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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: LEXINGTONMarch 21, 2013Cy AlexanderBruce BeckfordAdrian PowellLEXINGTON, KENTUCKY Louisville – 79 THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will begin the news conference with an opening statement by Head Coach Cy Alexander in just a moment. We'll open it up with a statement from the Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes. Coach Cy Alexander. COACH ALEXANDER: First of all, let me congratulate Coach Pitino, his staff and the Louisville Cardinals. I think they have what it takes to potentially win the national championship. I'd like to say somewhere down the road over next three weeks that we lost to the national champions. I'm actually pulling for them. I'm also going to study the tape quite a bit this summer to learn from it. We both have the same defensive philosophies as far as pressure and traps and things of this nature, and maybe we can implement some of the things that caused us problems next year in the Aggie defensive scheme. It's been a great ride for our team. This is my first year. This is the first winning season we've had at A&T in about 15 years, the first 20-win season we've had since 1987, '88, the first MEAC Tournament championship we've had since 1995. So it's a lot of firsts to take a program from where we took it and get into the second round of the NCAA Tournament. You know, I feel really blessed and I have to thank my assistant coaches for their hard work and I have to thank this team for buying into what I was trying to sell when I took over last May. And I want to particularly thank our seven seniors who are on track to graduate and hopefully getting here will certainly enhance our university's visibility as well as enhance our basketball recruiting. THE MODERATOR: Now we'll open it up to questions for the student-athletes. Q. This is for Bruce. We all know that there's never been a No. 1 seed that's lost to a 16, but did Coach talk to you about that at all coming into it? Did you think about, hey, why can't we be the ones who did it for the first time? BRUCE BECKFORD: Yeah, we talked about being the first team to do that. We just wanted to come in and play hard and see what we could do. That's what we did, we played hard. Of course, we didn't get it done. Q. For either of the players, I think the game was seven minutes old before you had your first rebound and 27 turnovers tonight. Did it seem like you were physically outmanned? ADRIAN POWELL: They had great size down low. We got out rebound and turnovers, we could have had some points over the turnovers. Turnovers are the big things, and, like I said, rebound. Get a rebound and maybe some of the turnovers that will put more points on the board and give us a game. Q. Both players, you basically shot 48 percent in the first half but you're still down by double digits and you had a really good shooting night the first half. How frustrating was to it shoot so well but the other team is making two-thirds of their shots? ADRIAN POWELL: It's pretty frustrating. We did shoot 48 percent, but they were shooting 66 percent from the field. So, it was kind of frustrating, knowing we was having a good half as far as shooting the ball, but the guys executed the offense and got quality, good shots. Q. Adrian what was it that they were doing defensively that gave you guys so much trouble? Looked like you had trouble even getting past half court at times. What were they doing that was so difficult? ADRIAN POWELL: Their press is one of the best in the conference League. They're good as turning things over and getting points off of it, and at halftime they had 16 points off our turnovers. Main thing we had to do is stay disciplined. We didn't stay disciplined enough, running our offense to get the ball across the half court. Dribble the ball instead of moving it with a pass. That's the main thing. They converted our turnovers. Q. Adrian and Bruce, there were 20,000 Louisville fans in the building tonight and they were pretty loud. How much did that make things harder against the press? BRUCE BECKFORD: Things were loud, but it didn't really change what we did. We just didn't execute. We just -- their press caused turnovers and that's how they won the game. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student-athletes? We have one more here. Q. Bruce, you're going to be back next year, you know, so what do you feel like this experience is going to do for you or how are you going to use this going into next year? BRUCE BECKFORD: It's been a great experience. It's only going to make me more hungry, make me want to get back here and do it all again. Q. Coach, you talked about in your pregame press conference on Wednesday the importance of keeping that first ten-minute set competitive. Do you believe it was nerves or was Louisville just that good in the opening ten? COACH ALEXANDER: Combination of the two. Louisville is very good. They pressure. That's why I said I want to take the time tape and break it down and really study it. But to be that good, you have to have the athletes to make the press effective. They're