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NCAA MEN'S DIVISION III CHAMPIONSHIP GAMEApril 7, 2013David HixonAaron ToomeyAllen WilliamsonATLANTA, GEORGIA Amherst: 87 THE MODERATOR: Congratulations to Amherst, we will ask Coach to make an opening statement and after his opening statement we would like to direct the questions to the players, please. COACH HIXON: It's hard right now even to put into words, and I've gone through this once before but it's really hard, the way this team got here, where we came from and where it ended pickup. Certainly these guys are responsible and the other senior captain were the guys that were the blue and brought us here. I would tell you two quick things. At the beginning of the year I have guys fill out a form and one of the things was his biggest fear and my man Willie here wrote down that the guy at the ring factory would get his size wrong. And the other thing is Aaron Toomey who was being bothered by a lot of low ones, and things like that and I'm working like hell and his dad doesn't know, I'm not hearing anything back and all of the sudden I get a text, this might be illegal by the way ‑‑ I get a text that says "Coach, coming to Amherst, let's go win a National Championship," and I couldn't be happier that we're in the position we are now with him to do that. It's been terrific. Q. Allen, talk about hitin' those couple of shots early to get you guys going and also the experience of playing here and winning a National Championship. ALLEN WILLIAMSON: Through the whole tournament I have been trying to be aggressive offensively and try and get my good looks and get my shots when I got a shot to do it. I was fortunate enough to get some early buckets today. I just wanted to get the guys going. We needed to get the feeling that we were going to take open shots, so I wanted to do that. This feels great. I can't explain it right now, it's still sinkin' in. But I feel like my whole career kind of is the pinnacle of everything, every suicide we've run, every time I've taken free‑throws after practice, every time I've worked in my basement working on my handle I feel it's all led up to today and I'm glad it all ended up this way, great way to finish up a career. Q. All three of you, what was it like for you personally to play on this kind of stage in an NBA arena in front of that kind of crowd that was so vocal? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: Well obviously when you're a kid growing up, the only thing you want to do as a basketball player is play in the NBA, that's what I wanted to do for as long as I can remember. So when I heard it was going to be played in Atlanta, the Championship game and it was going to be at Philips Arena, I was overjoyed and we set our minds that we were going to get here and play in this arena. You know they lights are bright, there's a lot of people there everyone's chanting this way that way, but we knew the hoop was 10 feet tall, the free‑throw was 15 feet and we had each other and it's been about us all year long and we knew if we stuck together and played as five everything outside of the court wouldn't matter because it was about us. UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: Just to add to that, it's incredible, when you're a little kid out in the driveway you dream of hitting a big shot and you think about the NBA but this is as close as we're going to get. This is what it's turned into. It was special to play out there today, and I got to give a shout out to all the fans from Amherst. They were incredible, they were loud and kept us going when we were down in a couple of scoring slumps and they got loud and got us back into it, so here's a shout out to them. UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: Agreed, got to appreciate the fans. This whole weekend has been such a special treat for us, unlike anything I've experienced and I'm sure the guys will say the is same thing, and it was awesome playing in the arena with the bright lights and the fans were packed in there, and it was a great experience. Q. You hit a three and then you pointed at the lights. So obviously you noticed it before. Did you think about saying something to the ref before you saw that shot? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: I was trying to get the ref's attention because I figured when they went out everybody would notice and they would stop, and we would call timeout or something but we kept playing, and it was weird because you got used to shooting in the bright lights, and it got dimmer and I didn't know what to do at that point, to be honest. UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: Aaron Toomey shot the lights out! AARON TOOMEY: I don't think so, 4 for 11 is not shooting the lights out. COACH HIXON: We agreed if they came back on and it was noticeably brighter that they would stop the game so we could figure the whole thing out. Q. Aaron, you had a rough first half, two fouls, didn't shoot particularly well and you looked frustrated when you came back out, the shot around the lights and hit a lot of free‑throws down the stretch when you needed it. Talk about the frustration and how you overcame that to pull it together in the second half. AARON TOOMEY: It was frustrating to go down with two fouls in the first half, but Allen hit big shots, Willy hit big shots and Tom hit two huge threes for us. I'm frustrated, I want to be in there but I know we're in good hands. David Kalema has grown so much in the last couple of years. He's a great player, I love playin' with him, and I know when I'm out and he's in, we're in good hands. Q. I'm curious what you're going to do with the net cords after you leave here? