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NCAA MEN'S DIVISION III CHAMPIONSHIP GAMEApril 7, 2013James AllenKen DeWeeseThomas OrrATLANTA, GEORGIA Amherst: 87 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Mary Hardin‑Baylor and we will ask Coach to make comments and then we will open it up to questions for the players. COACH DeWEESE: First thing I got to say is Amherst are the national champions, they shot the ball well. It was an honor to be on the floor with them. That's on one hand. On the other hand it's disappointing for our guys. We've been through a lot to get here and it's hard to get here. Some of the things we have been doing well we did not do well today. I thought they competed the entire time, so these guys have my total respect. I'm still learning, and next year will be my 44th year, but I doubt seriously I'll ever have another group of guys that captured‑‑ really captured my heart. And for a guy with my experience, and years, it's hard to put in words what it's like to play‑‑ to work every day with a bunch of young men like this bunch of guys have been. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. For Brain or Thomas, Amherst comes out, starts quick, y'all don't get off to a fast start were you more nervous or pumped up than you thought you would object did they do something you weren't expecting? What do you think the difference was in the first few minutes? THOMAS ORR: I mean I felt we did okay guarding them they were just pretty much hitting shots we just ‑‑ I don't know, they were hittin' shots and we needed to rebound more, on the defensive end, they were getting too many offensive boards and second chances. Q. James, you were aggressive in the second half when the team was down by a bunch, kept going to the right side of the rim attacking. What did you see there that you were trying to exploit? JAMES ALLEN: Just that their defense wasn't as good, and we knew that we could beat 'em off the dribble, so that's what I did. Q. I wanted to ask you guys, were you surprised about their size? Did their size give you more trouble than you anticipated? Especially around the basket? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: I don't think their size was anything different than what we have seen all year. I give them credit. They took advantage of the size but I don't think it was anything that we haven't seen throughout our whole conference and through our road to get here. Q. Talk about the backcourt and in Aaron Toomey and Allen Williamson and the biggest challenge in dealing with that today. UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: We knew their backcourt was good, Aaron Toomey is Player of the Year, we knew he was going to be good. Allen Williamson did a great job of crashing the boards and we had to contain them. They were doing good. Q. Thomas, y'all cut it to 4 in the second half, was the feeling, here we go, here is where we're going to make our run. THOMAS ORR: When we pulled within 4 I thought we were going to be able to ride the momentum and be able to tie or take the lead eventually, but every time we cut it to 4 they hit a big shot or we gave up an offensive rebound and it killed our momentum and we could never get it to where our momentum let us take the lead for good, at least tie it up. Q. How much did you guys know about Willy Workman coming in? THOMAS ORR: We found out that he was a third‑team All American. Before we were able to watch them play against North Central to get to the finals and we knew that was pretty good. Watching them on film you get to know how good a player really is, but still watching film and seein' them play is a whole different game from actually guarding him and he's a really good, all‑around player. I don't know, he's a really good player. I respect his game a lot. Q. Talk about the experience of being in the Final Four city and getting to play your championship game here, having this opportunity. THOMAS ORR: The opportunity to get here was great. We didn't come here just to enjoy all the festivities, we came here to win a game and we didn't do that, so it's not as fun anymore. Being able to work with the Special Olympic kids is probably one of the memories I'll never forget from this whole trip. Being able to watch D‑1 is pretty cool, too, so it's a good trip but the ultimate goal wasn't fulfilled. THE MODERATOR: Anymore questions for the players? Okay, gentlemen, you're excused. Questions for coach? Q. Coach, I was hoping to get you to reflect on the run that got you here. COACH DeWEESE: I'm not very emotional very often so reflection is not a good thing for me right now, Pat, but the adversity that we faced. We had two fifth year seniors the beginning of the year that we had worked with obviously for five years, both of them red‑shirted, 6'8" and 6‑11 and lose them before we ever start playin' and then we had a 6'8" transfer that came in, tears his knee, his MCL before we ever started playing. At one time in Novemberwe thought we were through because they weren't playing because they had never played in a regular game then we go out to Washington and played Whitworth and Whitman and they played very well, and we were in both games, a lot closer scorewise. We come back on Monday and go to Trinity on Wednesday, I mean tough trip, I mean were in Washington and now were in San Antonio playin' Trinity. They beat us in the first round of the NCAA Tournament the year before and we beat them in overtime and these guys began to believe, not just in themselves, but in each other, we play ten games, eight on the road all conference games, I don't mean that for our assistant conference commissioner is here, directly that is an off‑hand comment, but we played 10 conference games in January, six in a row on the road, I don't think anybody else had to do that