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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: AUSTINMarch 24, 2013Andre HollinsTrevor MbakweTubby SmithRodney WilliamsAUSTIN, TEXAS Florida – 78 THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with an opening statement from Coach Smith and then take questions for the student‑athletes. Coach? COACH SMITH: Well, first, I just want to congratulate Florida. They did a good job. Every time we seemed to have an opportunity, they made a play or made a shot to shut us down. But I was proud of our kids, the way they came out in the second half and played a lot, gave it all they had, played with heart and with some real toughness. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes, please. Q. Andre, talk about what was going through your head on that fourth foul. It looked like you were really frustrated at the call. But at that point you guys were making a furious comeback. ANDRE HOLLINS: Yeah, I was just fighting over the screen and trying to get over it. 6‑2 point guard going against a 6‑9 center and they called a foul on me. I was doing my job to get around and they just called a foul. Q. Trevor, what changed for you guys defensively in the second half? TREVOR MBAKWE: We just played with more aggressiveness. When we're aggressive, we're a lot better team. Sometimes unfortunately, throughout the season it took us being down a large amount, or just being down at halftime for us to kind of pick it up. And by that time when you're playing against better talents and better teams like Florida, it's kind of hard when you put yourself in that position. But I think we just picked it up defensively, we pressed more and were able to get in their face and cause turnovers and get out in transition and that allowed us to get back in the game. Q. Andre, when they cut, you guys cut the lead to seven and obviously you had the foul issues, but they made those two threes in a row to take the lead back up. How deflating was that? ANDRE HOLLINS: It was real deflating. It was kind of how we did at UCLA, when they made their run on us and we came down and hit a couple threes. It freezes the momentum, and personally, it was my fault on both of them, because I helped when I shouldn't have off a guy who has already made four threes. That was a mental mistake that I made tonight. Q. Andre, when you saw the way that your team played in the first half, can you talk about your mindset coming out in the second half. It seemed like you definitely had a different mindset, aggressive, to get your self back in the game. ANDRE HOLLINS: Yeah, first half, we didn't play good defense. And that affected our offense. We were stagnant. Second half, we had to pick things up. In the locker room we were saying it was nothing new, we came back from Indiana, we have been down big before and comeback. And we just can't hang our heads and we just had to come out blazing. Q. For Trevor and Rodney, when you guys look back at this season, the way you started and the expectations for this team, how will you look back and describe what this team did? RODNEY WILLIAMS: We definitely started the season out strong. Then we had that stretch where we didn't play that same basketball. But looking back, I'm just happy to have been a part of this team and this program. We have been through a whole lot, up‑and‑downs and our team stayed together. Everybody stayed with it and every time we got down, we never gave up, we always fought. So even though it didn't end the way we wanted it to, I'm still really happy and proud to be a part of this. TREVOR MBAKWE: Yeah, I'm proud too to be a part of a situation like that. Especially being fortunate to be granted a sixth year by the NCAA. And obviously it's frustrating sometimes just being Top‑10 at a point and have high expectation and then going through that rough stretch. It was a tough getting through the Big‑10 and we were able to. And we always kept fighting. We coughed up some games that we felt we really should have won. We lost a tough one in the Big‑10 tournament in Illinois, lost on the game winner there, but we bounced back and had a good one.  This team kept fighting, we never really let up. Unfortunately we didn't finish as strong as we wanted to, but I'm proud of the way the guys responded, especially during the tough stretch and when people got down on us. Q. Andre, just talk about what this team can accomplish next season. You have your three guards coming back, you and Austin and Joe. ANDRE HOLLINS: We can do some good things next year. We're going to be experienced, Austin is going to be a senior, myself and Joe, we're going to be juniors, we also have Elliott Eliason, Oto Osenieks, Mo Walker coming back. We have some talented freshmen coming in and Wally Ellenson and Charles, but we're going to be tough. We're going to be a tough team. We just got to get to work. It starts now in the off season. Just getting in the gym every day work at it, we know what it takes to get here now. We had a taste of what the NCAA tournament is like and we'll have to strive to get back here and do bigger things, do better next year. THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen, we'll let you go and take questions for coach now. Q. Obviously you guys made the great comeback and Wilbekin and Rosario hit those two threes back to back. Talk about how deflating that was and also the fact that what Rosario was able to do tonight. COACH SMITH: Well, we wanted to‑‑ we knew he was very talented shooter. But he really proved it again. Again, I was happy to hear‑‑ appreciate and Dre and Hollins and guys who were helping off when they probably should have stayed out. But they were moving the ball pretty well. Penetrating it. When you're behind, and you're pretty fatigued at some point, because we put a lot of energy into trying to get back in the game. And he moves pretty good without