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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 24, 2013Grant GibbsGreg McDermottDoug McDermottPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Duke – 66 COACH McDERMOTT: Congratulations to Duke. They played a great basketball game. Obviously defensively I thought they were very good. You know, the reality of it is we had some pretty good looks at threes, especially in the first half, that we didn't knock down, and that kind of set the tone for us for the game. We just weren't able to get any rhythm from the three‑point line, and that's a big part of what we do. Defensively I felt like we played good enough to win. We held a team that shoots the ball like we do, very high percentage, to 38 percent, and I would have taken that before the game and rolled the dice with my chances. But we were not very good offensively. Some of that had to do with us and some of it certainly is to Duke's credit. But we stayed in the fight. We didn't turn it over a lot. We hung in there on the back boards. I couldn't be more proud of my team. They've been an absolute joy to coach. They've represented our University and our community in a first‑class manner on and off the floor, and for that I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to be part of that. Q. Doug, what did they do defensively to you to bother you so much? DOUG McDERMOTT: I mean, they did a great job. They were real physical with me, and it seems like they were switching every screen, down screen, pick, just they were switching everything, making it frustrating. I missed a lot of shots I normally make, so that was unfortunate. But they did a great job finding me, not letting me get anything easy, so you've got to give them credit. Q. Obviously you don't reach your goal of getting to the Sweet 16 like y'all talked about, but it doesn't take away from an unbelievable year and two great seasons, 57 wins. GRANT GIBBS: Yeah, this group has accomplished a lot. And really the last three years, building on Coach McDermott's first season and the last two. So I think it's just disappointing to play the way we did tonight. It's tough on everyone? DOUG McDERMOTT: I agree with Grant. It's a tough way to go out. But it's just been hard letting these seniors down tonight. We thought we could put up a little better fight. But it doesn't take away from these last two years. They've been incredible, both NCAA wins. I don't think a Creighton team has done that in history back to back years. It's pretty special to say. I don't think it's hit us yet. I'm sure it will down the road, but it feels good. Q. In the second half where did you see the game start to get away? It was close going into half and then they built their run from there. COACH McDERMOTT: Well, you know, a real telling part of the game was the last seven possessions or eight possessions of the first half. I think they scored on six of those. They had 16 points the first 26 possessions of the game, which is obviously great defense against a team like Duke, and then they scored 13 points the last seven possessions. And of course the banked three‑point shot at the buzzer didn't help. But we just never really got into an offensive flow, and we scored the first four points, I believe, of the second half and then got right back into it. They hit a couple big threes at critical times. Curry hit one on a ball screen that I remember off the top of my head that was kind of a back breaker. We had one where we had a loose ball on the floor, Wragge comes up with it and flips it up to what he thinks is his teammate and Duke jumps in front of it and hits a three. Sometimes you need things to bounce your way. We didn't have much of that happen, and again, a lot of that credit goes to Duke. Q. You talked on Friday about needing to play‑‑ wear multiple hats with your son and the whole NBA process as this moves forward. Have you talked with him about that at all, and where do you go from here? COACH McDERMOTT: We discussed it six weeks ago and decided to wait until the season is over. We'll let all this sink in, and when the time is right, he's not going to be in any hurry to make a decision so I don't think we're in any rush to sit down and talk. But we will, and we'll see what he comes up with. He'll do what's best for Doug, and he's earned the right to do that. Q. It doesn't take away from a great season you guys had. COACH McDERMOTT: No, it doesn't, and as I told them, I'm really sad that it's over. I'm sad that I don't get to coach this group anymore. The contributions that our seniors have made, Joe Kelling, who's only been with us six or seven months and just brought a smile on his face and positive attitude every day. Taylor Stormberg is unbelievably unselfish and a great energy guy in practice and has actually played some valuable minutes for us. To Josh Jones with his situation, the easy thing for Josh to do would be to stay away because it's painful for him to sit and watch practice and be at games knowing and wishing that he could be out on that floor knowing that he'll never play basketball again. But he's chosen the high road, to be around his teammates and to try to help