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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: WASHINGTONMarch 28, 2013Julian GambleShane LarkinJim LarranagaWASHINGTON, D.C. Marquette – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Miami head Coach, Jim Larranaga, student‑athletes, Julian Gamble and Shane Larkin. We will have an opening statement by Coach. COACH LARRANAGA: Well, our hats off to Marquette. Buzz Williams and his staff and team, they did a great job from start to finish. I think all the things that we wanted to do, keep them out of the paint with their drives, keep them off the offensive boards, find the open man on our end and make some threes, we weren't able to do any of those things. It was really the first time all season long that we didn't have one guy get a hot hand and give us a chance to stay with them. We're not a pressing team, so to start pressing with 16 minutes left in the game is really out of character for us, but we were trying to get something going. Nothing seemed to work. They did a great job, and congratulations to them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Shane, you looked frustrated in the first half, their defense was doing things that were frustrating you guys as guards? SHANE LARKIN: They did a great job in guarding the ball screen. They were pretty much trapping me and trying to get the ball out of my hands, and it was frustrating not being able to attack it because they were trying to get it out of my hands. The several times I did try to attack it, they had great defense. They had a great game plan and they executed their game plan to a tee. Q. Julian, inside how tough are those two big guys? JULIAN GAMBLE: They're two space eaters, really big guys and good at using their body and getting in that position. It was a work load trying to keep them out of the paint and once they caught the ball inside it was tough to stop 'em. Q. Shane, they did play tough "D" but even when you guys had open looks it seemed like the ball would rattle in and rattle out. Does that make you more frustrated, are you wondering, hey, what do we gotta do to put one in sorta thing? SHANE LARKIN: That's frustrating. We had a bunch of open shots in the first half, we just weren't knocking shots down. Illinois did the same thing on the ball screen but Rion Brown had the hot hand and that hurt them but tonight nobody could get hot. It's frustrating, like you said, and you want to go out there and play hard and get to the rim and shots didn't fall, so it just didn't go our way tonight. Q. Besides the missed shots, what in your game plan went wrong? SHANE LARKIN: We wanted to keep them out of the paint on the defensive end and I think they got in the paint too easily and that's just team defense, that's not an individual, that's just team defense. We didn't help when they caught the ball in the area, we didn't help out and when they kicked it out we were slow there, we were just a step on that and they just executed their game plan better than we executed ours. Q. How much do you feel like you missed Reggie especially with the number of bodies that Marquette threw at you? SHANE LARKIN: We definitely missed Reggie's presence down there, but there is no excuses, Julian is more than capable of keeping people out of the lane just like Reggie is and definitely having bodies rotate in and Julian can just taking all of that punishment from the bigs which he had which he had, we definitely missed Reggie tonight, I think his size could have affected Otule and Gardner and they just played a great game. You can't take anything away from them. There is no excuse on our end. Somebody had to step up and we as a team didn't do that tonight. JULIAN GAMBLE: Obviously I agree with Shane, just missing his body. That's another body that you can throw at guys and especially his size would have affected their shots and their game plan going into this game. So we definitely missed him but at this point in the year there is no excuses, you have to find a way to get it done and we just weren't able to do it. Q. Fellows, there is only one team that wins the last game. You guys, ACC champion, win the tournament, looking back on this could you put into perspective what it was for the Hurricanes? The scene? SHANE LARKIN: Right now we are just disappointed in losing this basketball game. We had a special season but at this time this was the most important game of the season and we wanted to advance and make history for our school again. I don't think we have advanced past this game and we wanted to make history but we weren't able to do that tonight. Yeah, we had a great season but we're just disappointed in what happened tonight. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you. Questions for Coach? Q. Coach, what was the postgame speech to this team? COACH LARRANAGA: Well, I told the players how proud I was of them, and how they conducted themselves all season, how many sacrifices they made, what great ambassadors they have been for the University. How they conducted themselves on and off the court, interacting with the media, interacting with the coaches and their teammates. I think we all knew we just didn't have it tonight. We didn't have the juice that you need to play great basketball. It started right from the very beginning, you could see it. It never really improved. I told these guys when they look back on this year, they have so many great memories of the things they have accomplished, and they will be able to take those with them for a lifetime. Q. Coach, I'm curious, the toughness level of this Marquette team, how it compares to what you saw during the regular season. COACH LARRANAGA: Well, I think they're very similar to the teams we faced in our league. They're tough defensively, they're tough inside, they rebound very, very well, they attack the rim very, very well. I would have liked for us to play our normal game so we could really see how good we both were. But we didn't have it tonight, and they did. Q. Were