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: But them on my dresser next to the NESCAC ones. Q. Aaron what was the Syracuse jersey about last night? AARON TOOMEY: My dad went to Syracuse, and I've been a fan because of him for a long time, and I figured I was out there, figured why not get some boo's and a little bit of cheers at the same time, so I had to do it, it was a once in a lifetime chance, I guess. I guess we'll have it again, but Syracuse didn't win the game. Q. What's your dad's name? AARON TOOMEY: Kevin. Q. Guys, I want to ask you about Willy. What impresses you about him the most? With his all‑around game, anything he does on the court surprise you? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: I'm not too impressed to be honest, (laughter) four assists, one turnover, I don't know about that. But seriously, Willy is incredible. He has been the heart and soul of this team for the whole year and for a double/double here in the Championship game, he comes up huge in big moments. Q. Whenever certain people caught the ball on the floor for them, you guys knew their moves, you knew who went left and right. How much did that help you guys in keeping them away from the rim? UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: We had two weeks off to prepare for this team so we watched a lot of film, three or four games that we had available to look at each player we were guarding and know what their tendencies were so that made a difference, and we're able to anticipate what they were going to do out there. Take away their number one, primary moves, and it definitely made a difference, and I think it frustrated them. They play a lot of one‑on‑one ball, too, so being able to kinda stop them from doing what they wanted to do took them out of their offense and they forced up a lot of shots, I think. Q. (No microphone.) UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE: It was primarily Willy's guy but obviously I was guarding Bell, and he's not too much different as far as size and ability, so we switched off a couple of times so I saw him a little bit. We just‑‑ yeah, played together. And we tried to take away what they liked to do. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, gentlemen. Congratulations. Questions for Coach? Q. Now that you've won the title and knowing you're going to betaking your dad to Augusta tomorrow, which one means more, helping him with his bucket list or this? COACH HIXON: It's funny because my dad‑‑ my wife is a coach and a great coach, diving coach, my younger son is a great diver, and my other son is at Weslyan, so they picked everybody up and dropped my dad off at my hotel room. I wasn't home yet so when I showed up at the hotel room‑‑ I met my family up in the arena at the suite, and I went to the hotel room, I go in, expecting to see him and he's not there. I go, son of a gun, they brought him to the wrong room, so I'm texting my wife, getting things back and forth and my son texts me back and said, "Holy shit where do you think he could be?" He's 84 years old, but he's of sound mind and body, I'm thinking where has he gone? When he comes to my house he yells at me if I don't have a Coors Light waiting for him and I had two in the refrigerator, and one was gone, so I knew he had been there. My parents‑‑ it's going to be special tomorrow. I think if you asked him, even though that's on his bucket list, I think he would put this first. I could see it in him today and I know how he feels about it, me, he was my coach in high school. My mom couldn't come today because of her bursitis in her hip, 84 years old up on the roof shoveling snow this winter. How is that? Q. (No microphone.) COACH HIXON: Well, we have some tickets‑‑ there is a place down there called the Double Eagle and we're going through there. I did some work early on before I imagined this was really possible, although it was a goal, so we came up with some good stuff. Should be fun. We're driving most of the way tonight, late, so we can get up and get it done and then I was told by the NCAA I could do that and miss the Turner Tour tomorrow if I got back in time for the Division I game, so that's what I will do. Q. (No microphone.) COACH HIXON: Sorry, I didn't finish the story, did I? So I had a lot of people looking around, I called people that I knew that he might have met and hung out with and all of the sudden he strolls into the room and I said, "where you been?" And he said, "Went out to get a sandwich". So he went to the front desk and asked where can a guy get something to eat, and they said, "Well, there are restaurants, they're up and down the street and he takes off and gets a sandwich. There you go. It's been special naturally for a lot of reasons, but, again, he was my coach, and he's suffered the good years, both my mom and dad. The first thing I would do after the game is talk to the team and call my parents. It's been a special relationship that we have had all the way through so I know, again, I think this would be my father's first wish. The other two, you know, I'm probably the other way around, taking care of him is my first wish. Q. Do you think having the Championship game here in this set‑up should be a permanent deal for college basketball? COACH HIXON: Well, this is certainly‑‑ I love Salem, and they do a great job there. This really worked this year. But I do think that if we're going to do that Division III needs to reassess the season, okay, because it was long. And as Division III people‑‑ maybe if we all get used to it‑‑ one of the special things about Division III is the season ends, and kids can play a second sport and they need time to be students, proper students and not just the book student part but the part where you're just a student, having a ball. So our guys missed spring break. They were happier being here, but we had a kid from South Carolina, we had a freshman, he needed to see his parents and go home. He was homesick. He hadn't been home since Christmas, so I just think Division III is a little different. We're not scholarship kids, in quotes. I'm not saying it's a bad thing but it's not a job. Our kids do other things. So they need to rethink