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EA SPORTS MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 27, 2013Mark FewKevin PangosLAHAINA, HAWAII Gonzaga – 91 THE MODERATOR: Coach, some opening comments? COACH FEW: Well, it was just a terrific job of executing the game plan by my guys. And I'm really, really proud of them for how they competed, how they fought, and how they stepped up against a very, you know athletic, relentless team. You know, we really haven't played anybody like that in a while. With no time to practice, we walked through some stuff on the tennis court this morning. So for them to absorb what we're trying to do and the approach we had, just a fabulous job by the guys. Q. Just talk about what you were trying to do offensively, because they tried to get you to do some things you're probably not comfortable with. But what did you hope to accomplish? COACH FEW: Yeah, again, they were going to make every catch difficult and make every advancement of the basketball up the floor difficult, and in the half court. They're going to make you be uncomfortable. For the most part I thought for the entire game I don't know that we took a bad shot all game. We got the ball where we wanted to at the right time and we had the right mentality when we did have it, whether it was our bigs making strong moves or the guards were very assertive, and they weren't trying to hit home runs and they'd take it to the rim when it was there, or they set up a teammate when it wasn't. So I thought that was just a very impressive aspect that our guys were able to, again, absorb and just basically overnight with no practice. Q. Then there was a stretch later in the half there where you had three starters on the bench with two fouls and you bought a lot of time there? COACH FEW: We did, but we had some great efforts from some people who haven't really gotten a whole lot of minutes. I mean, Luke Miekle came in and gave us great minutes. Because, again, in this tournament we've been in some pretty severe foul trouble in every game. You know, this was a different experience for us. I mean, to be kind of in that breakfast bracket really challenges who you are and what you're all about. You're still playing good teams and you've got to look deep inside yourself. I like how our guys fought through it. Looking back on this tournament, we basically played pretty darn good except for about a five or six‑minute stretch in that Dayton game where we couldn't get a rebound, couldn't get a stop and just had a couple of turnovers. Other than that we had a good stretch of the 120 minutes we played over here. Q. Coach, we kind of missed it yesterday, obviously shot lights out. You shot really well again today. Coach Boeheim mentioned that a smaller gym may be easier to shoot in. Coach Montgomery mentioned some soft rims, but it seems there are some really good shooters here, especially in the last couple days for you guys? COACH FEW: Well, we've been shooting it like that all year. When we came in for practice, I was disappointed. Those are the softest rims I've ever seen in a Division I game. So to me that's kind of the great equalizer. These guys can shoot on outdoor courts with the mushroom shaped deal, and the rim ratcheted down so it doesn't even move. So I prefer that when you've got a team like this. These rims have made‑‑ hell, I think I could shoot 50% from three on these rims. Thinking about it, one of the assistants said, hey, you want to get more scoring in the game, just loosen the rims all over the place. But I think that's a big thing. Again, we've shot the ball well for seven games now, and that's kind of what these guys do. Q. Kevin, can you talk about the shooting conditions in the gym and the rim? KEVIN PANGOS: Yeah, at first I felt like the shots were just falling. You hit the front rim and it just absorbs it as he says, and we've been shooting like this all year. But as a shooter, you feel more confident putting up knowing there is that extra bit of chance it's going to roll in or get a good bounce, even floaters and that sort of thing up close, you know, touch helps with so many different shots. Every team is the same way, they use the same rims, so who knows who has the advantage. Q. Coach, at the beginning of the tournament you talked about how a lot of these teams were tournament teams. After playing Arkansas today, do you feel they'll be a tournament team? COACH FEW: I do. I feel like the physical entity that they have around the rim is something that's very impressive. The way Bell shoots the ball, and as Portis gets more and more experience. He was finishing everything around the hoop today. I just the depth they have. I thought we did a nice job on Harris, and he ended up shooting 17. I thought they shot the ball better. Qualls continues to make shots out there. They've got a nice looking team. So I really do. I told Archie, I think Dayton's the guy really good team. Watching Cal, I think Mike's doing an awesome job with his crew, and Syracuse is who they are, and Baylor has those big long guys. There are a lot of tournament teams lurking around over here. Q. You had 11 turnovers, which is probably acceptable with what you faced and a ton of different guys brought the ball up. How nice was that to have? COACH FEW: Yeah, again, we talked about this a little bit or maybe not, maybe on the radio show or something. I've got guys that played point guard in high school or college, with Kevin, Gary, Stocks and Dranginis. That's quite a luxury to have against a pressing team like this. I don't know. We might have had one or two turnovers or maybe three that were press oriented or pressure oriented. Then we just kind of had the usual post‑up fouls or away‑from‑the‑ball fouls or kind of bone head turnovers. Q. Coach, can you talk about your immediate future and where you go from here? How much this week will help with that immediate future? COACH FEW: Well, our immediate future, a great day for me, is we're going to the beach tomorrow all day and hanging out and playing with our families and diving off Black Rock and hopefully getting a couple hours of surfing in. Then we'll have an awesome Thanksgiving dinner with just the players and families where we can really share and talk about what we're thankful for. I don't know what the heck happened with us. We usually are pretty leery of playing a game after this and wait until Tuesday. But we have a game on Sunday. So we have to hustle back, put this away and get back to winning games. We need to buckle down. Our defense needs to be better and our rebounding needs to be better. Our offense is probably as good as anybody in the country right now the way we're clicking. But we've got to get back to being tougher and nastier which all of our teams have been in the past. Q. Coach, impressive show from your fans as well. Can you just talk about having that support and the loud gym? COACH FEW: Yeah, that's just how‑‑ I mean, Zag Nation travels. If you watch our conference tournament, pretty much the whole arena in Vegas is filled up with them. If you watch us in New York City or on the road in the NCAA Tournament, we have a big following. They absolutely just love coming over here just like I do. They're always asking me when is Maui, when is Maui? And you have to explain to them you can only come every four years. They think we can do it every year. But we travel great, and I appreciate all they go through to make it here. THE MODERATOR: Coach, I wanted to give you an opportunity, you've made some nice comments about being here in Maui and participating in the tournament. But if you could make some closing comments about the experience for your team and your program being here this year? COACH FEW: Well, yeah. It's been great. The fact that we've learned a lot, even though I have a lot of returning guys back, we're having to play a different way because we lost some key guys to the draft and to the NBA. So we've been pushed three different ways, had to, whether it was playing in a breakfast bracket game or playing against a press or playing against a really good Dayton team. So I think that's been good. The other thing that gets lost in this, your team really comes together over here. It's not a cliché. It's real, you know? They're hanging out. They're doing things on the floor. This is our first road trip of the year. So you really begin to get some camaraderie. You go through some adversity, and you've got to learn how to power through that and then you can't knock the cultural thing. There is probably a large percentage of my team will never be back to the islands. So to experience this is something special. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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