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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: NASHVILLEMarch 18, 2012Anthony CollinsStan HeathVictor Rudd, Jr.NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Ohio – 62 THE MODERATOR: We'll begin the press conference with an opening comment from Coach Heath, followed by questions for the student athletes only. When we're finished with the student athletes' questions, they will return to the locker room, then we'll take questions for Coach Heath. COACH HEATH: You know, first, congratulations to Ohio. They were, very, very good tonight and ran their stuff and defended us well and, you know, that's a big win and really happy for John and his ball club. They played very hard. It's a good basketball team. We didn't lose -- it wasn't like we didn't play. We lost to a good basketball team. Really, really proud of my guys. It's hard to lose some guys that set a great foundation for our program going forward, our seniors, Ron Anderson, and who is just a great voice, leader in the locker room and Augustus Gilchrist four years and his, his transformation, I think, as a person just being a team guy and really buying in, and Hugh Robertson, a guy who sacrificed so much on the defensive end and was really the ring leader of our defense and how good it was, and Alberto Damour, a walk-on, what he did in practice every single day. Never gets in a game. These guys right here, and it's funny I'm watching TV and you'll hear an announcer talk about, boy, St. Louis is doing a great job, they're grinding out possessions and they're playing great defense, and then you hear Wisconsin is grinding out offense, this that, and the other, you know, kids are disciplined, great coaching, and all of a sudden we play that way, it's ugly basketball. Not everybody. I'm not pointing the finger at a lot of people. I just think that was a little disappointing for me. More than that, I'm just happy that our guys didn't get distracted by those kind of comments, because we're playing to win games, and that's what these kids bought into. We're going to play to win basketball games. And so just keep that kind of focus when you're 18, 20 years old is great. Just to see those guys buy into what we're trying do and not get distracted. Enough of the soap box. I'll open it up for the kids. Q. Question for either of you about their perimeter shooting. They hit a lot of 3's coming in the game. How big was that and how hard to stop them from hitting the 3's tonight? ANTHONY COLLINS: Their bigs had good screens and we just didn't execute how we're supposed to get over and make them curl and not let them shoot 3's, though. I think that was a little bit on us. A good job by Ohio to execute. Q. For Victor, Victor, could you talk about the last seconds and the disappointment you feel and how long it will take to gain the perspective of how much you guys accomplished this year? VICTOR RUDD, JR.: Of course, I was upset that we lost, but I'm not disappointed. I know we played hard. I know this is going to set the tone for our team next year, and I'm just sad to see our seniors leave on this note. Q. This is for Victor or Anthony. Is it frustrating that you guys shot yourself in the foot a little bit in the last ten minutes, the technical swung the momentum and then there were two missed front ends of 1-on-1's that really seemed to get them going. Do you guys feel like you kind of hurt yourselves? ANTHONY COLLINS: I would say so. You know, free throws, we practice them all the time, but, you know, just didn't go in for us, and the technical, I guess the ref felt that Jawanza held on to the rim. We can't control that. We just tried to go back out there and compete. It didn't end the way we wanted to. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student athletes? Q. For both you guys, I was hearing coaches as they exit the NCAA saying it's the finality of the finish, you lose, it's done and it's so quick and it's so sudden. Your thoughts right now from both of you as to your feelings at this stage. ANTHONY COLLINS: Of course, I'm mad that we lost, because like any competitor, we like to go on. Right now we probably don't appreciate how blessed we are to get this far when no one picked us to go this far in preseason, but I'm sure when we look back, everyone will appreciate it and enjoy the time that we had with each other. VICTOR RUDD, JR.: Yeah. It was quick. We knew if we lost, we was done. We knew it was a one-and-done game. We was hoping to go further, but like he said, we made history in our school, we tied for the most wins in school history. We advanced in the tournament more than anybody in our school history has. So we be proud of it in about a month, I think. Q. Anthony, defensively you guys held them to 21 in the first half. Was there anything they did differently in the second half to be able to bring the tempo up to the level they wanted to be in? ANTHONY COLLINS: Like I said, the 3's really seemed like they hadn't missed no 3's in the second half. We just didn't execute our defensive assignment the right way. They got open and they made the shots. Q. One more for Victor. You talked how about how this sets a foundation. How much does this set a higher starting point for what you guys expect and start with next season? VICTOR RUDD, JR.: With last season we had a disappointing season and we went in the weight room and on the track and went even harder. I guess this year, us having a good year, we want to go further next year. So we're going to get in the weight room with our weight coach and on the track and go harder than we did last year so we can be a successful team next year, and our newcomers coming in, we're going to welcome them with open arms and have a good off-season and come in ready. Q. Anthony, being a freshman, you went from high school to this. You look at that, talk about the transformation of you playing high school ball into going into the NCAA Tournament real quick. ANTHONY COLLINS: Well, you can definitely tell a difference by how bigger and stronger and faster everyone is. I think I was prepared. I think I've been waiting for this my whole life. I think I trained so I can get here, and I just wanted to go out and show the world what I could do and try to lead my team the best way I could. THE MODERATOR: Any others? Okay. Thank you, guys. Q. Stan, I just want to repeat the question that I asked Anthony about some of the self-inflicted wounds in the second half. How frustrating was that, that the technical seemed to get them back in the game and then you had the missed front ends. COACH HEATH: We pride ourselves in not beating ourselves and, you know, momentum plays are momentum plays. We're a team that really feeds off of momentum, and normally we get a dunk like that and I think it energizes our defense and we get excited and all of a sudden we might get four, five, six, ten stops in a row. And, you know, when the play happened that way, I think it took a little bit of that fuel away from us, but, you know, it's a part of the game. We just had to regroup. But I think you're right, those were maybe some turning point moments in a close game like this, and it can be a factor. So, yeah, it's possible, but there's other things out there that happened as well. Q. Stan, I want to ask you the same question I asked Victor. Obviously it hurts when you get beat. How long will it take you to step back and realize how much history you guys made? COACH HEATH: Well, this will sting with me until I die but, you know, I will -- you know, probably once I get on -- I wake up in the morning, I'll have a lot of pride and I'll feel like, boy, this team gave a lot and they did, they just -- they sacrificed, they worked. The number one fundamental in basketball to me is being coachable, and this team was coachable. They listened. They bought in. They hugged each other. They lifted each other up.  