how they're going to redo the year. It's been unbelievable. It started‑‑ when I got off the plane, to have a police escort. I haven't seen that many police lights since the last time I was in trouble. There is six in front, six behind I'm thinking, wow. I've never been in trouble by the way, just so you know. So I think it's a good thing, I just think we need to rethink it. Q. Coach, because Mary Hardin‑Baylor likes to get in transition and run, how important was it that y'all only turned the ball over six times today? COACH HIXON: That's unbelievable, six times against them, because I think the steals that they made are typical of how they play, we call them habitual passes. They had done a nice job preparing for us, they knew the things we were running as well, I think Coach did a great job with them, and when they get going for a ball they were quicker than us man‑to‑man, and some of those kids are lightning, and they grabbed the ball and started going. We expected more of that; it was unbelievable that we only had six turnovers. That's great. Turning the ball over, offensive glass and getting to the rim on penetration were the three things that we had to talk about, only six turnovers. So they didn't transition off that, they did a great job on the offensive glass, which hurt us. I looked down and saw the statistics, we had the same amount of offensive rebounds, which surprised me, but there you go. Getting to the rim we tried to overplay hands, we had done a lot of scouting to limit those guys, but I tell you they're so quick to the hoop it didn't make any difference, they got there anyway. That's how they scored, offensive rebounds, and getting to the glass, they hit a couple of outside shots, but that was it, the rest of it was on the glass. Q. (No microphone.) COACH HIXON: You know, it's funny how games go. I expected it to be tight all the way through, what they have done is they have come back in every game they were down 13 or 14 with about 10 minutes to go and they came back, so I don't think any lead was comfortable and I'm delighted with the way we came out of the gate tonight. I always worry about kids in a game like this being nervous, when we came out against Salem we looked nervous, and tonight we played care free and guys made plays early on and made shots. Q. Coach, you've been at Amherst for a long time now and this is your second National Championship, what does that mean to you? COACH HIXON: Well, you know, I think‑‑ I mean, it's really special, naturally, but I've never been a guy that worries too much about trophies and records. I'm at Amherst because I love the kids, I get a chance to coach. If somebody said to me, "Why are you still at Amherst? I would say, "All you need to do is spend a season in my shoes and you would understand that." Because they're special kids, you know, and the National Championship, the second one around, we were only allowed‑‑ our league is a weird league. It's philosophical league, it's wonderful league, I guess, but it's philosophical and until 1994 we were not allowed to go to the NCAAs because it was considered that it would take away from the academics. So it's only been from 1994 on that we have been able to play in it. Somebody said, "Do you realize this is your third National Championship game in seven years, and I never would have guessed that. Again, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to that. Now that it's done, I love it, I'm thinking about the first game next year already. Q. Talk about the impact that Allen Williamson had early, starting that run and the way he played today. COACH HIXON: You know, Allen has been a special player for us, he's talented in our league, which isn't as athletic. A lot of really good shooters and kids that can execute and they don't let kids play quite as much, and they let you execute and that sort of thing, and Allen stands out. And the amount of alley oops that we throw to him during the season is amazing, and the one we threw to him tonight was short but that typically goes, and it's exciting when that happens. He's a great athlete. It's been the last 12, 15 games that he's taken on a role of making things happen, trying to get to his 15‑foot range where he's really good and maybe hesitating and getting to the rack, and early on in the year when we were struggling, that first part we were struggling with ‑‑ one of the issues was Allen worked on his three all year long and that's what he wanted to do is shoot threes, and everybody came together and learned roles. I tell you what, I couldn't be happier for any person on our team to win the M.V.P. of this tournament than I am for Allen. He told me he always wanted to be First Team All NESCAC, and he wasn't even second team, and I said to him after the game would you rather have this or First Team All‑NESCAC, and I got that big smile. Q. Coach, did you talk to your guys before the game about keeping focused, playing on this stage in front of this many people in this arena? COACH HIXON: We did and I'll tell you what I said to them, guys, and I've been saying this for about three days, since we got down here. We now‑‑ we knew who we were, we won 24 in a row now, 24 in a row now. We had crystallized individual identities, team identities, and we knew what we were. I kept saying you don't need to do anything different, just be who you are and you're going to be confident in that. Don't be nervous, we know who we are and let's be that. We talked a lot about that right up until the last talk before I sent them out on the court. I thought they were. I thought we were who we are today and I thought we didn't try to do anything special, we didn't try to do anything more we just played basketball the way Amherst has been playing basketball the last 24 games. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach, congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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