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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Austin HollinsAndre HollinsTubby SmithCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Illinois – 51 THE MODERATOR: We'll take an opening statement from coach. TUBBY SMITH: It's disappointing. I thought we did some things after we over came the first half. We fought and gave ourselves a chance. But in the end we just didn't get the stops that we needed. You got to commend Illinois. They kept their composure and they made a big shot at the end. And that's what it be takes. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes right here. Q. For Andre, do you guys go into Selection Sunday feeling like you're in the tournament or do you think it's a situation where you're sweating it out and feel like you could have done a lot more than that? ANDRE HOLLINS: It's not a feeling that you want to go into the Selection Sunday feeling. We haven't played our best basketball in the past three games. I mean, we want to have faith. We have a pretty good resume. We have a good RPI. So we're just going in ‑‑ it's not a feeling that you like to go in with on a loss. AUSTIN HOLLINS: I think Andre said it best. It's not a feeling you want to have going into it, but you have to stay confident and hope that we can get in. We still feel like we can, with our RPI, our strength of schedule and everything. But it's out of our hands at this point. Q. On the last possession, do you feel like you were fouled on the side there? AUSTIN HOLLINS: I thought maybe I got pushed a little bit, but I can't, I can't say that that caused anything. The game went the way it did. It was out of my hands what happened the rest of the way. Whether they make the call or didn't. And we just got to move on. We were in there throughout the whole game. There were some calls that should have been called or shouldn't have been called on both sides, so. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. Coach, out of bounds play at the end of the game. They said Austin stepped on the line. How does your team respond when something like that happens? It seems like defensively they could have made a key stop and extended the game. TUBBY SMITH: You're right, we had many opportunities there to kind of put the game, not necessarily away, but, you know, three or four offensive rebounds there when they made the three. We ran a shot out of bounds play that we were hoping to get the ball in the hands of a better shooter and Trevor was screening across for him. They took away the pass. They did a good job of putting a big guy on the ball there. So you got to search and fake and try to find a way to pass around it. And what happened was, looking back on it, I think Rodney, I mean Austin, came open earlier, but by the time he got closer to the sideline, it was a little late. But we also had some other people coming back to the ball and that didn't happen. But, again, you got to be strong with the ball. He's right, I haven't seen the replay, but obviously when you come to the ball, you want to come and do a jump shot and be strong with it, be physical. It didn't happen. We turned it over 19 times and we just had a real issue with taking care of the basketball. Q. Same question I asked of the players, at this point do you feel like your team has done enough to be in the tournament? TUBBY SMITH: We'll be wondering and hoping. We have had our chances to, for the last three games, and we really haven't shot the ball well. That's been one of our problems. Even in this game, we do a good job defensively, we shoot 40 percent, they shoot 32 percent, hold them to 24. So we just got to find some offensive firepower. But I think we, as I said, we have a good resume. We haven't played well of late, but when you look at the entire body of work, I think we have done enough. But it's not up to us. It will be interesting to me. It will be a sweat it out type of thing. Q. Obviously with Austin he had one of his best games. Did you say anything to him personally after the game? TUBBY SMITH: Keep your head up. I don't know. I didn't know what happened, and like he said, there are a lot of things that ‑‑ the one play doesn't cost you the game. We had a number of opportunities in that previous possession when Illinois had, I don't know, it might have been like three or four offensive rebounds and they finally made the three to tie it. And then we just couldn't seem to handle the ball very well, as we had the whole game. When you turn the ball over 19 times, it puts a lot of pressure on you to stop people. And it was too much pressure for us defensively, I guess. Because of our offense, our lack of ball possession, ball control, and execution. Q. Do you feel like that this game kind of embodies the team, the way they have been this year? They come out with this aggressiveness and then don't do much at all in the first half. TUBBY SMITH: We have‑‑ one of the things we were hoping from the beginning of the season is that if we had a deeper bench, that we would be able to use it. It would be very, very productive for us. And that hasn't been the case lately. We got quality minutes out of Andre and Austin though. It kind of epitomized what we, the way our play has been so erratic, so up‑and‑down, so inconsistent. We have been taking care of the ball better the last few games and we tried to simplify our offense today and be more of a ball possession type of game. And just like you saw, the guys fumbled the ball a little bit. I don't know what was happening. Rodney fumbled a few. It seemed like we just couldn't ‑‑ and you're right, this is what has been going on for the last ‑‑ for awhile. I know they want to play well, they want to play together. We got a good group of guys. We just haven't had that take charge, I got it under control, I'm in control here type thing, type person. We have to do it collectively too. We had some real breakdowns out there. But today we over came that from a standpoint that we shot the ball better in the second half. But, yeah, that's kind of the way the season's been. This game is kind of typical of that. Not finishing. Same thing happened at our place. We had a possession there and we turned it over against Illinois. Q. The first half you got into a situation again where there was foul trouble and you had to sit some guys for the entire half. TUBBY SMITH: We were going to put him back in. But Austin, I mean, Austin was in foul trouble too. It was just a bad, bad foul. He finished with three fouls, so Austin only finished with two. We wanted to get him back in the game for the defensive aggressiveness. Q. Did you think about putting Austin back as well? I mean, you obviously told him, you know, he's one of the star players. TUBBY SMITH: We probably could have put him back in there and stopped the bleeding. But again, I have faith in our guys that are coming off the bench, I have faith in them, but belief in themselves is two different things. We got to continue to work on that. Looking back on it, I probably should have played them both. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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