the ball, he does a good job of spotting up and their team does a fantastic job of finding him open. Again, I was impressed with his outside shooting. When you shoot 6‑9, even if you're by yourself, that's still pretty impressive. And those were really tough shots because we had some momentum going, cut it from 21 to what, seven or eight? We were back in the ball game. Both those threes took a lot of wind out of our sail. Q. This team has had games similar to this several times this season where they either start slow and then come out strong or vice versa. Is that kind of‑‑ is that difficult for you to explain? Have you ever seen a team that has done that so often? COACH SMITH: Yeah, this one. But, no, I don't think that ‑‑ I don't know what it is. Like today, we were off to a good start, 9‑9. We have a bunch of defensive breakdowns and good teams are going to burn you. We played against very good teams every game. So today was no exception. So that happened and they got some layups and open looks and by that time you're sort of‑‑ you start, you're a little deflated because now there's a mix up and one of the things in basketball, the team that makes the least amount of mistakes is usually going to win the game. That's where our mistakes and that's why they were 8‑18 from three, we just had a lot of, I mean 10‑20 from threes and we just had a lot of breakdowns off the dribble. But I don't know what it is. Maybe we're just a slow starting team for the most part. Q. The other guard, Wilbekin, seemed to give you guys some problems there down the stretch, was that more a product of trying to stay home against Rosario or was it just a great individual effort by him? COACH SMITH: Well, we ended up the second half ‑‑ we made a run because we went to a switching defense. We went to a man‑to‑man switching defense and just decided, hey, they're getting too many open look, let's just ‑‑ open shots beat you. If it's a mismatch, so what. And we broke it down and so I thought in the second half, I thought he was pretty smart in finding guys open. We fouled unnecessarily when we‑‑ when it was a mismatch, the whole thing was, when you switch, front the post and if they do catch it, we'll come down and double or trap you. But we fouled quite a bit. He's a guy that really does a good job of orchestrating their team, taking care of the basketball, and really, he's really a very excellent defender. He really takes a lot of pride. And I thought he shut down Austin. And whenever he was around, Austin struggled in the second half. And part of it was because of their defense there. They're one of the best defensive teams, Florida's one of the best defensive teams we have played against and one of the best in the country. Q. You stayed in the zone for awhile early on, were you hesitant to move back to man‑to‑man just because of ‑‑ COACH SMITH: They were making shots. We couldn't stop them at anything in the first half. So we tried zone and that didn't work. So we went man. We had foul trouble. We tried to protect the people because of foul situations. I thought that we got good play out of Elliot and Mo last night and it wasn't the same tonight. It was a little bit, you know, they have a pretty talented front line in Patric Young and Erik Murphy, so we had our issues there. Q. When Andre gets his fourth foul about halfway through the second half you kept him out about four, four and a half minutes. How much of a balancing act was that because you weren't getting a whole lot of offense from other guys, as opposed to putting him back in. COACH SMITH: Yeah, because he's our most proficient, most efficient offensive player and he's a guy that doesn't mind taking a shot. And he's aggressive. He's an excellent free throw shooter. Again, I thought when he's out, now they can focus on shutting Austin down. And then Austin was playing, he logged a lot of minutes, 37 minutes, we couldn't give him much rest because we weren't able to find any offense anywhere else. I was hoping that Oto would give us some, Julian would step up, Maverick. But we just couldn't be, we couldn't produce any offense there. And Rodney struggled in the first half trying to score. But he picked it up in the second half. So you got to score the basketball. When you're not scoring and you're trying to manufacture offense, it can be tough. And we went through a stretch there that when he was out of the game, when Andre Hollins was out of the game, that we couldn't get any flow, because he's also our point guard and that's the tough thing. When your point guard is your best shooter and your best scorer, it makes it tough. Because now teams they make him work the length of the court and then Billy Donovan's staff did a good job of that. But he made some outstanding shots. That's one thing he can do, he can shoot the ball. Q. Can you talk about what you have seen from this team in the NCAA tournament that you think can carry over to next season with some of the returning guys. COACH SMITH: Oh, yeah, I think that Trevor talked about it, one of the guys talked about the returning players that we have. We have three starters returning. I think that's, I think that speaks a lot about what ‑‑ we play a lot of people. I thought Elliot started lot of games last year and with another summer and of lifting, another year, he should be a lot better. Mo Walker is healthy. I really think that we got to get people better like Oto and Maverick. I thought we have a couple good recruits coming in. So we should be fine. And that's why I think we'll be a ‑‑ we lose a lot of rebounding, a lot of athleticism in Rodney Williams and in Trevor. But I think we should be okay. Q. Do you have any indication that your job is in trouble at all? COACH SMITH: No. THE MODERATOR: All right, coach thank you. COACH SMITH: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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