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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SALT LAKE CITYMarch 23, 2013Mark FewElias HarrisMichael HartKelly OlynykSALT LAKE CITY, UTAH Wichita State – 76 THE MODERATOR: Gonzaga representatives are with us, Kelly Olynyk, Michael Hart and Elias Harris. We will start with an opening statement by Coach Few. COACH FEW: Well, hey, it's a tough, tough, tough way to end a fabulous season, but Wichita State deserves a ton of credit. They stepped up and made big shot after big shot, especially after we dug ourselves, not only back in the game, but kind of started to take control of it. They deserve a ton of credit. It's a first time in a while somebody shot 50% on us and to bang in 14 threes is pretty amazing. These guys, I told them after the game, had an unbelievable year, one for the ages. To have the best season in the history of basketball at our school and kind of capture the attention of a nation, it was one hell of a ride. We had a lot of fun. Q. Kelly, could you talk about Wichita State's defense and maybe keeping you on the perimeter more than would have been ideal? KELLY OLYNYK: You know, I'm sure they had a good game plan. It seemed to work. I don't know, I guess maybe the perimeter was where the openings were, not too sure. Q. Cleanthony Early, inside and out, was able to score on you guys. Defensively what were you trying to do on him, and what was he able to do to break it down? KELLY OLYNYK: They set some screens for him, and he got maybe got in a couple of times. I should have maybe gotten hard on him, kind of dared him. But he made some big shots, so you got to give it up to him. He made some plays out there. Q. Seniors, can you talk about the emotion? I know you wanted to go further, but how abruptly it end and what's going through your head? ELIAS HARRIS: I don't even know what's going through my head right now. It is what it is. It was a heck of a year. It's just over now, and it's sad. It hurts, but that's life, I guess. MICHAEL HART: Just how quick it all ended. We had a great year. We'll look back and savor this year and cherish it and understand how great it was. But it's pretty rough right now because we definitely came up short of where we were looking for. Q. Mike, Gonzaga up 50‑51 and looked like you had it under control, what happened to get it going Wichita State's way? MICHAEL HART: I think we lost some shooters on the defensive end and let our guard down a little bit. We defended so well at the start of the second half, and then we just lost some guys. You can't do that. When guys have it going, you got to have a hand up and stay close to your assignments, and we lost them on a few possessions there and that really hurt us. Q. Mike, they seemed to change defenses once you pulled away. Did that help them any as far as taking you guys out of your rhythm a little bit and slowing you down some? MICHAEL HART: Obviously, anytime a team changes defenses it's going to‑‑ it messes with you to a certain extent because you have to adjust to what they're doing. For the most part, we did a decent job of adjusting their defenses and getting into what we wanted to. On a few of those crucial possessions they switched it up on us and we didn't adjust and respond like we needed to, and that was big. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Questions for Coach? Q. Mark, Gary Bell's situation in the second half, what was that? COACH FEW: He came in at halftime and said his foot was bothering him, and we thought he kind of tweaked his ankle and he went out and we tried the first minute of the second half and he just couldn't go. It wasn't his ankle at all. It ended up being his foot. I have no idea, but he was in a lot of pain; he couldn't really move, and we'll have to get it evaluated now when we get home. That didn't help us defensively. He's our best perimeter defender. Q. How difficult is it to know that you guys did have, I believe, an 8‑point lead in the second half, and what occurred for that to be lost? COACH FEW: Well, I mean, I was happy that we got back. I thought we played very well at the start of that second half. We got back defending. We had long stretches of playing great defense, and we were running good offense, efficient offense; and, again, down the stretch it was more about‑‑ we just didn't quite get out on those shooters. I don't know why. We were overhelping a little bit and got a little casual on Cleanthony Early a couple of times. The ones by Ron Baker hurt us and then we had, again, some silly situations, fouling away from the basket and the inbounds situation, those end up costing you. Q. Coach, I was going to ask about the inbounds situation. What led to that? Miscommunication? COACH FEW: It was a definite miscommunication. We usually take the ball out with our 4, but when we were in their press we wanted our point guard taking it out; and for whatever reason we just got confused and our point guard was stepping out‑of‑bounds, and our 4 was throwing it in. So it was a just a really bad time for that to happen; but, again, the defensive breakdowns were the ones that put us in that situation. Q. Across the tournament there have been a rash of flagrant fouls called. There was a big one called today. How do you feel about that rule and the way it has been applied, especially in tournament games? COACH FEW: The issue is with the rule, okay? The officials are just doing their job, and they're doing a great job of trying their best to administer a really, really, really bad rule. We, all of us, media make a big deal of it, coaches need to make a big stink about it. We need to get rid of the rule. Just get back to ‑‑ trust that an official can look at an elbow and see that it's intentional and meant to harm and that should be 2 shots and the ball; and if it's really, really bad, then kick the kid out. But you can't play basketball without touching somebody in the face once in a while inadvertently, and I don't think you should be punished for that. Nor can you‑‑ one of the problems we have with scoring our game right now is they're letting the defense crowd up into you and get all over and you can't sweep through or do anything. Coaches are teaching their kids to stick their face in there and take one for the team. So we got to get rid of the rule. Q. Talk about the first half and how much that struggling carried over into the second half, in your view. COACH FEW: They were very aggressive and up into us. We knew that was going to be the case. We had a prep for it. I thought if we would have made our lay‑ins and some free‑throws we would have been ahead. We got shots around the rim and we've been missing them this whole weekend down here in Salt Lake. I didn't think it carried over that much in the second half. We were getting great shots in the second half and scoring pretty darn efficiently. We got a little rush there in the last minute, but for the most part we got really good shots in the second half. Q. You ran into very good teams this week. Do you think college basketball is at a point at least this year where being a No. 1 seed doesn't give you any advantage? COACH FEW: Well, I mean, theoretically it should. But I just think it's hard for everybody. I watched the Kansas game last night. That was a tough one for them, watched the Georgetown situation, our situation the other night. There is a lot of really, really good teams out there. What we are and what we had was a great team. We're not overly‑athletic. We're based on just playin' together and we have a high level of skill and we have good size and play hard and pretty efficient. You get up against a team that's going to control a possession or a team that's hot, Wichita State is a hot team right now, they are shooting the ball at a high level that their numbers don't reflect through the whole year. That's what's tough. Q. How hard is it for players to adjust when a team has not shot the three that well and especially didn't on Thursday and now they are? COACH FEW: Again, after that Thursday game, I just knew‑‑ we talked about this team likes to shoot a lot of threes, but we wanted to be in the gaps because we were determined about Malcolm Armstead who we did a great job on and Hall. Those are tough guys in the paint we wanted to get in there and rake on them. We spent yesterday working on that. Once the first half started, we decided to get out there and get on the shooters a little bit which we did well in the second half; and like I said, we lost them there in the end and a lot of that was trying to guard the roll. The big was rolling to the basket on that screen and you got to hold a little bit, and they were making the right pass to the corner. Q. Can you take us through the emotions that you had on the VanVleet three? He threw up a prayer and it went in. COACH FEW: I was disappointed with one second left we even let him get a three off. I didn't think he should be allowed to get a three off, and that was a mental error on our part. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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