterday, two days ago and we had the streets were lined, there wasn't a better feeling in the world. I think we brought pride and spirit back to our community. We might be the only school in this country that plays in such a small environment where basketball is everything and, you know, it gets people through the wintertime, and you talk to a lot of people and the Bonnies are back. It's a great place to live and it's because of what our players have done. Q. Schmiddy, just talk about the plays that White made at the end. COACH SCHMIDT: We talk about everything else, but that's the play that won the game. He hit that 3 and went under on the side of the rim, didn't go in clean. That's the biggest shot of the game. You can talk about everything else but that one slot, that was the difference. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Q. Mark, what was key for you guys in the first half? Seemed like -- obviously you guys had great success. Also Bernard James for Florida State, how -- COACH SCHMIDT: He was terrific. He's long and athletic. He's a very good player, and we shot the ball really well in the first half. We shot it well from 3's. We spaced them out. We made our foul shots. We defended. We had some stuff in the open court. They did a better job. Like I said, they're fifth in the country in field goal percentage defense. They're a heck of a team. For us to be able to hang with them is a credit to our guys. Q. Going off of what Bob asked the players, do you feel like they kind of wore your guys down the stretch? Charlon kind of gassed towards the end, Andrew had some shots miss the rim once or twice, shots that he normally makes. Do you feel like maybe they wore you down a little bit? COACH SCHMIDT: No. When you're 18, 22 years old, you don't get tired. No. They didn't wear us down. They just played better. That's the bottom line. They didn't wear us down. We're in really good shape. They're a very good team. Really well coached. Like I said, you don't win the ACC tournament with bad players and coaches. This is a great team. They beat Carolina by 30, I think, and beat Duke.  For us to be able to hang within 3, that's a heck of a job. We didn't come here to get moral victories. We wanted to win. I am as proud of our guys as I've ever been with the team that I've coached. They've done everything we've asked. They fought. We just came up a bucket short. Q. That missed dunk Kloof, did that shift the momentum? COACH SCHMIDT: We talk about, you play every possession like it's the last possession. It's not one play here. It's an accumulation of plays. You talk about, you know, we didn't get the block out. You can go through every game and look at the game we should have blocked out. We turned the ball over here. We missed an open jump shot. It's not one play that lost this game. We didn't make enough plays, and they made one more play than we did, but it's not the dunk here. That's not how the game is played. Q. I'm sure you probably haven't stopped smiling all week, all way up to the opening tip. I noticed you about a minute before looking up in the crowd all the Bonnies. What did that mean to you to see that kind turnout? COACH SCHMIDT: We have the best fans in the world. They're loyal. They've been with us when I first took over five years ago, we didn't have much going on. Everybody was really supportive. You go into the grocery store and everybody is talking about the team, and it's just -- looking at them, people coming down, driving down 12 hours, it's a special thing. It's a special place. This was a special game for Bonaventure, and hopefully this will carry on. This is a new beginning for Bonaventure and the program at the university. THE MODERATOR: We have time for one or two more if there are any. Q. Coach, I just wanted to ask you about Michael Snaer. You held him to no points. That's never happened in his career. What were you guys able to do so well against him? COACH SCHMIDT: He missed some shots. One of the emphasis that we thought he was the best player on the team. You try to take away the known, and so we pressured him. We did a decent job. He missed some open shots, too. He's a heck of a player. But, you know, as you try to contain him, you know, then James goes off. That's why they're so good. They've got a lot of different weapons. You're not giving up on James because Snaer is open and James gets a jump hook. Our guys did a good job. Snaer was -- he had some shots that he missed. THE MODERATOR: Anyone else? COACH SCHMIDT: Thanks a lot. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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