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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SAN JOSEMarch 21, 2013Bryce Dejean-JonesAnthony MarshallDave RiceSAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA California – 64 THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by UNLV head coach Dave Rice, Bryce Dejean‑Jones, a sophomore guard and Anthony Marshall, a senior guard. COACH RICE: Well, first, great credit goes to Cal, Coach Montgomery and their program. Congratulations to them. We're bitterly disappointed at the result of the game. Told our seniors after the game that the most frustrating thing to me is I don't get the opportunity to coach them anymore. They've meant so much to this program. I think about Justin Hawkins and Anthony Marshall, two guys who are the first two players since 1991 to go to four consecutive NCAA tournaments. You think about the tradition of the UNLV program, and yet the program went 15 years and only went to the NCAA tournament two times. For Justin Hawkins and Anthony Marshall to do that, to get us there four consecutive years is a big deal. We're in no way content. I told the returning guys, think about how you feel right now and think about all the work we have between now and next season. We knew it was going to be a very competitive game. As has been well chronicled, we played Cal last year, played them on their home floor earlier this year, and we won the game by one point. So we know their players well. We know how well coached they are and we knew it was going to be a game that was going down to the wire. They just made a few more plays than we did. We didn't perform well enough, didn't execute well enough. We're extremely proud of the job our guys did this year, we made great strides in our program and are very, very optimistic and confident about the future. But again, congratulations to Cal and all the best to them moving forward, but we're bitterly disappointed with the result. Q. Bryce, what was Cal doing differently at the start of the second half on offense that gave them a little bit of surge and put some distance on the score board? BRYCE DEJEAN‑JONES: There wasn't much, they just started curling the down‑screens more and we started making too many mistakes on defense and came out in the end, that's how it came out. Q. You went 11 and a half minutes without a made field goal in the second half. Why did you struggle against Cal's zone so badly? ANTHONY MARSHALL: I feel the second half we weren't doing the things in the first half we did, made us successful, penetrating the ball, driving and kicking off three points. And they defended well the second half. So give credit to them. Q. Talk about, I'm sure you don't want to talk about it, but the disappointment of losing in the tournament the first game again. ANTHONY MARSHALL: I was very disappointed. Anytime you get here you put in a lot of work during the offseason and the season to get this to point. You always want to keep playing basketball. For me, Justin and Quintrell, it's our last time as Runnin' Rebels. It's very disappointing. So just have to motivate the team to come back next year stronger and try prepare for our futures. Q. Were you expecting them to play zone basically the entire game? COACH RICE: We worked on zone all week long. Coach Montgomery has played more zone of late than he did the first time we played him. They were aggressive in the zone and we just didn't make enough plays against that zone. Part of the problem was we didn't get enough stops in various points in the game to get out in transition to get enough easy baskets. Q. Can you look at this as a successful season going out as a 5 seed? COACH RICE: I think the way we choose to look at it, I think it's too early to talk about that. Again, we're bitterly disappointed with the result of today's game. We feel like we made tremendous progress with our program. We took over a program that was in great shape from Coach Kruger. We won 51 games in the last two years, recruiting has gone well, and we're excited about the future of our program. I'll leave that up to others to determine. Certainly today was not successful, so we're very, very disappointed about that. But I'm very proud of our seniors and their contributions, proud of the strides many of our other players made. The disappointing thing is always when it ends, it's eight or nine months ‑‑ eight months until we get to put our uniforms on and play again. But we understand how much work there is to be done between now and then. Q. What was the point of attack against the zone, how did you want to penetrate it? COACH RICE: The plan was to get high post, low post touches and to move the ball. And our ball movement, when we've been good this year, our ball movement has been good. We struggled a little bit at various times getting the ball moved. And we just didn't execute nearly well enough against the zone, came up a few plays short in terms of that. But again, it's not just issues on the offensive end, we just didn't get enough stops on the defensive end in the second half. We had to take the ball to the net too many times. We allowed them to shoot 48 percent in the second half, we didn't get enough easy transition baskets in the second half. We still had our chances down the stretch and still couldn't capitalize on them. Q. In both halves before you called the timeout they went 16 to 3 on you. Something they did more or what do you attribute that to? Was it more them or you? COACH RICE: Combination of both. They run good offense and we didn't play good enough defense to start the first half, to start the second half. And missed some shots, as well. And that will be part of our maturation process between now and next season. It's one thing we've talked about all season long is doing a better job starting halves. And tonight we certainly didn't do a nearly good enough job for that, because those timeouts become extremely valuable. Q. In the first game Anthony Bennett dominated. What did they do differently, what was different in total for the game for him? COACH RICE: Well, for one thing they played a lot more zone in this game and they shaded to him, so he had less opportunities in this game than he had in that first game where they played almost exclusively ‑‑ they played more ‑‑ they played more man to man in the first game. So that was a big part of it. Both teams improved tremendously since the first time that we played. Q. Khem Birch seemed to be pretty productive defensively early, didn't seem to get much time in the second half. What was the factor there? COACH RICE: Felt like we needed to get Mike Moser in the game to play against the zone. Wanted to get ‑‑ wanted to have Anthony Bennett in the game and then just played Mike Moser more minutes in the second half just because he's very good in the high post and he's very good against the zone. So that was more of matching up to Cal's zone. And you're right, Khem Birch will be a great player for us, had a great sophomore season and we're excited about his future. Q. It felt like a road game for you guys today, did you approach it as such? Secondly, was that fair to you guys as the 5 seed to have to play in the Bay Area against Cal? COACH RICE: We knew there would be an inherent advantage for them playing so close to their campus. I know that they treat it as a home game. I know that their comments in the media were such. But, again, we were excited to get to the NCAA tournament. We were excited we were playing in San Jose and that it was relatively accessible for our fans, and we had tremendous fan support. We were excited about that. Again, we think the committee does a very good job. And obviously, as they said, it was just something that couldn't be helped, having a 12 seed be that close to its campus. We needed to play better than we played. Q. You have three seniors and Anthony Bennett is gone, maybe Mike Moser, when do you talk about the team you have coming back? COACH RICE: On the bus ride ‑‑ on the bus ride from the arena back to the hotel, talk to our returning guys about how proud I am of the strides that they've made. We're all disappointed that we didn't perform better today. But the future is extremely bright and we didn't play well today, but with the way recruiting has gone, with the way a number of our guys have grown up, we're excited. We will be back. It was a tough one today, we're going to have to live with this for a while. But it's also going to serve as motivation for us moving forward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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