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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: COLUMBUSMarch 16, 2012Will BartonJoe JacksonJosh PastnerCOLUMBUS, OHIO Saint Louis – 61 COACH PASTNER: I want to give great credit to Saint Louis, Coach Majerus. They've got a very good club. They deserve to win the game. Obviously losing's no fun. But very proud of our young men. We had a great season overall to win the regular season championship and the tournament championship, to be able to win the amount of games we won. A lot of positives out of it for the season. And very hard‑‑ just anytime you end the season it's no fun. And you want to win for these young men, for guys like Will and Joe. So tough loss, but, like I said, a lot of positives from this past year, a lot of games were won. Accomplished some things. We improved from some of our stuff from last year to this year. And, like I said, you've got to give Saint Louis credit. They're a nice club and got the W tonight. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Joe, Will, and, Josh, you can answer this as well, very impatient it seemed to be on offense. Quick shots. Ten seconds into the shot clock. Forced shots. A lot of impatient play offensively? COACH PASTNER: As you know, we've been so efficient offensively, but you gotta give Saint Louis credit. They did a great job offensively, but for us we didn't play the way we normally played, especially the second half of the season. It's our lowest assist total. Had four assists. My biggest thing is your open man is the go‑to man. We kind of went away from that. We were doing a good job on that when we got up eight. And went away from that. And that's a big thing. So we're a great basketball team when we make the extra pass, and we're just a solid team when we don't make the extra pass. I felt there was a stretch where we weren't making the extra pass, but when we got up eight we were doing it through defense and making the extra pass. But you gotta give Saint Louis credit. And we missed a couple of shots. We had some kind of break opportunities. We forced them into turnovers. But we didn't convert as many of those opportunities as we would have liked. But that happens. That happens. So again I want to reemphasize: I'm proud of our young men. They're good guys, and very proud of the season for a lot of wins and for the regular season tournament championship. WILL BARTON: We definitely got away from what got us here, taking quick shots, like you said. And most of that came from me. I take all the blame for it. And it's tough to go out like this when you really beat yourselves. I want to give a lot of credit to Saint Louis. They played their butts off. It's tough to go out that way when you know you could have did just a couple more things better and just stuck to what got you here. We probably would be the winners of this game. And, like I said, it started with me, and I just let my team down. I was playing selfish and not doing what got us here. JOE JACKSON: Well, we settled for 3s the first half too much. We didn't attack the rim. We always take shots early on the shot clock. We're a fast‑breaking team, but we were shooting too many 3s, too many quick 3s. That cost us at the end of the game, because usually we are on the paint. We usually beat guys in the paint, but we stayed outside too much. And that's what the game plan was, was to make us shoot jumpers. Q. Guys, just talk about their plan. It looked like they were determined to drop three, four guys back, weren't going to let you get out and run. Just talk about their game plan and what you thought of it. JOE JACKSON: Honestly, they didn't even‑‑ they didn't have nobody on offensive boards, just one guy, and the rest of their players got back on defense. So they basically took away the fastbreak, and we played into their hands, just settling for bad shots, I guess, probably because we never saw that this whole season, just a team get back every single time. And that kind of messed us up. COACH PASTNER: Part of it is we had a couple of opportunities, we didn't convert. We had a couple of open shots. When a team plays like that, you're going to get some open shots and you just‑‑ you know, we've got to be able to stick them. And today we didn't stick them. Free throw‑wise they didn't make the free throws. Championship game versus Marshall in the conference tournament we shoot 90‑odd percent and today we shoot 50percent. Hard to win games like that when we're not making free throws and that was a big thing. Q. Will, what was going on, you guys were up six, eight, you went down with a foot injury, I think, and a timeout got into it a little bit with one of your teammates, what was going on there and do you think that played into it down the strip? WILL BARTON: Yeah, it played a lot. I was selfish, man. I'll never forget this game. I let my team down. And I've been strong the whole year. It just got to me today, man. I just feel like I cost us a game, man. And I know we should be playing Sunday. It's tough. All year. COACH PASTNER: Let me butt in one second. This isn't on any individual. This is a total team‑‑ two things. One, we've won 26 games. And you only win 26 by having good players. And the players getting the job done. When you lose nine, that falls on the coach. Players win games; coaches lose games. I've always said that to the guys, and I believe that. And we wouldn't be here without these two guys. Will Barton had one of the great sophomore seasons in the history of Memphis basketball. One of the great sophomore seasons. I mean, the second half of the season was good defensively as there was a guy in the entire country. And I can go on and on about the rest of our guys. But this one falls on the coach. Players win games, which they won 26 of them. And we rode guys like Joe and Will and the other guys. They're the guys that get the wins. And this one falls on me. I've always said that. It's not on any of the players. It's strictly on the coach. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Now that you look back at it, what could you have done differently if you say the blame for the loss is on you from a coaching standpoint? COACH PASTNER: You know, I don't know how much we could have done differently. You have some open shots you have to make. But I'm just a big believer that the kids, the young men, you know, I'm not going to‑‑ I just believe they're the ones who are running up and down. They're the ones who are getting the assists, the blocked shots, the rebounds. It's not me. If you look at my averages in college, it was .9. So they're the ones who do the job. And we're the winningest‑‑ in the three years of Memphis, in three years at Memphis, the most wins ever in a three‑year span, for a coach to have that many wins, and as I've told everyone, that is strictly on the players. The only reason we're able to have those wins is because of the players. So players deserve the wins. Coaches‑‑ all losses go to me. How much could I have done differently? I don't know how much we could have done differently. We missed some shots. We make a couple shots and all of a sudden you're sitting here telling me‑‑ I lobby for Coach Majerus to be in the Hall of Fame. He said before the game, well, I hope you can get there one day. So maybe if we had won the game, I might have got a vote from a few people. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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