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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: OMAHAMarch 16, 2012Randy BennettMatt DellavedovaRob JonesOMAHA, NEBRASKA Purdue – 72 THE MODERATOR: Rob Jones and Dellavedova of the Gaels, head coach Randy Bennett is also with us and we will ask him to make a statement. COACH BENNETT: Obviously we didn't shoot the ball very well but our guys competed, kept playing. It was a tough game. Terone Johnson really hurt us, and finally adjusted to that and finally started gettin' some stops toward the end and had a chance to win it and didn't get it done but it wasn't lack of competitiveness or effort, just didn't go our way down the stretch, and dug ourselves a hole and proud of our guys, got back, took the lead, had a chance to get it done but we didn't. Q. What made it difficult about adjusting‑‑ Coach talked about Terone Johnson and Lewis Jackson also got the ball to the rim almost at will there until you stopped them at the end. What was so difficult about them taking the ball to the goal. ROB JONES: I think it just came down to we underestimated him. Props to him and congrats for stepping up and showing up and playing well. I think there are things we could have done better defensively just to stop 'em and not let 'em get to the bucket but it's too late for that now. MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: They just kept penetrating to the bucket and we just kept backing back, we needed to step up a bit earlier. Q. Was there anything that they did defensively to take you out of rhythm? Seemed like you didn't find a rhythm offensively until the end of the game. MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: They did a good job defensively, the Rove guy was open a bit, and they played good defense but we didn't knock down our shots either. Q. Rob, when you let that last one go do you think you had it? ROB JONES: For a brief moment but I think I could have taken a half a second more to get ready but no point thinking about it now. Q. Were you rushing, what was it that kept you from getting into a rhythm from the arc? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: It was a bit of both. They played good defense. I rushed a couple. We had some good looks also that we didn't knock down, so that's the way it goes. ROB JONES: I agree with Matt. We had plenty of good looks, some just didn't fall, back of the rim, and some of them could have fell and it would have been a different game. Q. Rob, ten 3‑pointers tonight, the most you've shot in any one game. At any point in the game did you think you were taking too many? ROB JONES: Coach Bennett told me they're going to sag off me and shoot the ones I want. I felt comfortable but some of 'em didn't fall for us tonight. Q. Rob, you've talked all season about how close this team is and how as a leader you enjoy being around those guys. How did you guys deal with the last 10, 15 minutes in the locker room? ROB JONES: It was kind of quiet. It stings when you care so much from Coach Bennett down to the walk‑ons, everyone cares and puts time in on the floor, off the floor so when you lose one like that, when you're up with a couple of seconds left, it really hurts. I mean, I'm just glad Coach Bennett gave me a chance to be a part of St. Mary's and everyone on this team, that I got to know them so well. THE MODERATOR: Anything else? Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much. Questions for Coach Bennett? Q. Coach, from an X and O point of view, what did you need to do to prevent them from driving so easily? COACH BENNETT: This is pretty simple. The problem with the penetration is where do you help off? Because for most of the game they played D.J. Byrd, Robbie Hummel and Ryne Smith, and those guys are all very good shooters, the scout on Purdue is don't give 'em three's, they hit 12 the last game against Ohio State, so we did a good job and we did not do a good job on Johnson the first half and the second half we didn't do a good job on Jackson. So we could have done a better job guarding their penetrators, we did a good job taking away the three's, they hit 5, they're one of the tops in the country. The bigger problem for us is the way they play you defensively they're going to give you three's, and you have to make shots and we were 1 for 15 at half, proud of our guys that we kept competing and go didn't let that get us to dip our heads at all, we hung in there. But finally we hit a couple at the end but you've got to make shots. You can hash it out a lot of ways but bottom line is if they're going to play you and not guard your 3‑point shooters, you gotta make those and we didn't. It was a close game because they didn't hit many of 'em, either. Q. Especially in the first half when you go 1 for 15, did you sense that your guys were rushing it a little bit because they felt they were open? Were