you happy with your shot selection? Was it a matter of the shots just not going down today? COACH LARRANAGA: You ever have days where you're just out of sync or things just don't run along smoothly? Almost like our trip over here, you know, our hotel is a mile and a half, it took us 45 minutes to get here, we had to go on nine different streets, weaving our way in and out of traffic and everything, and that's the way it seemed on the court. We were trying to find our way and never could. Never could get in rhythm offensively, and defensively, I don't think we communicated like we have been doing all season long, either. I think the offensive end contributed to that. Where you get frustrated because you miss a shot or two and you fall behind, and then all of the sudden you get a little anxious, and you start thinking about something that interferes with what the team is trying to do. After their first or second basket, we knew they were going to be pressing us full court, and the guy that was supposed to take it out was running up the floor. What are you thinking? But that's the problem, when you're a little bit out of sync your mind is someplace where it's not supposed to be. Q. So did the traffic cause you to be late or an interruption to your pregame routine? COACH LARRANAGA: No, it was just like our pregame always is. All I'm saying is it wasn't a smooth ride, you're hustling and stuff, we still went through our‑‑ that wasn't it. It was just an analogy, not a good one, I take it. Q. You had 26 three‑pointers on the day, setting up the perimeter part of the game plan? COACH LARRANAGA: How many did we make? Q. It says 8. COACH LARRANAGA: If we made 12 then it was the game plan. (Laughter.) The game is very simple. There are only two things you have to do in basketball one put the ball in the basket, two, stop the other team from putting the ball in the basket. We weren't able to do either. We didn't make shots, when you don't make shots you don't look good, and when the other team is making shots they look good and they build up a lead and you're trailing. From our point of view we're not a team that presses a lot, so it's not like we can't all of the sudden become Louisville, or VCU, start pressing them and start turning it over. Our guys are not built that way. We tried but that didn't work either. Q. How did the physicality in the post affect or influence the game? COACH LARRANAGA: Well, I would say they're a very physical team, but more than physical they're efficient. Chris Otule and Gardner really know how to seal inside and score three feet from the basket, and one of our intentions was to keep it out of there, don't let them catch it. We did it on one side, they reversed the ball and threw it in on the other side, and once they caught it there was no stopping them. Q. You've got a University that's synonymous for their football program. Do you think this year getting to the Sweet 16 will let everyone know that this team is going to be something to reckon with in basketball? COACH LARRANAGA: I think what we did this year was lay a foundation of what the program could be like. We're not anywhere near where I would like to be. We did this with a lot of hold over players, with upper classmen, with five seniors. The great thing about those seniors is they embraced a new philosophy, a new coaching staff, a new teaching style and staff. It's taken us a while to iron out some of the wrinkles with the upper classmen, but it led to this kind of a year. Now those guys graduate and we have to replenish the talent and that's going to take some time. It doesn't happen over night but in the ACC you are able to recruit talented kids and hopefully we will be able to replace these guys with incoming freshmen and maybe a transfer or two. Q. Why do you think the lack of juice, why would that happen on a night like this and who was supposed to take the ball inbounds against the press. COACH LARRANAGA: That last question I won't answer. This is fact, it's not fiction, it's not an excuse. We didn't prepare for this game. We had Nick Johnson down, we didn't practice on Monday. On Tuesday in the first rebounding drill we did. Durand Scott caught an elbow in the mouth, had his teeth loosened, we didn't have him, and then Raphael Akpejiori hurt his hand. We didn't have him. We only have 11 scholarship guys eligible, we were down to 8 so practice wasn't great without Durand, Reggie, and last night Shane Larkin ended up throwing up all night, didn't eat this morning, didn't eat until the pregame meal at 3:00, so I think those guys didn't have the juice that they normally do.  It's not a reflection on anything but circumstances that happened. Maybe all the Marquette players had those things happen, too, I don't know, but I just know we didn't look like ourselves. Q. Coach, the last time you were here for a regional semifinal was in D.C., you're in the same arena. Between last weekend and up to tonight, did you have any thoughts of that run with George Mason, and were you able to draw upon that experience and share that with your team? COACH LARRANAGA: The answer is yes and no. You know, players are probably hearing about that. We talk about it a little bit and how it can help prepare us for what to expect. The media exposure and what kind of attention we got seven years ago, but in actuality that started with us back on January 23rd when we beat Duke who was the number one team in the country at that time. So we have had a lot of attention, and I think the guys have handled it very well and very much in a first‑class manner. So to me every season is a little bit different, your players are different, their personalities are different, but in the end a loss like this, you still got guys in your locker room cryin' because they didn't want to loose, they didn't want to play as badly as we did. They wanted to play great and move on, we weren't able to do it. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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