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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 16, 2013Jim BoeheimJames SoutherlandNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK LOUISVILLE – 78 JOHN PAQUETTE: This is Louisville's third title since '09. In '09 they beat Syracuse 76‑66. Last year beat Cincinnati 50‑44. It's their fourth appearance in a final in the last five years. For Syracuse, it was their 15th final appearance. It's a Big East record. COACH BOEHEIM: We played as well in New York as we ever could have hoped for. That's really what we thought about coming down here to try to get ourselves back on track. Obviously, those 4 out of 5 games, you're not thinking of yourself as a viable team in the NCAA Tournament. And to come down here and turn around what we did, losing to very badly the first time we played Pittsburgh, to beat them, and to losing even worse at Georgetown, to beat them, and then really we played well tonight. I think Louisville's the hardest team for us to play at the end of four days. The same thing happened when we won the game and went overtime against West Virginia, it's very difficult to go back and go against a pressing team in the last game in the fourth day. That's really hard to do. You have to give Louisville tremendous credit because they are, in my mind, one of the best pressing teams in the country and have been. I thought that they were the beast team in the league from the beginning of the year, and they proved that today. Q. Jim, Louisville is obviously a very good pressing team. Did your team handle it as well as you would have liked? COACH BOEHEIM: Obviously not. Q. James, do you think you guys ran out of gas because of the four games? JAMES SOUTHERLAND: I just feel like we kind of made it‑‑ we didn't make some smart teams at the end, but we kind of had the lead. We didn't take advantage of our lead and move the ball around like we should have. Q. Coach, were you looking to extend your two‑three zone a little higher the way you did against Georgetown, hoping for similar results? COACH BOEHEIM: No, we played it actually about the same. We wanted to get to Hancock. Other than that first one, we got to him. We wanted to let‑‑ Siva has not shot well against us. Defensively, we were fine. We lost the game against their pressure. They had 32 points off turnovers. They didn't have many points off our defense. They had 22 in the first half, and 32 points in the second half, 56 were probably turnovers. It wasn't anything to do with our half‑court defense. Our half‑court defense has been good all year. It was good tonight. Q. Coach, how much more prepared, despite the loss tonight, do you feel the team is with the wins they've been able to get tonight? COACH BOEHEIM: That's what I talked about for ten minutes. I'll repeat it. We came to New York, not playing well, we lost 4 out of 5, and we needed to get ourselves going. We beat a team we usually don't beat, Pittsburgh. We beat a team, Seton Hall, which shot 50% from the field and 50% from the three which nobody has done against us this year. And we beat a team that beat us by 25 and 10 or 12 in the two games we played them. So obviously we're playing better than we were then. Q. Jim, considering their depth that they have in their backcourt; is there any team that can simulate what that's like? COACH BOEHEIM: I think they're the best pressing team that I've seen this year. In the two games we played, we had no problems against their pressure. We had a couple of turnovers at the end of our game with Syracuse, but two of them were out of bounds plays. They really weren't on trapping situations. So we played them twice, and we didn't have a problem. We won one. I mean, both games could have gone either way. It was probably the worst thing to happen to get up 15. If we hadn't played well and we were up four or five, they probably wouldn't have done that, but that's what they had to do at that point to go after it, and that was exactly what I would have tried to do, and that's what they did, and they're good at it. Q. Jim, you mentioned having to play Louisville at the end of the four‑day run. Is going up against that press at that time, is it much mental fatigue or physical fatigue? COACH BOEHEIM: I think it's‑‑ obviously you're tired, but obviously we made some mistakes that you can't blame on just being tired. We made some mistakes, and they made some great plays. They're a tremendous defensive team. Q. Coach, final Big East conference tournament, what are some of your thoughts? COACH BOEHEIM: Just how badly we handled their pressure was the only thing I was thinking about, and we've got to get ready and get to the airport. Those were the two thoughts I had. All of the other stuff I've been thinking about for two years, and I said it all. I'm not going to repeat it all again tonight. JOHN PAQUETTE: Syracuse, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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