them. Gregory Echenique has transformed his body more than anybody I've ever coached from the first time I met him until today, and the work ethic and the dedication that it's taken for him to do that and the improvements in his game and the fact that he's played his best basketball when his team needed him the most in St.Louis and Cincinnati and here today, I thought that was great again. Grant Gibbs has played through more adversity than anybody I've ever coached in terms of injuries and things that have happened to his body, yet he refuses to not be involved in practice, refuses to miss a game. They've been a true, true joy to coach, and as sad as I am that it's over, I'm absolutely thrilled that it happened and that I got to be part of it. Q. In Doug's case, how much of the missed shots or just shots not falling for him, how much of it was the way Duke was playing him tonight? COACH McDERMOTT: Well, the fact that we weren't able to get him a lot of easy ones was the way Duke played him. They switched every screen wherever we went, wherever he went, and there's probably no player in the country that sees that as often as Doug has seen it. And as he said, he probably missed seven or eight shots that he's normally going to make, a couple of the ones he had early, the little floaters, something that he's made all year long. But we rode him pretty hard. He's played a lot of minutes and our starters played a lot of minutes on Friday, and we needed him again today. But Duke took away the easy stuff, and then the tough shots that Doug normally makes he didn't make today, and then unfortunately when Doug shot it like that, we were going to need somebody else to step up and have a spectacular game, and that just didn't happen. Q. You guys normally shoot the three a lot better than you did tonight. What was it about Duke's defense that limited you so effectively from beyond the arc? COACH McDERMOTT: I'll have to watch the film. I thought we had some decent rhythm threes. I thought most of Austin Chatman's were open. I thought Manigat, all four of his were open. Avery Dingman had two wide open ones in transition in the first half that didn't go down. So I think some of it was certainly Duke's length and athletic ability. Some of it we just missed, simple as that. Neither team shot the ball like they're capable of shooting it tonight. Duke just made a few more plays. Q. Would you have thought it would be possible, I think it comes out to about .76 points per possession for your team, which I know you know the number, it's around 1.2, would you have even thought that would be possible? COACH McDERMOTT: No, no. It was by far Doug's worst shooting game of the year, not even close, and across the board. We've shot 50 percent over 35 games or 36 games, and that includes the likes of Wisconsin and at Cal and some pretty good teams. I wouldn't have guessed that that was possible, but things happen in the game of basketball. We at least gave ourselves a chance. As poorly as we played offensively the first half, we were still right there, and it was a two‑point game with 18 minutes to go and we were shooting in the low 30s. I'm proud that we competed and kept ourselves in the game. Q. Can you talk about Echenique's defense against Plumlee tonight? COACH McDERMOTT: Yeah, I thought Gregory did a great job. I didn't think Plumlee wanted much to do with him down there, and that was our plan going in is to play him one‑on‑one and try to stay close to the shooters, and that was certainly effective the first half. Gregory, I think he can play in the NBA for that reason. I don't think there's many guys in the country that can play Mason Plumlee one‑on‑one without any help and be physical and stay low and make him score over the top of you. I just don't think many guys are willing to put in the effort to do that against someone as strong and as athletic and as big as Mason. Gregory is outstanding. He was great against Cincinnati. He was great in the Valley Tournament and he was certainly good on the defensive end of the floor. Q. A lot has happened in the three years you've been at Creighton. Talk about the state of the program moving forward now into the Big East and everything. COACH McDERMOTT: Well, as I told the guys in the locker room, 50 years from now long after I'm gone they're going to be able to tell their grandkids that they're a big reason Creighton moved to the Big East. Without the success of our program the last few years and the unbelievable attendance that we have, which is in the top five or six in the country, I'm not sure the Big East takes as serious a look at us as they have. I just think when people watch us play, they don't see a team, they see a program, and that's what I am most proud of. These guys have conducted themselves in a first‑class manner on and off the floor. I've had no discipline issues the entire year. Not sure we've had really a technical hardly the entire year. So they play the game the right way. They really, truly care about each other. So in terms of the state of the program, I couldn't be more proud of where it's at. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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