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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DAYTONMarch 24, 2013Fran DunphyAnthony LeeScootie RandallKhalif WyattDAYTON, OHIO Indiana – 58 THE MODERATOR: We're now being joined by the head coach of Temple, Fran Dunphy, as well as Temple student‑athletes Scootie Randall, Khalif Wyatt, and Anthony Lee. Start with an opening statement by Coach Dunphy, and then after Coach is finished we'll open the floor for student‑athletes. COACH DUNPHY: Obviously, a tough loss for us. Very proud of our guys and how we competed. I thought our guys managed the game about as well as they could against a really good basketball program and team. It would have been a great victory for us if we had found a way. But I congratulate Indiana and wish them the best as they move forward. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Tom Crean came out into the huddle when you guys were huddling. What did he have to say to you guys? KHALIF WYATT: He told us that they played a lot of good teams this year and that we were the toughest team we played all year. We showed great effort and great toughness. He just wanted us to keep our heads up. Q. Khalif, did you have a problem with the way the game was called? Were they getting away with a lot of stuff that teams generally don't get away with? KHALIF WYATT: Not really. They're a really physical basketball game, and they play hard and initiate a lot of contact. So they get fouled a lot. I think that's just the way they play. They make the refs make a decision whether they're going to call a foul or not, and the refs were calling fouls a lot of the time. Q. Anthony, how much did the foul trouble hurt you guys when you and Jake picked up your fourth fouls? ANTHONY LEE: We felt like we was playing pretty good defense, having my hands straight up. Some of the calls weren't going our way, so it put a lot of pressure on the guards, left Rahlir and other people to try to help out on Zeller. Q. Khalif, what was your perspective on the play of the last two minutes when Oladipo lost the ball at midcourt? You were called for the foul. KHALIF WYATT: I thought I guessed which way he was going pretty good, but I got in his way and took the ball. I guess it was a blocking foul. I guess I wasn't there on time, or maybe I got him with the body a little bit. Just a call that didn't go our way. Q. Scootie, 0‑for‑12 in your last collegiate game. What was going through your head as the misses kept mounting, and what's going through your head right now? SCOOTIE RANDALL: I've had days like this. The only thing that was going through my head when I was missing is keep shooting and do other things to try to help my team. As of now, I just‑‑ you can't really do too much about it. It already happened. So just got to move forward. Q. Khalif, I think the last 6:30 without a made field goal, what was Indiana doing defensively that just threw you off there at the end? KHALIF WYATT: The whole game they were overplaying me, but I think the last six minutes maybe they just all‑out face guarded me full court. It was real hard for me to get the ball. I think, when I did get it, I made a couple of nice plays. It was just hard for me to get the ball. Oladipo is a really good defender. And that kid Abell is a really good defender. It was just really difficult for me to get the ball. Q. Anthony, you haven't played a lot of basketball because of your issues over the last six weeks or so, three weeks or so. How did you feel today playing so many minutes against such a physical team, and how do you feel right now? ANTHONY LEE: I feel good. Credit to my trainers getting me better. I think before the game I told Coach I was ready to play my regular minutes if he felt necessary to do so. I was feeling good, and now I feel good, but after really playing, I just felt like it really doesn't matter how I played. We didn't come out with the win. As far as myself and the team, we didn't get it done. So I'm really disappointed. Q. Khalif, I know you guys don't huddle after most of the season right now, but facing the No. 1 team in this region and maybe the country and holding them to a 6‑point game, it was a close contest. What does that do for you, just looking back on your career? KHALIF WYATT: Really doesn't do anything for me, not right now at least. They're a really good team. They played really hard. We competed really hard. We battled. A couple plays here and there, we win. It was just a tough‑battled game, and they came out on top. They've got some really good players. They're well coached. I just want to give them a lot of credit. Q. Scootie, similar question. You've been here for the NCAA disappointments that Temple has had. You beat a good NC State team two days ago, and you had a team that a lot of people consider one of the best in the country on the ropes all the way through. Does this leave a slightly better taste in your mouth than you've had with previous disappointments? SCOOTIE RANDALL: No, it's a bad taste. We just didn't get the job done. Q. Khalif, what was clicking for you early on, and did Indiana make any adjustments that sort of kept you from keeping that momentum going? KHALIF WYATT: I think I was just being aggressive. My teammates kept coming to me, and I was just being aggressive. They were playing good defense. They were denying me the ball when they could. I just think the last maybe six minutes of the game, like he said, they just made it really, really hard for me to catch the ball. They're a pretty good defensive team. So they just pretty much took me out of the game. Q. Khalif, obviously, this is a disappointing feeling right now. Watching you play today, despite it's a big game, it's a pressure game, you seemed like you were having a lot of fun, smiling and talking a little bit. When you get a little ways away from it, when you look back, will you be like, you know, we didn't win, but that was a lot of fun to play in that game? KHALIF WYATT: That's what you want as a basketball player. You get a big stage like this, and the whole world's watching. The stadium's packed. Most of them are Indiana fans. Just enjoy it with your teammates out there, and you get a chance to go out there and shut everybody up. That's fun for me. It was fun while it lasted. We just didn't come out on top. Really disappointing but just proud of our year we had