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EA SPORTS MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 20, 2012Vander BlueDavante GardnerBuzz WilliamsLAHAINA, HAWAII Marquette – 89 THE MODERATOR: We have Vander Blue, as I mentioned earlier, he scored 18 points, and Davante Gardner had 15. Vander, I'll just open it up for you. Since Coach isn't here, would you like to make a comment or two and we'll open it up for questions? VANDER BLUE: I just want to say I think our team played really good. Played with a lot of energy. Coming off the loss last night, we just came in here worrying about this team and trying to get better. Just knowing that we played as hard as we could, and there is nothing we can do about what happened last night. That was a one in a million shot. So we had to move on. Everybody responded today to show what we're really about. Q. Vander, can you talk a little bit more about bouncing back from the loss? Were you happy to have the opportunity to get right back on the court today? VANDER BLUE: Yeah, I feel like once we got home that's when it was over. Games like that, you're fighting so hard. A player makes a shot like that, it can sit on you and affect a lot of players. But we just wanted to make sure we were mentally strong and tough that we knew that it wasn't over. We had another game in 24 hours to get ready for. I think that loss yesterday really helped us, because we came out with a fire and an edge like we didn't want to put ourselves in that position again today. Q. You talked about how earlier in the year you wanted to be more assertive this year and be more of an offensive force and a go‑to guy. How would you account for your last two games the way you got it going? VANDER BLUE: I'm just playing with a free mind and just playing off my teammates. Junior is a great guy, and everybody's going to double Davante, so that pretty much leaves me open for shots. So I feel like if I'm making those shots, our team is a much better team. I'm not trying to do nothing that we don't do every day in practice. So most of the points I score come off a great pass from junior or everybody double teaming Davante. Q. Davante, was that one of your team's better first halves of the season? DAVANTE GARDNER: Yeah, I think so. We came out playing hard, getting on the boards with offensive rebounds. So that's one of our best first halves, actually. THE MODERATOR: Coach Williams, I thought you may like to give some comments from the coach's perspective? COACH WILLIAMS: I thought our response after what we went through yesterday was outstanding. We'll have an opportunity to see how we handle it on the other side of it tomorrow morning. Q. Your turnovers you forced, the baskets made was pretty good? COACH WILLIAMS: I think we had 11 turnovers in the first half, three in the second half. Again, our margin is going to be offensive rebounding and turnovers. In the first half, I thought our energy was outstanding defensively. Of the 28‑‑ I think it was 39 possessions in the first half‑‑ of the 28 that we didn't turn it over, our efficiency was outstanding. We can't turn it over 11 times in a half. We can't do that. I know it's still early, but you can't do that. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH WILLIAMS: Yes, I thought that was really good. I think when we can force turnovers, it's typically going to turn into a transition basket for us, just like it does for most teams. They had 27 points at the half, and nine of them were in transition. But they were all off live ball turnovers. You turn the ball over and it's a live ball, it's probably going to be a one‑pass or less transition basket. Q. Can you just talk about how valuable the opportunity was today to get right back on the court after what happened yesterday? COACH WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think in a lot of ways I'm built as a weird guy. So typically recruit weird kids. But we like to work, and we're not necessarily always pleased with the result. Everybody was texting and calling, oh, how are they going to respond? They're going to respond.  In my tenure here, we have lost a lot of one‑possession games. But in the games since we've been here, we've never lost the way we lost yesterday. That's never happened where we never got another possession, regardless how short the clock was. But I knew that they would respond. That doesn't mean that we were going to win, but I knew their energy and their spirit that they'd respond. Again, we'll have the opportunity to do that again tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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