they getting the looks you wanted? Were they shooting in rhythm? Were they shooting too early? Is there any reason other than the obvious why you would shoot that poorly? COACH BENNETT: I told Matt this at half, the only guy I thought took some questionable shots, his shot selection was not good the first half was Matt's. Jorden, Rob, Clint and Beau didn't take any bad ones. Sometimes it's pressure, sometimes it's hoops you're not familiar with shooting on, you've got to hit those if you want to win that game and they're not going to guard that and they're going to give you an open three, you've got to stick it. If you don't you have to do a great job defensively, we did a decent job defensively but too many break‑downs on the penetration but a big part of the penetration is because they have good shooters that stretch you out so you don't know where to bring your help. We should have kept a guard on Johnson all night. We didn't do that and they played off him and that hurt us the first half, second half we made an adjustment and did a pretty good job on him. Q. Coach, did you expect them to go so small? They had a pretty small lineup for the game and‑‑ COACH BENNETT: Yeah, we did. That's how they've been playing. We knew that. It was a straight chess match and they were going to go small, who were you going to play as your helper. Early in the game we tried guardin'‑‑ which some other teams have, tried guarding Johnson with our big because it's hard to chase Byrd around with your five man and we wanted to keep Jones on Hummel he did a great job there.  So we put Clint on Byrd to negate the three‑point shooting and the mismatch was Johnson versus our five's and we didn't do good enough job there, second half we did but we didn't do good enough job on Jackson the second half, which we should it. He's a good player, credit him. We knew going in we told 'em exactly how it was going to play out and that's how it played out, they were going to go small, penetrate with Johnson and Jackson and spread those shooters out and that's exactly what happened. Doesn't mean it's easy to guard just because you tell 'em it's going to come. There is a reason they're in the NCAA Tournament. Q. Randy, you won the regular season, the conference tournament, in the NCAA Tournament, how long does it take for the sting to go away and remember what you accomplished this season. COACH BENNETT: The real sting will go away shortly but there is a reality for those seniors, it's over, and that one will hang around for a while and then they have to move on. If it didn't sting, it wouldn't be any fun. That's why it stings, because you care so much. There's not many things you can pour your heart into with a bunch of guys your age and invest so much time and care so much and that's why it hurts, because when it's over it's gone. Some guys get to return but those three seniors don't. We were good because our three seniors gave us tremendous leadership this year and I told them in the locker room this year I wasn't sure it was going to happen but it did and I'm proud of 'em for that. Q. Randy, talking about the three seniors in particular, we might have seen Rob at his absolute best tonight in terms of leadership and stepping up when called upon. Talk about his maturation from the time you got him to now. COACH BENNETT: Unbelievable, I don't know many other guys that could keep their composure, he had that in him, but when he came here, he could lead the wrong way, losing his composure and things like that, but we got bounced out of the tournament last year and his lack of composure hurt us this year. But this year he continued to improve and he wanted to be good there. It's hard to change, I think it's hard to change when you're 22 but you can if you really want to. He really wanted to be that, he wanted to be a good leader and be a guy we could count on. He turned into a heck of a player but more importantly for life his leadership skills improved, as a person he improved and as a coach, that's what you're looking for. Q. Coach, I think you were up one when you forced that turnover at the end what did you see your guy get rattled there? COACH BENNETT: That was just a‑‑ that's one we all wish we had back but that's how it goes. Clint didn't realize that he couldn't run on the baseline. That was that. Things happen. Plays happen. There's a ton of plays in that game that could have made the difference and his happened to be the last one. So we could have hit a three, Jorden could have hit that 3, Rob could have hit the three, so there's a lot of plays in games, I'm sure Clint wishes he could have that back, I wish I could have got to him to tell him. Those things happen, you don't want 'em to happen often but it happened. THE MODERATOR: Randy, thank you for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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