nationally, won all of 'em. They had obstacle after obstacle, then we go to Whitworth in the play‑off's, Oh we played Concordia in the second round, another obstacle, come back, they had beaten us two weeks before in the conference tournament and played pretty well against 'em, then we go to Whitworth, another huge obstacle, they've for the coolest atmosphere to play college basketball in the country, regardless of division. Won that game, then the experience in Salem was outstanding. Played the number one team, the number eleven team and they just kept playin'. I think we were probably a little bit thinking that maybe we got some kind of fairy dust sprinkled on us and if it did, it dried off, over showered too often or something because we did not play well offensively today, we did not shoot‑‑ we were uncharacteristically tight offensively but we give Amherst 41%, I thought if we could get them 40 or below we would be fine and I think if we had shot it a little bit more normal it would have been a different basketball game. One of those times you get short arms and it won't go in. Reflection is we had a lot of obstacle and overcame a bunch and that's why I have so much respect for these guys. Q. Coach, you talked this week about wanting to go out and recruit some more guys for size to guard their big guys. How much of a factor was that today? COACH DeWEESE: It was a factor, because they are a pretty good size but Hardin Simmons in our league is bigger. They have big guys that are more athletic than these guys. They lost a couple through academic‑‑ Greg, am I right, a couple of academic problems? But in the first half Hardin Simmons was much bigger than Amherst, 6‑7, 265, 270 that can play, 6'10", 240 that was extremely athletic and two 6'7" guys on the wing. These guys were players now they were not stiffs. They were players. Bunch of those guys were from California JUCO, a couple of them from Texas JUCO and they were really good and Mississippi College is good sized so we have seen size in our league. The size hurt us today but more than anything else it was just one of those things that‑‑ I don't know if many of you are golfers, but sometimes when you've got a friendly wager, possibly, you have a neighbor and you're trying to‑‑ if he beats you, you got to mow his yard if you beat him he mows your yard and you've got a 6‑foot putt for a premowing, sometimes that 6‑foot putt looks like it's 66 feet and that's the way things were today. Kitrick Bell never misses a shot around the basket like he did. He just missed 'em over and over and one time he missed a shot and he grabbed his head and that's not something this guy does. Just one of those things. It was a terrible experience offensively. But at the same time defensively they continued to work. One time we were behind at one time, when we were getting the stat sheets we were behind offensive rebounding, Amherst is 8 offensive rebounds ahead of us, we ended up tied 21‑21 so if nothing else those guys continued to battle. Being a defensive coach, a defensive person, we played well, but it still comes down to gettin' the ball in the hole and we didn't do that well enough. Q. Coach, Kitrick Bell might have been the loosest guy on your team all week going into this, he seemed unphased, ready to play and he was so tight today and the other guys‑‑ do you have any idea why? Did they seem that way pregame to you? COACH DeWEESE: No, they didn't. They appeared to me last night in film session and I thought yesterday in practice and this morning, I thought they were feeling well, pretty normal. It's hard to read these guys, they're so quiet. I've been telling them all year they're the worst huddle break team I've ever had, you put your hands up and yell "work hard" or "go crew" and these guys were "go crew", that has been all year, so I didn't recognize a big difference until Kitrick Bell got that first rebound and shot it and it hit the backboard and the side of the rim. I've seen that a couple of times before. This is not my first game. I thought, whoa, this doesn't look good but I thought we could get him out of it and we couldn't. He's a third‑team All‑American, he's one of our campus leaders. He wanted it too much and it just overwhelmed him, it's a mental process. Q. In your opening statement you said there were a few things y'all didn't do as well today, can you expand on what that was? The shooting, but what else? COACH DeWEESE: Offensively we were discombobulated, we didn't do things we usually do, go to the basket and getting the kick‑backs, Thomas Orr decided he was going to put us on his back and carry us and he's done that many times it just wouldn't go in for him today so there are things characteristically that we didn't do and those are the too things that stand out for me. Can I get on my soap box? NCAA was great. If this format does not become permanent, we're not doing the service for the student‑athletes in the Division II and III levels that we possibly can. This is the greatest atmosphere in the world for college basketball players, high school basketball players, people around the world. If we don't all get together and make this a permanent thing we're slighting our student‑athletes. The experience these guys have had, the way the NCAA people and the city of Atlanta have treated us, it is something that each team should have an opportunity to aspire to get to, regardless where the Final Four is. For Division II and Division III, in my opinion and college basketball, this should be permanent. We're missing a great chance for our student‑athletes to have the most outstanding opportunity of their athletic lives. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach, congratulations on a great year. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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