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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Sasa BorovnjakPatrick ChambersD.J. NewbillCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Michigan – 83 THE MODERATOR: Go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach. PATRICK CHAMBERS: Proud of our kids. They competed. They played hard. Last month has been a lot of fun being right there, being so close. Give Michigan a lot of credit. That second half run that they made on us, we couldn't respond and we couldn't get stops. Their bigs did a tremendous job today. I think that was really the difference. The bigs finished. They hurt us on the offensive glass as well. I love this team and I'm really proud of these players and the way they competed to finish the season. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. For either guy, what happened in the second half when they started getting on a roll. How difficult are they to stop with all their offense? D.J. NEWBILL: I think that they got stops. They got out on the break, they hit shots, they rebounded the ball really well. I think that that led to them getting on their run. SASA BOROVNJAK: It was really tough. They crashed the offensive glass all game long and we didn't do a great job of rebounding and that was the difference. Q. D.J., Coach Beilein just had some really good things to say about potential for you guys next year with Frazier coming back. Talk about what you learned this year and the potential for next year. D.J. NEWBILL: Just learning to keep battling. No matter what adversity strikes, just keep battling. This upcoming season, we can't look too far ahead, we got to get in the gym and work hard. This offseason we just got to put in that much more work. Q. Can one of the players talk about the difficulty about getting inside against them? SASA BOROVNJAK: My teammates did a great job of finding me today. I was just trying to find open areas to help my teammates down low. But again, like their bigs did a great job today. I give them a lot of credit. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, fellows, you can return to the locker room. Take questions for coach. Q. You mentioned the play of the bigs. You look at the rebounding it was pretty even but you look at the second chance points and they had 28‑15. How big was that, their ability to cash in on their offensive rebounds? PATRICK CHAMBERS: That was the difference in the two games that we played them we did a pretty good job for the most part. Mitch McGary set the tone in the first half. He had a double, double and he had 10 rebounds in the first half alone. Again, Horford did his job and Morgan did his job. Those guys I thought were huge today. Because they know how we were loading to Tim and their shooters and Trey. So those guys had to catch and finish and they did. As a matter of fact, they caught, they finished, and they got to the foul line. They're back breakers. 3‑point plays are absolute daggers. And they did a good job. Q. Talk more about the last month and how much fun you had and does this kind of make it feel like you're closer to getting over the hump this year? PATRICK CHAMBERS: We got a lot of work to do. We're in the Big‑10. It's the best conference. Over the hump? I'll let you know when we get there next year. I told the guys‑‑ and I said this after the game against Wisconsin, we lost in that buzzer beater‑‑ I really enjoyed coaching them. I love coaching them and I want this season to continue. We're starting to get better, they were starting to mesh. And the cohesion out there, it was great, the chemistry and the trust. You could just see it over the last four or five weeks. We were really starting to come around. It's a shame the season has to end. Q. You must be pleased with only having eight turnovers against that pressure defense. PATRICK CHAMBERS: Yeah. I'm pleased that we only turned it over eight times. I'm not pleased that they only turned it over four times. We took care of the ball over the last month for the most part. One game here or there we didn't do a great job. But took care of the ball, we got shots. We didn't shoot the ball particularly well from the three today. They took away our threes, which was huge, because we made 10 threes against them at home last game. But we took care of the ball and our assists skyrocketed recently, which is good. We're starting to share the ball a little bit more and hopefully that can continue into next year. Q. Was there ever a point this year where you had to warn them that you can't just fast forward to next year and get Tim back. Was there every any, wait until next year you had to get out of their heads? PATRICK CHAMBERS: Well, there's no doubt. Every time we were in a press conference, every time we had media in it was all like, man, you guys are going to be good next year. And I was trying to tell them to live in the moment. Take each day as it comes. Stay here, be right here, right now. Because we can still win games and get better. We have a choice. Make the right choice. The choice is to continue to work hard. And they did. There's no guarantees next year either. There's always injuries, there's always something that's going to happen. So we have to continue what we laid out over the last few weeks and use that as we go into spring and summer. Q. With Frazier out, he says he's on point with his rehab. PATRICK CHAMBERS: Doing great. Q. What did he learn this year being a student coach? PATRICK CHAMBERS: He was awesome. He totally gets the coaching aspect of it. Totally see things when I get angry and upset during practice and games. He sees the game differently. He's very mature now. It's going to be challenge for him. It really is. Because he became a coach. Now he's got to go back to being a player and he's got to demand that respect and that leadership. And leadership never takes a day off. And I think he's looking forward to the challenge. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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