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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: BOSTONMarch 22, 2012Mick CroninSean KilpatrickCashmere WrightBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Ohio State – 81 COACH CRONIN: Well, obviously proud of my guys' effort. We got down early, made a tremendous comeback. At the end of the day, we didn't take care of the basketball. We're a low turnover team. We out‑shot our percentage tonight. We've been shooting 46 percent, 46 and a half; we shot 39 from three. But too many turnovers. We gave ourselves no chance to win. They're hard enough to guard, but with 18 turnovers we just gave ourselves no chance. Q. Cashmere, Coach Cronin talked about the turnovers. What do you think it was that led to you guys turning the ball over tonight more than usual? CASHMERE WRIGHT: We just weren't making the right plays. We weren't making the right pass. We was over‑dribbling the ball, doing things uncharacteristic of our team. Q. Cashmere, when you came out and hit them with that run at the start of the second half, just talk about what went into that. Did you feel at all that they let off the gas with a 12‑point halftime lead? And then also after you hit them with the run, what happened when they hit back? CASHMERE WRIGHT: I mean, we didn't feel like they let off the gas. We felt like we just came out and played a little harder than we did in the first half and then we went right back to what we were doing in the first half, and that was turning the ball over and giving them back the game. Q. Sean, (Jared) Sullinger and (Deshaun) Thomas both had really big first halves for them, then you guys seemed to limit them a little bit more in the second half. What did you not do as well in the first half and what did you do a little bit better job of in the second half? SEAN KILPATRICK: I mean, they was getting a lot of second‑chance points on rebounds, and when the second half came, I'd say we was crushing the boards a lot more. Q. Can you guys talk about what you accomplished this year, getting this far? SEAN KILPATRICK: I mean, we had a great season. We had a great run. Can't be more proud. I wish we could have went further, but we had a great run. CASHMERE WRIGHT: Just to go off what Sean said, we accomplished what a lot of people didn't expect us to accomplish, so you can't be no more prouder for my team. But I am kind of upset that I can't get to play with Yancy (Gates) and Dion (Dixon) no more. Q. You mentioned the turnovers. Did you feel like it was more you guys, their pressure defensively, a combination of both? COACH CRONIN: No, I think you've got to understand, we all‑‑ Ohio State, Cincinnati, we all play in these type of games, Big Ten, Big East. Any coach when his team turns the ball over, for me I get on my‑‑ I feel like I didn't do a good enough job preparing and the guys feel like we didn't do a good enough job of taking care of the ball. It's not like we haven't played a good team before. Obviously we're frustrated with that. Q. What did you tell your guys at halftime after the way they played in the first half? COACH CRONIN: Our intensity level wasn't where it needs to be for us to have success. We only had eight deflections at halftime. We come out and we had six in the first five minutes of the second half. We were pressing in the first half but with no intensity, so we were too conservative defensively. They had nine offensive rebounds at halftime. Q. Yancy got in a little foul trouble in the first half but never seemed to get in any flow. Was it because of the foul trouble or what was happening? COACH CRONIN: We've struggled all year. As you know, I talk about being a good offensive team, and the number one thing is passing. Unfortunately when you're a low post player, you're relying a lot upon your passers, and we struggled obviously passing the ball. As Cash (Cashmere Wright) said, when we had him, we over‑dribbled. We had our chances to get him the basketball. When you play good teams, they don't give you all day to throw it to him. We had our chances, we didn't get him the basketball. Q. I know you're not thinking too much about the game Saturday, but can you assess at all Ohio State's chances against Syracuse? COACH CRONIN: No. That's why they pay Adam Zagoria from SNY. I'm on to recruiting unless CBS calls me. That would help recruiting. But I'll leave that to the geniuses. It's late. Q. You had talked before the game about Deshaun Thomas just being a guy that can be a match‑up problem. He had 20 in the first half. Is that what you were talking about a little bit? Again, you did a better job in the second half of controlling him. COACH CRONIN: Guys are on scholarship, if you don't guard him, they're going to shoot it in. So we didn't guard him. We did a better job in the second half. I think it's pretty well documented the caliber of player he is. But we did a poor job guarding him in the first half, very poor job. Q. If I would have asked you, let's say, 30 days after you took the Cincinnati job that you would be here today, what would you have told me? And what does it say about where you are now, where you go from here? COACH CRONIN: Well, I would have hoped that we would have been here, but as you know, I would have liked to have won the game. But I think that we've come a long way. I take a lot of pride in that. Nothing has been given to us. You know, we didn't take a job over where people were throwing money at our program and building arenas and practice gyms and facilities and all that. We've worked extremely hard as a staff to get to where we are, and our players‑‑ I think what you see when you watch them play, although we got outplayed tonight, in the Big East Conference, rebuilding a program has been a tough chore for a lot of people in the last ten years, especially since it's gone to 16 teams. So the fact that we've climbed that ladder and that we've had some success in March is great, but I've always‑‑ from the day I took the job, it's always been a long‑term proposition for me, so we're always trying to do things to get better each year and try to improve our facilities. That's what our new AD is focused on. We've got great support from our president. We have challenges at our school, but everybody is doing everything they can to help us build our program back up, and it's an arms race out there. But for me that's how I look at it. It's a long‑term approach. For me it wasn't try to come in, do whatever you can to win because it's somewhere I wanted to coach for 20 years and go play some golf. So everything I've done is try to do it the right way, try to build it for the long‑term. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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