quick and they're big and they have, you know, exceptional quickness, and they're strong and they come at you in waves and they don't let up. One is coming and there's another set coming. And we tried to do a little bit too much individually early on, and, again, we got a lot of mental discipline as far as moving without the ball and passing and cutting the angles, and that's something that we've got to work on. But to answer your question, I think it was a combination of both. THE MODERATOR: We have time for a couple more questions for the student-athletes. We'll have the Coach with us for a few more minutes. Keep this to the student-athletes. Q. Adrian, I know the Reverend Jesse Jackson talked to you before the game on the bus with you. What was that experience like for you, what did he tell you? ADRIAN POWELL: It was a great experience having him come with us. He's come in the locker room and talked to us before the game, said a prayer. Meant a lot to us as young men coming to talk to us. Q. To both of you guys, one leaving the program and one just beginning the program, what would you say to other student-athletes, other students at A&T in the future about this experience over the last three weeks where were you a middle-of-the-pack conference team, you win your conference championship, you win your first game of the NCAA, and now you play what could possibly be the national champion in a few weeks. What do you tell other people about this experience? ADRIAN POWELL: I just tell it was a dream come true. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of playing in a NCAA Tournament at one point in my life. These last couple weeks don't even seem real. I just keep playing the images over and over again in my head from when we won the conference championship. It's been really good. They'll have another chance to get back in next year. BRUCE BECKFORD: Same thing. Just a dream come true. Something that I can dream about for a long time. It was just a great experience to deal with the seniors, having them lead the way and everything. It was great. Hopefully we can come back. THE MODERATOR: All right. Time for one last question for the student-athletes. Q. Adrian, when you think back on this, what are you going to remember most? Are you going to remember how it ended or are you kind of remember what it took to get here? When you think back on this, what will you think about? ADRIAN POWELL: I'm competitive. I'm going to think about the loss because I'm a competitor and I hate losing. At the end of the day we accomplished something that nobody has done in multiple years. Thinking back on that, I think these guys will be like I said, be back next year. Those images will be played over in my head and we won the championship. Nobody expected to us make it that far in our conference. We shocked everybody and proved everybody wrong. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much Adrian and Bruce. Thank you. We'll continue with questions for Head Coach Cy Alexander. Any other questions for the Coach? Q. Coach, probably unfair to really ask you, but how do you think the speed and the size of the team compared and your adjustments from what you've seen throughout the season? And I know you played some very difficult non-conference games. Can you make any kind of comparison to what you guys were having to face and how they had you adjust? COACH ALEXANDER: This was the quickest team for its size, and, you know, I was told by several coaches that had played against Louisville, their strength and quickness of the guards, quick hands, Siva and Smith, and it's hard to simulate that in 24 hours. In a hotel ballroom, it's kind of hard to simulate when we walked through last night. But, I told Rick that I'm pulling for him to win the national championship. He's got a Final Four quality team. They made shots and they're as good as anybody in the country when they're going. They got depth. Q. I asked Bruce this and I'll ask you: What do you feel like this is going to do for the team going into next year, this experience? COACH ALEXANDER: It's going to enhance, first of all, our recruiting. Secondly, I told Jeremy Underwood and Lamont Middleton that they are our two leaders, two senior guards coming back, and they have to push all our incoming recruits very, very hard because they now know what it takes to win the championship. So, I think it's going to be a plus what we've gone through and now they understand when we start individual workouts three weeks from now, what they have to do and through the summer and so forth and so on, they understand the level of commitment, and now as you come in the door as an incoming recruit, whether it be a freshman or junior college transfer, they will -- we'll be holding them accountable as to the level of commitment in the weight room, on the track, in the classroom and individuals that the new players are going to have to hold themselves to because they're champions and they now understand what it takes. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Coach. Congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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