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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: LEXINGTONMarch 23, 2013Alex BarlowBrad StevensLEXINGTON, KENTUCKY Marquette – 74 THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, joining us here in the media room in Lexington, Kentucky, Rupp Arena, Butler head coach, Brad Stevens, and student-athletes, Alex Barlow and Kellen Dunham. Coach, thank you. COACH STEVENS: I thought the difference in the game was just the level of pressure that they put on us in the second half and certainly the shots they made. You know, they had a few that I didn't think were going in that bounced in, and they had a few that probably were better looks than that that didn't go in. Just kind of the way the game works. Our guys gave a great effort on both ends of the floor. Our guys played their hearts out, and I told them they have nothing to be ashamed about. The senior class left a great impression on Butler. To be quite candid, I don't know that they would be able to sit in front of the mike right now in here. They'll be available in our locker room. They needed a little bit of time. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Q. Alex, what were you guys trying to accomplish in that final possession with 2.4 seconds left? ALEX BARLOW: You know, just drew up a couple plays depending on what defense they came out in, and, you know, he's pretty good at drawing up plays late in game. He drew up a couple great plays against Marquette in the earlier matchup. We were trying to get a look for a 3. That was probably our first look. If that wasn't open, we had other options off that. Marquette did a great job guarding it, and unfortunately Drew was unable to make the shot. BY THE MODERATOR: THE MODERATOR: Anyone else for the student-athletes? All right. Fellas, thank you very much. Congratulations on a wonderful season. We'll continue now with Coach Brad Stevens. Q. Brad, I'll ask you the same question, what were you trying to accomplish? And also to follow up on that, did you ever get an explanation on Roosevelt Jones, them waiving off a potential 3-point play? COACH STEVENS: They said that one of our players' hands touched the rim, which is a violation, and that's why the basket didn't count and then -- they said they confirmed it from the videotape, so I believe them. Then in the last play, they had mixed up zone and man all game, side out. Lot of times they went zone 2 man and we had a couple of looks, and the way that they aligned, they switched their matchups so they put Gardner on the ball on Roosevelt and matched everybody else accordingly, and I think our guys mistook that for zone. And so we probably didn't have guys that were in the right spots, but that's part of it. That's one of the reasons why you don't want put yourself in that position with 2.4 seconds, and also I need to do a better job simplifying it for them out of that timeout. May not end up with as good as a look as I had hoped, but, you know, ultimately, that one will eat at me, that's for sure. Q. You guys don't often get sped up when you don't want to get sped up. Did Marquette and their pressure, were they able to get you to play at a tempo you were not comfortable with? COACH STEVENS: I just thought they really did a good job, all the guys, of pushing up on the ball, whether it was Roosevelt bringing it up with Lockett hounding him all over the place. They mixed in Wilson and Cadougan and those guys are big, strong body guards. Blue is a fantastic player and athlete. Yeah, they put a lot of pressure on us. At that point you have to make plays off the bounce or you have to make plays into the post and it's hard to score on two-lane, Gardner one-on-one. It's hard for our 4s to score on them one-on-one. So we had to become a driving team. We did it okay. We turned it over clearly too much in the second half. Q. What was the deal with Rotnei's wrist and how close were you to taking him out of the game, and do you think that had a big effect on the rest of game because he went scoreless for the last 15 minutes? COACH STEVENS: I was never told anything about his wrist. So I can't answer. I don't know. Q. Brad, I guess comment on the level at which Blue played for them. COACH STEVENS: He's had 50 in two games on us. Pretty unique. Not many guys have gotten 50 against Butler in two games. You know, again, he made big shots, he made the huge 3 in the corner late. It was hard for me to see the one bounce up and essentially go in, because I knew a player like that when he sees that ball go in, that's as good as two makes. Just a hard guy to stop. I was -- I was fortunate enough to be his court coach when he tried out for the 18 and under a few years back and made the team, and I really liked him then and I think he's a really good player, his speed as a separator. Q. I remember after the ODU win a couple years ago, during that whole run you would constantly point out that, but for a couple plays, you might not be there, you would say, you know, people are saying all these great things about us, but so much of this game comes down to chance. Now that you're at the losing end of that one or two plays, does it feel any different? COACH STEVENS: Yeah, it feels different. It's more fun to win. But, doesn't change your effort. Doesn't change your input. Ultimately, you know, you can control some things, you can't control others. We're going to go back and wish we could have controlled a few things a little bit better, but you do that with any loss. And, you know, we talk about all the close wins over those runs and certainly the close wins this year, and ironically the only commercial I ever see is a close loss, Butler versus Duke. So, we've been here before, we've lived it, and we'll move on. THE MODERATOR: Anyone else for Coach Stevens? All right. Thanks very much, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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