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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013John GroceBrandon PaulD.J. RichardsonCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Illinois – 51 THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with Illinois. We'll start with an opening statement from coach. JOHN GROCE: Obviously a tale of two halves here. I thought that defensively we were really good in the first half. Maybe as good as we have defended in a long time. Thought we were really locked in. I thought they then flipped that switch on us in the second half and were able to get stops, kind of get us out of rhythm a little bit. Certainly credit them for that. They made some plays. But at the end of the day, and I've always said this, at tournament time you got to try to grind and guys got to make plays. You have to have some toughness. Obviously Brandon's shot was a big shot. And then the possession where we got multiple offensive rebounds that led to some opportunities where D.J. ended up making the three was just as big as well. So our last two possessions there we found a way. It's fitting that two seniors in Brandon and D.J. made those plays. But the offensive rebound effort was also tremendous by our guys on the possession that led to D.J.'s three. It put us in a position where we had a chance to win the game. I'm happy for these guys and obviously now we get a chance to move on and play a really, really good Indiana team tomorrow at 11 okay. THE MODERATOR: Questions of Brandon and D.J. Raise your hand. Q. D.J., can you take us through that second to last possession and what was going through your mind? D.J. RICHARDSON: My teammates found me. I kept shooting. I'm a shooter, I keep shooting. That's what coach wants me to do. I didn't think about how I was shooting, I just thought about how it was going to fall. I knew it was a big shot for us. Q. Brandon, was there any thought of passing on the last play? BRANDON PAUL: In those situations you got to see what the defense gives you. I've been in those situations before where the defense is flexing me, I hit an open jumper to win the game and stuff like that. But basically letting them come out, I saw I had some space, so I let the shot go with the buzzer winding down. Q. (No microphone.) BRANDON PAUL: We knew they were going to make their runs. We didn't want our offense to affect our defense. There was a stretch where we weren't playing any defense, but we were scoring. So we were trading baskets back and forth and that's one thing we can't do is to trade baskets and expect them to miss. So we got it up on the defensive end and we had some good offense. Our bigs were there keeping the ball alive and they got us the shots. Q. 25 points on 10‑16 shooting, your mindset going in this game today? D.J. RICHARDSON: I didn't want to lose.  We worked too hard. This team has so much character and the coaching staff, they got us right for this one, as they do for all the games. So my mindset was to be aggressive. Coach talked to me to just stay aggressive. And I was aggressive the last few days, the last game at Ohio State. Coach Groce let me know. So I basically wanted to attack on offense and at the same time do other things such as rebound. And I'm more excited about I didn't turn the ball over today. So that's another step moving forward. Q. D.J., can you talk about the staying confident when you're missing shots going through the game. You started out 1‑12 and then you hit some big ones. Talk about what's going through your mind. D.J. RICHARDSON: I've been in situations like that my whole career. I don't let it affect me. I'm going to keep shooting and make plays. I did a good job on defense. I didn't let that affect me on defense and I made some good plays on defense. But I'm going to keep shooting no matter what. That's my role for the team. And it worked out that I made a big shot for us. Q. Brandon, how important is it for you guys to have that edge right now? You're probably in the tournament already, but to have that edge right now in this tournament to kind of prepare for that. BRANDON PAUL: We're preparing for the next game. We got Indiana next and we have a mindset that this is it for us. Especially for our seniors, we got to play, go out with a bang. So we, our focus right now is on the Big‑10 tournament and our next opponent. So we got to fuel up, get a lot of liquids in us, and just get ready for the next one. Q. (No microphone.) BRANDON PAUL: We didn't want to come in and lose three in a row. And I think we fought the whole game. Our mindset was that we finished everything. So obviously we had a good start to the first half, got a little sloppy with it, guys started getting more fancy. So coach got into us and let us know that it's not over yet. We have been in those situations. We went down at halftime down nine and we came back. We knew they were going to make their run. And we knew we had to continue to stay poised and make plays. And that's what the Big‑10 tournament is all about is making plays. Q. D.J., talk about Sam's defensive play in this game. Obviously he forced the turnover to set up the game winner? D.J. RICHARDSON: Sam does a lot of things that don't show up on the stat sheet. He's been doing a great job on the offensive rebounds. He can guard one through five.  He's been doing a good job for us the whole year. That was a big play for us. It set the game up. Some of our seniors made some big plays down the stretch. They gave us the opportunity, they gave Brandon the opportunity to make that last shot. So Sam made a big play for us also on the defensive end as well. Q. Are you excited to get another shot at Indiana? D.J. RICHARDSON: I'm ready to keep playing this tournament. I'm blessed to play against these type of teams. There's a lot of good teams in the Big‑10. We don't ‑‑ we're going to treat Indiana like we treat the rest of the teams in the Big‑10, take it one game at a time. We'll have scouting tonight and get a lot of fluids in us and get prepared for tomorrow. Q. (No microphone.) BRANDON PAUL: My parents mean a lot. They told us that they were going to head out to Darius's game. And I love them with all my heart. They do a lot for us. And I'll probably see them again tomorrow. They're super parents. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for coach. Q. You had two timeouts there at the end, chose to just let Brandon go. Talk about that decision. JOHN GROCE: Well, Dustin and I were talking about it there on the bench. I was about 50/50, to be honest, whether I was going to call one or not. But at the end of the day I kind of knew what I wanted to go with there. And so we, I didn't want to give them a chance really to make any type of defensive adjustment. We just decided to ride with it. The big thing that we were trying to do there is make sure he didn't go between five and seven on the game clock. We wanted to make sure that we got the last shot and worst case scenario go to overtime. Obviously he made a big play. Q. This series was a tale of three different games. You won at their place, they won at your place. What was neutralizing factor today? JOHN GROCE: Well I thought for us‑‑ it was interesting, I was really worried about the glass and they did a good job on the glass. They got us, they were 38 for 26 in the rebound margin. But if you look at the offensive rebounds, they had 11, we had 12. And then we had six turnovers to their 19. So that was the huge thing going into the game was not to try to lose the possession battle, because that's where they're really good. They're great on the glass. His teams are always very aggressive. They force turnovers. They're good on the, as I say, good on rebounding. When that happened, making an extra possession, we were doing the best job we could to limit that. But I thought our ability to take care of the ball was probably the difference today. Q. In the second half I think it was 8 to 1 fouls. You guys had 8, Minnesota had 1. You had a pretty long conversation with one of the referees during the timeout. JOHN GROCE: It wasn't really about that, about the number. Those guys have a job to do. If they see a foul, they call a foul. Their job is not to even things out. We have great officials in our league. Mine was more about a specific play I was talking to them about. Q. The Gophers turned the ball over four times on inbounds plays in the second half. Did you see something coming in that you thought you could exploit? JOHN GROCE: We work on that a lot. That's something, it's a very important part of our system. And there in special situations, inbounds situations, late in the game, I thought our defense was as good or maybe better than our offense on those inbounds situations. So I thought ‑‑ that's a very astute point. I thought that was a huge part of our ability to ultimately win the game. Q. Heading to Indiana what can you expect from that game tomorrow and how they're playing tomorrow? JOHN GROCE: I'll know more with when I get with Dustin. Dustin has the scouting report. He can inform me what they have done between when we played them last and now. But for us right now total focus was on today's game. And D.J.'s exactly right, we have taken it one game at a time. We have not tried to advance our thought any further than that. So here in the next couple hours I'll maybe have some more thoughts on that game specifically. Q. How much poise does your preparation and your seniors give them in games like this? JOHN GROCE: I think it's huge. Obviously we played an against a lot of really good basketball teams in league. I thought we played a tremendous non‑conference schedule, played some really good teams there. Home, away, neutral. We have been in so many different types of environments. You add that, the X factor of experience, because we play a lot of seniors, I think that's helpful as well. And I do think that helps in terms of being poised. Kind of staying the course and trying to play the full 40 minutes and I thought our guys did that today. Q. You guys were the aggressors most of the first half. Second half Minnesota stole that. Take me through what you saw at that point, possession‑wise? JOHN GROCE: I saw great effort, guys making plays, keeping the ball a live, and then D.J. makes the big shot. But I would agree with you, I thought that, certainly not to take anything away from them, but I thought we were the aggressor in the first half. I thought they had probably a little bit of an edge in physical disposition in the second half. We had some possessions on offense that were not what we wanted, but I'll give them credit. They defended their tails off in the second half. They did. It was hard to get good shots against them. Fortunately, late in the game, we were able to make a few plays late in the game. Q. 16 seconds left and the timeout before the inbounds you put your hand on Sam's shoulder and had a conversation. What was that about? JOHN GROCE: That's between me and him. Just encouraging him. We were doing something defensively there once it was in bounded and I wanted to make sure that he and I were on the same page. Q. You said throughout the season that the seniors try hard every night. What does it mean coming in, meeting these guys, forming relationships with them, to see them go out like this? JOHN GROCE: Well, obviously, we have still got basketball to play. We're going to continue to take it one day at a time. But I was happy for them. They made plays. D.J. ‑‑ and Sam made a huge play, forcing the turnover on the sideline. I'm happy for those guys. They have been through an awful lot. And I'm really proud of their resilience. I said that as soon as season two ended. That they're aware that some people had written them off. I think that put a chip on their shoulder. It does, if you're a competitor. And they responded very well in the second half of Big‑10 play. And today I think that their mindset of being poised and the way they talked to one another in timeouts, our body language was really good. Those intangible things mean as much as anything in terms of being able to get the outcome we got today. Now you're able to make some of those plays because your mind is right. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. JOHN GROCE: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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