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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: NASHVILLEMarch 16, 2012Anthony CollinsToarlyn FitzpatrickStan HeathVictor Rudd, Jr.NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE South Florida – 58 THE MODERATOR: Coach? COACH HEATH: You know, first I want to give Temple a lot of credit. They gave us a lot of problems. We couldn't figure some things out, especially in the first half. I know that was about as poor a first half as we played all year long, and, you know, we went into halftime, I just thought I can't believe we're only down 5 points, whatever it was, and I just knew there was no way we could -- we may not shoot great, but we can't go 3 for 27 again. I got to give our players here just a lot of credit. I'm so proud of them, to be so resilient and come back and fight and scratch and claw and give everything you have, just shows the kind of character these kids have. I'm very blessed and God has been good to me with having guys like this on my team. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Questions for the student athletes. Q. What was -- for the players, what was going wrong in the first half, missing 22 straight shots. Did you start to wonder if were you going to get a ball to go in again? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: Temple came out, they were ready to guard. They scouted us really well and they switched on ball screens, went through us, and once we made those adjustments in the second half, we were able to knock down shots and get better looks at the basket. ANTHONY COLLINS: We just settled for jump shots because they were playing off. In the second half, the coach said attack and just keep attack. I thought if I attacked and basically the team will follow and just create easier shots for me and myself and the teammates, and thank goodness they knocked them down. Q. For all three of you guys, first of all, Victor, for you, I look and I think you scored something like 13 of the last 17 points. Every one every one of your 3's was farther out as you progressed. Is it just one of those situations that all three of you guys you start feeling it. It seemed ever since Robertson hit -- made that dunk, the whole complexion of this game changed. Your thoughts on that. What happened out there? VICTOR RUDD, JR.: When Robertson got the dunk, it was off of Stu, our defense knocked the offense off. Shaun came out of his shots, Toarlyn came out of his shots. I started hitting shots. It got contagious. ANTHONY COLLINS: Like Vic was saying, our defense sets up our offense and then we just start having fun. Basically that's when we play our best basketball, when everyone is having fun and locked in on defense and executing the offense. TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: I think the basket looked a lot larger for us in the second half once we locked in on defense and Shaun came in and made a couple big plays for us and got the bench going. We just rallied around his couple shots that he made and everybody started to pick up their game. Q. For the players, do you guys feel like this is the best defensive performance you've guys have had in the season to hold this team to 44 points, given what you did offensively in the first half? ANTHONY COLLINS: I don't know. I have to look back at the stats. It was a great performance. We played well. We couldn't make a shot in the first half. To be down only 4 points like the coach is saying only made three shots the whole 20 minutes was incredible. Q. Guys, in that second half, tell me what it is, how do all of a sudden you guys start having fun? Is it just a matter of making shots to start having the fun, or what is it that flips the switch? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: Once you see your defensive stops translate over into offensive buckets, I mean, there's no other motivation that you need, you know. Getting an easy bucket is a great way to get you going offensively for anybody, I think. Once you see the ball go into the basket, regardless if it's a fast break layup or a baseline dunk like Hugh Robertson had, that's all it takes before your jumper starts to fall. VICTOR RUDD, JR.: Ron said in the huddle "Let's have fun." That's what we did. We came out with a big lead. That's what we did in this game. ANTHONY COLLINS: Basically having fun, seeing all my teammates and everyone making shots and just happy to play defense and get stops and stop the person they're guarding, just coming back defense and scoring on them is no better feeling. Q. Victor, were you guys aware of the Ohio game? How much did that spark you guys to see another upset on the same court right before yours like that? VICTOR RUDD, JR.: We watched a little bit before we went in and got dressed, but we couldn't worry about that game. We couldn't worry who was winning or who wasn't. We had to get this game first before we could worry about the next game. Q. For any of the players, now the fact you won your second game and you get to play on Sunday, have you had a chance to think about that and how close you are to playing next weekend? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: No. We just take it one game at a time. I mean, we're going to celebrate for a split second on this win, and then, you know, once everybody has come down from the high of winning another game in a tournament, we're going to lock in and -- like we always do and focused on the next opponent and prepare to get another W. Q. Following up on that, though, how much of a grind is this playing basically three games in five days? How much of a grind is that going to be? ANTHONY COLLINS: I would say it's not much of a grind, because before we all came to college in the summer, we were playing maybe three, four games all in one day. The next day you probably play another three, four games. Your body is tired, but once the ball gets in the air, you just go out and play and you go out and try to play basketball. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Thank you guys. We'll take questions for Coach Heath. Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you about the end of the first half there, the decision to bring Noriega in and the spark he gave you guys, even though it's just 3 points at the time, what it did to kind of springboard toward the second half in the points that were there? COACH HEATH: Shaun is a special kid. I can't blame him for wanting to play more and probably should play more, but regardless, he stays ready, and I think, you know, both myself and Shaun and probably my whole team sensed that, you know, they're sagging in, packing things in, and we need to bring in our shooter. And he's our 3-point specialist, and the guys have a lot of confidence in him. And, you know, right away when he got into the game, we went right -- we tried to run some action to get him a shot, and it's unbelievable how he can come into a game and be ready to knock down a shot. I think that momentum he gave us was the initial fuel that helped us in the second half. Q. Stan, down by 4 in the first half, 19-15. I'm sitting along the press row with people that have never seen you play basketball before. How did that happen? Explain about this team, from your perspective, of why people shouldn't be surprised at what they saw tonight? COACH HEATH: Well, I know sometimes we struggle on offense. I've never seen them struggle that bad, but what's really