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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 19, 2013Dale LayerDavon MarshallJohn Caleb SandersDAYTON, OHIO North Carolina A&T – 73 THE MODERATOR: I'm joined by the head coach of Liberty, Dale Layer, as well as student‑athletes, Davon Marshall, Tavares Speaks, and John Caleb Sanders. COACH LAYER: I thought it was an exciting game. Two teams play their hearts out. I'm proud of my team. They could have quit several times. We kept battling back. Just proud of these guys. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student‑athletes. Q. For John Caleb, last play, what did you see? What happened as you were going coast to coast? JOHN CALEB SANDERS: We've had a lot of late‑game situations similar to that, and Coach has always said take it to the rim. So they took away my right hand, so I went left and tried to get to the basket, and it just didn't fall for me. Q. For John Caleb, was there contact on the play? Did you think you got hit for a foul? JOHN CALEB SANDERS: I don't know. I mean, I thought the refs did a great job. Obviously, didn't think the last one was. Hard to tell when you're in the midst of a game. They didn't call it. So it wasn't a foul. Q. Davon, you and Jeremy butted heads pretty good in the second half. He said he was just trying to alter your game. What were you trying to do to his game? DAVON MARSHALL: I was trying to pressure to get the offense out of rhythm. He did a great job of getting angles on me and getting to the basket and getting some tough shots on me. Q. Just looking at it again, you guys have had kind of a great year. You broke Seth Curry's 3‑point record tonight. I'm not sure if you knew that. Just looking back at this evening‑‑ I know it didn't end the way you wanted it to, but there were teams playing in the NIT tonight that wish they were in your position. Just talk about the season, the ups, the downs. DAVON MARSHALL: The season started out bad for us, 0‑8. We were struggling a lot with injuries and everything. We overcame that. We kept fighting every day in practice. We kept praying, kept working hard, kept believing in Coach, what he was telling us. I'm just proud of my teammates that we made it this far and fought this hard. JOHN CALEB SANDERS: We came this far, and it hurts to go down like that. When it comes down to the end of the year, one team is going to lose. Like Coach said, I'm proud of Trap (Antwan Burrus) and Davon and all the guys in the locker room. I'm sorry for Trap. I wanted to make that shot for him, prolong his senior year so we can go down to Louisville, and that's tough. Again, I'm just so proud of Coach and how he handled this whole season with all the adversity and all the players for sticking to it. Q. For Davon, when you guys are in the midst of a game like this, I think at one time, the two teams‑‑ you guys made nine straight shots at one point there in the second half. It's just going back and forth. Are you just simply in the moment, or do you realize how well both teams are playing at that time? DAVON MARSHALL: I think it's just us being in the moment. We see them score, so we come back down and score. It's just going back and forth, and we're basically just feeding off of them. THE MODERATOR: Davon, Tavares, and John Caleb, thank you for your time. We'll open the floor for questions for Coach Layer. Q. What can you take away from this? COACH LAYER: Just proud to be around these guys every day. A lot of grown men would not have endured what they did. A lot of well‑meaning grown men would not have handled what they handled. No regrets. Very proud of them. I've been around college basketball since 1976, as a player, as a coach, and I've never experienced a year like this. The depths of this year were the most in those 37 years. And when guys overcome what they have overcome as 18‑, 20‑year‑old kids, wow, I'll take that. We were tested. We were tested. You don't know how you're tested until you're in a locker room with those kids. They were tested. I was tested. But I think these guys' character has come through like gold. I'm proud of them. Fight with them every day. Q. Davon hit the 3‑pointer with three minutes to go to bring it within 1. Why did you decide to go with a time‑out at that time? COACH LAYER: We were wore out. We were wore out. I thought that we were worn out. The conference tournament took a lot out of us, and I don't think we had spring in our step defensively, and I think our guys tried to dig down and get everything that they had, and I don't think there was a lot there. So I tried to use more‑‑ the first time‑out in the second half was an extended time. I thought we could get three time‑outs there back to back to back. We had not used the under 16 media. My 30 became a full, and we were going to get an under 12 media. So I thought three straight 40‑second time‑outs would give us more juice, because we were tired. Q. Can you speak to‑‑ you're going to have four of these starters back. You're going to have Burrus back. What are you going to take from this experience going forward? COACH LAYER: It's a wonderful experience, not just because we're at the NCAA Tournament. It's a big part of it. But the experience of what we did as people together was awesome. Growth, maturity. Antwan Burrus had the best attitude of anybody all year. Proud of him. You don't think that dude would have wanted to play in the NCAA Tournament and been our best player? We missed him. He plays two out of three days now. He's not 100 percent, but he's our best player now. We've got to‑‑ I think this certainly is a shot in the arm for our program, but it's a shot in the arm for our people in this program, which is way more important. Our men, who are growing up. It's just cool to be a part of, and this was certainly something they've all dreamed about. When you come to these, as a media person or as a fan, you don't know what these guys' hearts are like. This is a dream come true. This is what they dream about every day when they're shooting shots and getting up extra lifts and coming to the gym at midnight and asking a coach to rebound for them and asking a girlfriend to rebound for them. This is for their moment. This is what it's all about. To see these guys experience that, ain't nothing better than that as a coach, and that's‑‑ so I think it has been seared in our hearts, me more than anybody, but these guys to see this experience and know that it isn't somebody telling them that it's cool to go to the NCAA Tournament. They know that now. And I think that will permeate through our team and probably their families and people they touch the rest of their lives. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your time. Congratulations on your season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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