You know, sometimes when your team can, I guess what I call police themselves, challenge each other, and one guy is down, pick a guy up or, you know, teach a guy something, hey, why don't you try do it this way, this might help you. You know, or, hey, like don't do this, don't do the wrong things, you have a special team and that's what we had this year. It didn't happen at the beginning. It happened as time went on. And so it's really special to me. Q. What sort of value does making it to the second game in the NCAA Tournament as a freshman with Anthony? D.J. Cooper did it his freshman year and seeing how he's progressed. How do you look forward to that playing out for him the next few years? COACH HEATH: The best is yet to come for that young man. He's good, but just wait until next year, because he will be extremely motivated. This kid gets up, you know, during a regular year at 6:00 in the morning and shoots and works on his game when everybody else is sleeping. He's a hungry, motivated young man, and he's going to set the tone for everybody on our team and all the new guys coming in. So, you know, 22 and winning a couple games, that's not going to last very long here. Q. Coach, I know you mentioned this a little bit yesterday, but now you've seen them up close, how does this team from Ohio, how do they compare, what similarities do you see between them and that Kentucky team you lead that went to the Elite 8 a few years ago? COACH HEATH: Extremely tough, very tough. They execute well. They have a system that the kids have bought into. They're resilient. They didn't -- we went up I think 6 points and I thought they might rattle a little bit and they didn't. They came back strong. It's a very, very, good basketball team, and, you know, who knows, you never know in this tournament what can happen. Q. Back to the technical foul, and I know you can't talk about officiating, but just looked to me that your guys were deflated. They scored 6 points in less than a minute, and that was the obvious turning point in the basketball game. Did you sense that your guys were -- the Ohio fans go nuts, the Ohio band goes crazy, your guys are down and could never get it back. That swung the whole basketball game, that one play. And again, I'm not asking you to criticize the officials, but I'm asking you to talk about psychologically, how that impacted your players. COACH HEATH: Well, I don't want to blame one play on -- that decided the game. It certainly changed momentum. I'm not even mad that we dunked it and maybe we hung a little bit, maybe not. I got to watch the film to see it. What did bother me was all year long, really since the Big East season, we didn't let one play bother us, and I thought we did. I thought next play down, they ran a staggered screen action. We never stop on screens, we handle those things very well, and the next thing I know, somebody has got a wide open shot. I haven't seen a wide open shot from an opponent in probably two months. That wasn't -- I don't think we handled the -- the response was not normal for us. In games like this, in 30 seconds games can change and it did. I would say the more than that, though, you know, our 3-point defense has normally been 30 percent or below, like 29 percent. The difference in this game overall was the 3-point shooting, their ability to make it, our inability to make it. At the end of the day, that was the difference in the game. That one play did shift momentum, but in the big picture, that was the difference in the game. Q. You talked a lot about how last year and the disappointment of last year was the motivating factor. Is there a key to making this, on the other end of things, a motivating factor for the kids this off-season? COACH HEATH: This is going to sting. Those guys are crying in the locker room. I'm not real happy right now, and, you know, we'll use this as fuel, and we'll use this to, you know, take things to a higher level. Number one, we won't go 7-6 in non-conference. I can tell you that right now. We're going to set the tone early. We already know how good defense can be for us, and with some of the guys that we have coming in, we have a lot of fire power offensively, athletic guys who can guard and score and have more ball handling out there to take a little pressure of A.C. as well. We'll miss Ron Anderson Gilchrist and inside stuff, but don't be surprised. Don't be surprised. We'll be a hungry group. Q. Just want you to know, Stan, how proud the university is and I am of you, your staff and this team. Thank you. COACH HEATH: From the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much for your support, the new facilities and the commitment to basketball. We wouldn't be here without you. Q. Stan, again, can you talk about your gut and what were you feeling the last as the clock ran down? You said it would sting until you die, but what does a guy go through, competitive guy go through, in those seconds? COACH HEATH: Well, unfortunately, I'm one of those guys that looks in the mirror and says "What could I have done better?" I'll just scratch myself like, what could I have done better to help my team. And so I'm just kind of kicking myself a little bit. I feel like I didn't maybe -- I don't know if I prepared them well enough or maybe did a little bit too much the day before, because we weren't quite -- didn't quite have the zip. I don't know. I'll just digest this and try to figure out what I could have done better to help our team, and that's kind of how I feel right now. And, you know, I'm always trying to get either better, and today I don't feel like I did everything necessary to get my team to play like they're capable of playing. Q. I asked Anthony that question of Victor about the finality of this and how things just abruptly come to an end. How do you handle that as a coach? COACH HEATH: Well, you know, my A.D. came in and he said it right, there's only going to be -- we always one team, but now there's so many tournaments, I guess there's going to be about four teams in the that end the season with a win, but really one when it's all said and done in the big tournament. So, there's going to be a lot of coaches that feel like I do. I wish I could have felt this way next weekend or the weekend after that, but it's hard. It's something I love doing. I love these kids. You know, I don't get to coach Ron Anderson, Gilchrist and Hugh, Alberto. I don't get to coach those guys again. That's hard. I don't get to coach those guys again. That's hard. That's hard to think about. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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