impressive about our team, and I've never had maybe a team like this, that a lot of times when you're struggling to score, and I hate to admit this as a coach, but your defense does start struggling because guys get frustrated and all of a sudden you have breakdowns in the defensive end. This team has been exceptional at not letting -- maybe some offensive woes affect what they need to do on the defensive end. As you mentioned, I mean, when I saw the stat sheet, I said how in the world are we down by 4, 5 points? I couldn't believe it myself. I felt, shoot, this is where we are, we're not going to play this poorly again. We have a legitimate chance. Q. Can you talk maybe even more specifically about the adjustment you made at halftime? I mean, it's a pretty amazing turnaround when you score 43 points in the second half. You score 15 in the first. It was like a 360-degree swing in an NCAA Tournament game. It's not something that we see all that much. Talk about adjustments, what you told the guys at halftime. It was a pretty amazing turnaround, wasn't it? COACH HEATH: Even for my eyes I couldn't believe how well we shot the ball and scored in the second half, and basically their switching defense was bothering us quite a bit. The things we were running we weren't quite getting what we normally get out of some of that action. The biggest thing I want our guys to do is look for matchups, look for -- and we played with more of our offensive guys out there, Toarlyn Fitzpatrick and Shaun, some of our better 3-point shooters and Rudd got hot as well to open up the floor. I also wanted to attack more. I wanted to us see if we can get some transition, see if we can get some offensive put-backs, see if we could spread the floor, driver and kick. I thought the guys did a great job of doing that. Anthony Collins, his second half performance was just stellar. His ability to just make some plays, make something out of nothing and just seemed like one guy would make a play, another guy would make a play, and momentum kept going and we just kept feeding that energy and we rode it out. As the guys say, I know we get after on the defensive end, but when they start making shots like that and they get excited and happy, we're not bad. That's probably my halftime speech from now on or pregame speech. Guys, go have fun. We'll have fun from now on. Q. Can you talk about the big picture for what this means for the USF basketball program going to wins in NCAA Tournament. You guys are opening up the dome in the fall. Just the big thing for this team. COACH HEATH: I haven't had a chance to really digest it. I'm sure at some point I'll have a better answer for you, but obviously we're trying to create and build a history and tradition even more so. We have -- we don't have much, but we have a little bit. Our guys talked about leaving some footprints in the sand, and I told this group that we've already done a little bit but let's try to make it bigger. And I think the guys, you know, know that there's more opportunity for us. I think we get one more win, it will be the most wins in school history. If we continue to win games, it will be the furthest our team has ever gone. So every little thing I think is good motivation for us, whether we have ugly offense or whether we have a chance to create more history. It's all good things that help fuel us. Q. Stan, this is four straight games that Rudd has been in double figures. How much time in practice you're working on the banked in 3's? COACH HEATH: You know, I think what's changed in our team over the last maybe three, four weeks has been, you know, Anthony's development and growth, not just running the team but scoring more. And Victor Rudd, I think his last two weeks have been really, really good. He's really stepped up in a big way. And he's -- he's just one of those guys. I remember my dad used to come down and said he used to call him a gunslinger. When he gets it going a little bit, he can roll. He can really make some shots go in. I know some of those are lucky, but they went in. I've seen them go in before in practice before, and it's kind of one of those things with him where you want to let him go and sometimes you got to pull the reins back. When he gets it going, you got to ride him out a little bit. Q. Stan, interested in your thoughts on you guys as part of a huge story today. Today was upset city in the tournament and you took Kent State on a pretty incredible roll when you first started out in the head coaching profession. You went to the Elite 8. I'm sure you probably didn't have time to see the other games, but you know for the first time in tournament history, two 2's went down, Duke and Missouri, and you guys are alive, when, from all the speculation, you guys might have been one of last teams chosen for the field and you won two games for the first time in your program's history. Just talk about all of these upsets today. You guys are part of the story, you've been part of it before. COACH HEATH: Well, I did see the Missouri game, so I was -- that was a shocker right there, and I didn't know about the Duke until you just mentioned that. But that's a part of the tournament. Actually it's been almost true, the brackets been going true to form until today, and that what's what was really surprising to me, because normally you see upsets, you know, at some rate. We feel very fortunate to get in. We think we earned our way, but it was splitting hairs, I'm sure at the end, deciding who should go and who shouldn't. But we felt like, hey, we did quite a bit. At the same time, once we got in, you know, I know anything can happen, anything can happen, and sometimes, you know, this team gets upset, this team gets upset, and all of a sudden the path is made that gives you a chance and, you know, both Ohio and ourselves have a great chance to get to the Sweet 16. One of us is going to get there. One of us was not a team picked I'm sure on many brackets at all. It's exciting. We're going to stay focused on the next opponent. We can't look past Ohio at all. Obviously I coached in the MAC and took a team beyond the Sweet 16, so I know it's very possible. We won't take Ohio lightly at all. THE MODERATOR: One more question. Q. Coach, could you comment on Ron Anderson goes scoreless but he battles Micheal Eric in the paint for most of the second half. COACH HEATH: Well, Micheal Eric is tough. He was probably one guy I maybe underestimated a little bit, how imposing he is in the paint changing shots, blocking shots, and even more physical than I thought. He was able to score a little bit as well. Our post players never really got as effective as they normally are. A lot of that had to do with Eric. At the same time, you know, both Ron and Gus battled and competed and stayed within themselves. They realize, hey, maybe their role today was to rebound, defend, and be a facilitator offensively. There wasn't one guy come to the bench, hey, give me the ball, I need more shots. There was no conversations about that at all. We tried a few times, it didn't work. I think that's -- that typifies our team. These kids are very unselfish and really all they want to do is win. They've had a taste of not winning and their focus is on winning. If it's sacrificing some things individually, they're all willing to do that. THE MODERATOR: Okay, thank you, Coach. COACH HEATH: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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