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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2013Anthony DrmicDerrick MarksLeon RiceLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 73 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Boise State. Coach, just some general remarks on tonight's game. COACH RICE: Well, we knew we were playing a team that's really, really good. One of the things that maybe gets lost on SanDiego State is they didn't have X for a lot of their games in January. That kid's really important to this team. If you add him to this team, they're a team that probably contends for the league title. So that's a really good basketball team that we just lost to. They were dialed in. They played terrific defense. Got us a little flustered, especially in the first half. But I was really proud of our guys. True to form, we kind of shuffled the deck, went small ball on them, made one last run at them. Really proud of our guys as always. The ball didn't maybe drop like it has for us. But you got to credit SanDiego State's defense. They got some big‑time players, juniors and seniors that stepped up. I told our guys, We've got to learn from this as we go forward. We've got sophomores that they're going to learn. The next opportunity they have, they're going to be better at it. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Derrick, can you walk us through the first half and second half. What was going wrong? DERRICK MARKS: My teammates and the coaches had just told me to keep on being aggressive. I knew eventually I would just make one. So I just kept on shooting the best shot I could. COACH RICE: Derrick has carried us a lot of games. When there's a lot on your shoulders, sometimes you get a lot of attention. They did a nice job of guarding him. A few of those were in and out. We just wanted him to keep shooting. His teammates wanted him to keep shooting. He got it going there for a little bit. Q. Anthony, what is the feeling now? Now you have to wait a little bit. ANTHONY DRMIC: I feel like this season, I mean, we've had a great year. Right now we're going to go back to Boise. It's in the Committee's hands, you know what I mean? Whatever happens happens. I think we've had a good season, so I think we're happy with it. COACH RICE: These guys have done a great job. They've got a great résumé now. This league is as good as there is. Our résumé will stand up to anybody's, I think. Q. Nervous having to wait these couple days? COACH RICE: No, no. We've done everything we could. Would we have liked to win this one? Sure. Like I said, that's a really good basketball team. We just beat 'em four days ago. They're competitors. We knew they'd give us their best shot. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Being down double‑digits, being able to come back, get a lead, brief as it was, make this a game. COACH RICE: Well, you know, we were kind of playing frustrated, just kind of not clicking, couldn't get things going. So we went small ball. We tried to heat 'em up defensively a little bit, change what we were doing. It kind of got us going and changed the game a little bit. We were able to take the lead. Then I don't know if it kind of peaked too early a little bit. Like I said, a lot always goes back to them, too. They made big plays, made some big shots down the stretch. Then they made their free throws. They were 25 for 31 tonight. I was really proud of the way our guys didn't fold it up, didn't get their heads down. That's true to form. That's how they've been all year. Q. Can you talk about going small. COACH RICE: Well, we just felt like we had to change. We felt like we were running in sand, playing a little frustrated. We had to throw some different stuff at 'em. It's a credit to SanDiego State. They were really guarding us well. We kind of tried to change it, create something with our defense, got a couple steals for baskets. It's funny to say we went small ball because we started small ball. We just went smaller ball. Q. You expressed confidence earlier that you will get in. The No.1 or No. 2 conference typically would get five out of nine teams in. Are you concerned at all that the Mountain West is not going to be treated with that same level of respect? COACH RICE: No, 'cause I think if you look at our résumé with four top‑50 wins, I think 16 top‑100 games we played, we went out and played people. We played people in the pre‑season, played on the road, at Michigan State, at Creighton. We played Utah on Majerus Night there. That was a big night. That was our fifth game, four of them on the road in that little stretch. We did all that we could do. I think the Committee really views that. Did you go out and schedule? Did you play a lot of high‑level teams? There's some other teams they're talking about getting in that have one top‑50 win. I think ours stands up. It's what the Committee wants you to do is play a lot of good teams, not dodge teams. You can't dodge 'em in this league. We won some of 'em. It's not only our wins. We lost by 4 at Michigan State. We lost on a buzzer beater to SanDiego State. We lost now in a close one to SanDiego State. We lost in overtime to New Mexico. I know they maybe don't look at scoring margin, all that stuff, but we were really, really competitive. Then we had a lot of guys out, too, in that one stretch. I think we were 21‑6 with Jeff in the lineup going into tonight. Q. Derrick has carried you a lot. What did you see in the first half? COACH RICE: Well, they were doing a great job of running a lot of guys at 'em. They're long and athletic. They altered some of his shots around the bucket. I think it led to a little bit of frustration for him and Anthony. A few of their shots didn't drop. I saw a little frustration on their face. You can't play frustrated. So we kept trying to change that a little bit, getting the ball in different spots. Like I said, then we went small to try to create some easy shots off our defense. That kind of got us going a little bit and we were right back in the game. I think we took the lead there. Then they took it right back. Again, our guys battled. The ball doesn't always drop. We rely a lot on the jump shot, too. If that's not dropping, that can be tough. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH RICE: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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