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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: KANSAS CITYMarch 24, 2013Murphy HollowayAndy KennedyNick WilliamsKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI LaSalle – 76 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy and student‑athletes. We'll begin with a statement from the head coach. COACH KENNEDY: Obviously disappointed, not disappointed in my guys, but disappointed for them. It's a long journey now with them changing the rules where we can work with our guys. This starts for us in June. We had this group together in summer school. We started working on putting ourselves in this position. When you come up a basket short, you're certainly disappointed. A difficult time to reflect. But I'm extremely proud of a lot of the things that this team accomplished. I've always said that winning teams make winning plays. To LaSalle's credit, they made the winning plays down the stretch and therefore they move forward. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Andy, did you stick with the zone not 'cause of foul problems, but because of quickness? COACH KENNEDY: We contain them off the dribble. Couldn't contain them in the zone. They went really small. Anytime they had their traditional lineup, D.J. Peterson at the 4, we were guarding man. When they went small, it was difficult for our bigs away from the basket.  They are so explosive off the dribble, the most explosive team we've played all year off the bounce. Then they made timely shots. Obviously you look at their three‑point percentage, they shot good what they did for the season, 38, 39%, which is exceptional. We don't have one guy on our team that does that. They made huge ones. We were up 5 with four minutes to play, may have had the ball, they come down and hit a huge shot. I thought Sam Mills was outstanding, even though he has eight points. Galloway was a story early. I thought he and No.3 were really, really good in making timely shots. They got a good basketball team. They made more plays. Heck of a game. Q. Coach, how do you feel like your bench played tonight, Anthony in particular? COACH KENNEDY: I thought he gave us something. I thought he gave us energy. Again, I think it's been well chronicled, we lost our two post guys, one early, early in the season with a stress fracture, one in the Kentucky game with an ACL tear. Our front court isn't as strong as we would have anticipated at this stage. Anthony Perez and Terry Brutus have helped us. They were pivotal in giving us key minutes. I thought Anthony came in tonight when they were small because he's more of a guard, he would have a better chance to contain them off the dribble. Q. Did you have any timeouts left at the end? COACH KENNEDY: I had one. Q. Did you draw up anything in that? COACH KENNEDY: Obviously our whole focus in that last timeout, the last dead ball, was to try to make them take the last shot. We opted to go zone. I don't know in my career if I've ever done that before. It was out of respect for them to dribble‑drive us. They were small. We went zone. My hope was that they're thinking Last shot, so they're not going to attack us till about eight on the shot clock typically in zone. All you have to guard is one or two passes. In this case, we didn't guard any passes, they just drove it. Their 6'1" guard, went at the best shot‑blocker in the history of our program. The kid made a heck of a play. Our philosophy is let's try to get it out. I think it was 2.2 or 2.3 seconds. We didn't get an initial push. By then it was too late to do anything about it. Q. It's hard to reflect, but talk about this late‑season run, what it meant to finish on a high note? NICK WILLIAMS: Well, it's been great to play with these guys. We made a push at the end of the regular season. We've been winning games with defense. Tonight they score, what, 76 on us. It's probably the most in the last couple games. We fought hard. But, you know, things happen. MURPHY HOLLOWAY: It was a heck of a run. Like I told my guys in the locker room, there wasn't another group of guys, coaches that I'd rather make this run with. Proud of my team, proud of the younger guys, proud of the staff, just the whole Rebel Nation stand behind us. It was a great run. Hate it had to come to an end. You knew it was going to come to an end one day with a loss or a win. Wish we could have went deeper. I take my hat off to LaSalle. They played great. Our guys fought hard. Like coach said, at the end of the day they made winning plays. Q. Talk about LaSalle's quickness and problems it gave you. NICK WILLIAMS: They're very quick. We tried to come out and play them man first half. They was just driving by us. We didn't come out with great energy in the first half. I felt like in the second half we came back and we fought. They wanted it more. When you want it more, you make winning plays at the end. That's what they did. MURPHY HOLLOWAY: I think it affected us a lot, man. Their quickness got our best defensive player in foul trouble probably the first six, seven minutes of the game. Reggie got in foul trouble switching off on to a defender and got cheap fouls. Just trying to keep them in front of us, they get past you, make the defense collapse, make extra passes. They shot lights out tonight. Q. Obviously one dribble‑drive to the bucket does not constitute the outcome of the a game. What other moments earlier in the ballgame do you feel maybe you had opportunities to make plays that could have secured the momentum for you and they didn't get done? NICK WILLIAMS: I feel like when we were about 5, about 22 at the half, the guy hit the three and one on me. I felt like that gave them some life right there. They missed the free throw, got the rebound and put it back in. We wasn't being aware. You can't have that when your life is on the line like that.  They played tough and made some big shots. We didn't. When you do things like that, you're not aware of such great shooters like that, they make you pay. MURPHY HOLLOWAY: Just I say throughout the game, I think free throws killed us. It's been hurting us all year. Just like Nick said, probably the three‑pointer, got fouled, then got the rebound on me on the block‑out. When there was a play to be made, we made a mistake, they made us pay for it every time. Q. Andy, how much zone did you play this year? COACH KENNEDY: Probably since the injury to AJ at the Kentucky game, we played a lot down the stretch. When we were making a run in the SEC tournament, we did it trying to conserve as much energy as possible. Q. Talk about their ability to dribble‑drive and crack it. COACH KENNEDY: Regardless of what we ran, we were switching ball screens, and typically if you do that, even one through five, you can usually contain the bounce. They were still cracking us off the dribble. They've got three guys that are very fast. I thought a couple times in the zone we had talked about everybody knows in a 2‑3 zone the weakness is in the high post. They didn't have anybody in the high post. They would flash a guard in there. It was based on their ability to pitch back out. A couple of times we did it right, they made great plays. A couple of teardrops over the best shot blocker in the history of our program. Again, I tip my hat to LaSalle. As I look at our numbers, we go 4‑19 from three. If you dance with the devil so long, eventually it's going to get you. We played in that range a lot. Marshall is the only one that got one. As Murph alluded to, you can't think you're going to win basketball games at this level, especially when it's a one or two possession game and shoot 47% from the free throw line. So we put our ourselves in harm's way and LaSalle made us pay. Q. It looked like in the final minute or so they were trying to deny Marshall. Did you get the looks that you wanted? Did you feel like Marshall was fouled on that drive to the basket? COACH KENNEDY: I don't know until I see the tape. Usually I'm looking at things through red and blue glasses. When I watch the tape, we're dealing with great officials, and 90% of the time they're right. We were obviously trying to get some screening action for him. The way they were switching, there were slips available most of the night. Sometimes we hit 'em, sometimes we did not. I thought Jarvis had about as clean a look as you could have at the end. That's an open gym step‑in three. Nobody I would rather have shoot it than Jarvis, he just missed it. The shot block violation, he got it up on the rim, followed it, next thing they're calling a shot clock violation. The timing of it, was he fouled before or after the violation? There's a lot of things that run through your head, you wish you had this playback, that playback. I think LaSalle won the game because of their ability the game. I don't know the last time we gave up 50% from the floor, we certainly haven't during this run. They shoot 56% on us the second half, they earned the right to go to the Sweet 16. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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