and just try to keep our heads up. THE MODERATOR: Khalif, Scootie, and Anthony, thank you. Questions for Coach Dunphy. Q. Fran, you guys did a really good job on the interior today. When Jake picked up his fourth foul, how much more difficult did it make it for you? COACH DUNPHY: It was difficult. I thought we defended that play pretty well. I felt bad for Jake because I thought he did about everything he could do. I didn't see a great angle of it, but just thought he stayed vertical and would have been a great stop for us, and then he's out of the game for a stretch. Anthony did about as good as he could do. I thought Rahlir did a good job on him late. He's a really good player, Zeller, and that certainly hurt us. The foul trouble that we were in hurt our rotations a little bit. I thought our guys did about as good as they could on him. Q. Fran, what is your message to Scootie after he has such a tough game like this? COACH DUNPHY: You know, it's one of those things that happens. He tried his very best. Sometimes you try too hard. But he's somebody you're going to stay with and ride, and he's my son, so he's somebody that‑‑ I feel badly that he didn't make a couple of shots, but he had a great year and a great career. He did other things. He had nine rebounds for us. He helped us in so many other ways. It's just one of those things that happens, and he needs to just remember it but move on as well. He's been a great guy to coach for five years. Q. Off the top of your head, can you remember a guy who played as well in a loss for you guys as Khalif played today? COACH DUNPHY: Yeah, certainly. You've watched that on occasion. He was tremendous, obviously. He's a great basketball player. He's had an unbelievable year and an unbelievable career, and I could go down some other teams and games that we've been in, but I'd prefer just to think about our team and Khalif Wyatt, and he did a wonderful, wonderful job. It would have been great to have our team move on and celebrate this a little bit. Q. Fran, you guys had the ball down 1, and you called a time‑out with about ten seconds up on the shot clock. I imagined you wanted to get it to Khalif, and it ended up with Rahlir in the back court. Is there something else you would have wanted to happen when it was in to Rahlir? COACH DUNPHY: I thought, when it came into Rahlir, I would have liked Rahlir to drive it and go make a play when he finally got it. We were trying to get it to Khalif. Actually, my recollection is, when he was one‑on‑one with Oladipo at half‑court, then Khalif had it and it got tipped out of bounds, then they took somebody off the ball and double‑teamed him. So we probably weren't going to get it to him there. At that point, Rahlir is a play maker, and I don't know how many seconds were left, eight or nine maybe, and I was just hoping that he would go make a play at that point. But we certainly wanted to get it to Khalif. Q. Fran, I was wondering, I think it was about 90 seconds left Watford had a block on Lee as he was going in for a dunk. How critical a play do you think it was? COACH DUNPHY: It was a big, big play. Cummings made a great pass to Anthony, just got a little out of whack with his footwork at that point. So it wasn't like he could catch it and finish it. Just the way it was passed to him. But Will did as good a job as he could. I'll have to watch it on film and see how his footwork was, but that was a big, big play. No question about it. Q. Talk about Jake O'Brien, four fouls, didn't score tonight. How tough was it to go out his last collegiate game without scoring? COACH DUNPHY: It's disappointing for Jake. I thought he got a couple of calls that just didn't go his way, including the fourth one. Again, I haven't seen it on film, and it was down the other end of the court. So I don't really know that much. I thought he played about as good as he could play on the defensive end there. It would have been nice to have him for more minutes in the second half. Maybe we could have gotten him an open look. I thought Anthony did a very commendable job. Q. Fran, it seemed like it took maybe the entire season this game for the team to play this kind of defense and rebound like that. Is that‑‑ not a surprise to you, but for it to show up like that at this late moment, is that something you would expect? COACH DUNPHY: I don't know how good a defensive team we could have been all year long. We weren't as good as we needed to be in a number of games, but I thought we competed like crazy today, and we're really very, very tough minded. You hope that you're team has that mindset all the time. This is young people, and they're not going to be perfect. It's the one thing that you always realize when dealing with all of us, none of us is perfect, and we're going to make some mistakes. We're not going to take advantage of all of our opportunities. I couldn't have been more proud of how this team competed today. It's disappointing we're not going to be moving on. I would have all good things to say and feel and remember about this group. Q. Fran, a fair amount of seniors on this team. Just your thoughts about this group and your time with them. COACH DUNPHY: I just mentioned it to them. I just was thanking Jake for his one year, T.J. and Scootie for the five years they've spent with us, Khalif and Rahlir in the four years they spent with us. Certainly, I thanked them for all the time and effort they put in, putting up with my BS. They're great guys, and they will be successful people as they move forward. Now we have to say good‑bye to them, and the cocoon has kind of burst here, their comfort level, and they're out there on their own. We just talked about those eight guys coming back, and they've got to remember this opportunity that these guys were, the five seniors were presented with, and try to repeat it again. It will not be easy, but I'm anxious to get started. We'll take a week off and get started for next year and see what that particular group can do. Each team is a new personality and a new grouping, even if you have everybody back year in and year out. We're anxious to get started on next year at this point, as we sat in the locker room and work with the guys that are on our program now‑‑ or in our program now. THE MODERATOR: Fran, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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