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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: GREENSBOROMarch 16, 2012John BeckerSandro CarissimoMatt GlassGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina – 77  THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH BECKER: First I would like to congratulate North Carolina. Very good team. They beat us tonight and I wish them the best of luck the rest of the way. Real proud of our guys. I thought we battled the whole game. We gave everything we had out there. We just needed some more shots to fall and 20 turnovers is too many against a team like North Carolina. But we battled, we left it all out there, we had a great year. I want to thank my seniors, Matt Glass and Pat Bergmann for everything they gave to this program over the last four years, five years, and everything they have done for me personally. We're going to miss them and couldn't be more proud of them the way they played tonight. It's hard when your season ends, but we have had a great year. We're a young team, the experiences that we had this year winning a NCAA tournament game for only the second time in school history, winning our conference championship on the road, these guys are tough, tough group of guys. Battled through a lot and I just can't be more proud of them and honored to be their coach. So it's tough though. It's a tough thing when your season ends and it's hard to come to grips with that. But again, congratulations to North Carolina, a very good team and I wish them all the best in the tournament. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Either one of the student‑athletes, what's it like for you personally to come to be able to play a team of the caliber of North Carolina, to win a game in the NCAA tournament, at your particular point right now? MATT GLASS: It's been a unbelievable ride and to have this opportunity to beat a very good Lamar team and to put ourselves in this situation was something that I don't think any of us have ever had dreamed of even. So to be here in this atmosphere and have an opportunity to play one of the top teams in the country is very special, and we're all very humbled. And they're an incredible team, and we're just honored to be on the court with those guys. SANDRO CARISSIMO: I think the same thing. They're a great team. It was ‑‑ it's just been a lot of fun. Out in Dayton it was great, a great experience out there to get a win against a tough Lamar team. And then to come down here and play against historically one of the best programs in the country is just a lot of fun. Q. Could you talk about the difficulty of trying to get into your offense with the way that North Carolina came out so high to force the play? SANDRO CARISSIMO: They did a great job of denying the reversal pass. We run a cutter roll back offense flex, so without ball reversal it's real difficult to get into it. They did a great job with that, give them credit for that. They did a good job of denying the down screen too on that. They made it difficult for us on the offensive end of the court, so credit them. Q. You guys were on the court 48‑‑ less than 48 hours ago, did fatigue play a factor at all in today's game? MATT GLASS: A game at this level I think no one has any problem getting up for it. It has been a lot of travel, a quick turnaround obviously, and I'm sure guys were a little tired but once we got into this atmosphere, with the crowd and everything that comes with the NCAA tournament. I don't think it was a hard for anyone to play as hard as they could. Q. I know it's only been a couple minutes since it ended, but can you sort of sum up your career and how it ended in your senior season? MATT GLASS: It's been an unbelievable ride. I'm just happy to be a part of it. This is an incredible group of guys. Coaching staff is great. All the way from the top to the bottom, it's just such a special program and such an unselfish group of guys. We sacrificed so much for each other this year. We went through so much, a lot of ups and downs, but we relied on each other. We supported each other, and we were able to make a really tough run towards the end of the year. And that's what we talked about from the beginning. We stuck with the plan, and it's just a really special team. The most special I've ever been a part of and I couldn't be happier to be ending up on the court with these guys in my last game. Q. Such a young team, are these experiences, especially this one in postseason, are these couple games going to really bode well for the team's confidence moving forward into next season? SANDRO CARISSIMO: I think so. Any time you come down and here and play games in the NCAA tournament, in Dayton and then to come here and play at North Carolina, against North Carolina, it's definitely a great experience and it will help us in the future whether it's in conference, out of conference, postseason, whatever it may be, we'll definitely take this game and learn from it and learn from all the experiences we had over the last couple days. Q. Just talk about how tough it was to handle the size of Zeller and McAdoo inside and just what challenges that presented. MATT GLASS: They have got a very tough front court, obviously. And just the way those guys attack the glass and how skilled they are offensively just post matchup problems all over the place for anyone in the country. So we understood that coming into the game. It was a very real fight when it came down to it. But they're incredible players, they're pros, and they're very, very dangerous. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. Take questions for coach. Q. Coach, what were you able to do for three quarters of the first half that really kept the game close and competitive that you really weren't able to sustain throughout the rest of the game? COACH BECKER: Yeah, we were able to get the ball inside a little bit, make some shots. And I thought our defense was really good in the beginning in the first half. You take Marshall's 4‑4 out, I think they were 8‑25. So we were really able to contain Barnes. Zeller was killing us on the glass getting to the free throw line, and Marshall was getting to the rim. Besides that we were doing a real good job on everyone else. Our defense was really good the first half, and we were able to hang around, score enough to keep it to a 12‑point game at half. And then toward the end of the half, we got away from going inside and that's something we have done all year. And we just weren't throwing it in there, they did a good job defensively getting our guards way off the 3‑point line, and so it made that entry pass difficult. But second half we did a good job. We came out and made a concerted effort to throw the ball inside and I thought that we did a better job. Pat Bergmann made some shots coming off the bench in there and battled in there. So they play great defense and they just made everything really difficult. Q. Can you talk about how well your team played defensively? How much of a different game would it have been if you were able to make some those shots, knock down some of those open threes? COACH BECKER: Yeah, that was a huge thing. We just couldn't make any jump shots. Four McGlynn's as good a shooter as there is in the country, I think, and he just couldn't get any clean ones. And he had to take an extra step or extra two steps back just to get one off and just a little outside his range. So yeah, we just couldn't make any. Matt wasn't making any; he's been really good all year. We couldn't get any jump shots to go but I credit that to North Carolina. They're so big and long at every position that it's just hard to get clean looks. And so we just couldn't get any shots to go, but if we could have got some of those to go somehow, it would have been kind of miraculous shots some of them because they would have been so deep but if we could have found a way to get a couple in there and Four had a couple roll in and out that could have helped our confidence and could have kept us a little bit closer through the mid part of the game. Q. Sort of your thoughts on the season and how far the team came from a losing streak in the non‑conference schedule to now playing in the NCAA tournament. COACH BECKER: It's been amazing the growth of this team at the end of the season through league play, too. And then in these‑‑ this is our fifth do or die game and our guys just continued to respond in really tough situations. Played North Carolina down here in North Carolina, to play Hartford in Hartford in our conference tournament, to play Stony Brook at home in a conference championship game. Tough environments against good teams our guys found a way and like we said a bunch, we're a young group, we start three sophomores we play five sophomores leading scorer is a freshmen and a lot of the guys didn't play much last year at all. So the experiences these guys have the understanding now of what it takes to win, to win championships and win championship games, and play in NCAA tournament games. We can't‑‑ you can't ask for a better experience that these guys have had here down the end of the season. So hopefully that will carry into the off season. We'll have a better understanding of everything we need to do. And as a coach I grew through the year, my coaching staff continued to grow and I'm excited to get into the offseason and continue to move forward with this group and so real proud of the guys. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH BECKER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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