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EA SPORTS MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 27, 2013Mike AndersonBobby PortisLAHAINA, HAWAII Gonzaga – 91 COACH ANDERSON: Firstly, congratulations to Mark Few and his team. They did an outstanding job of coming out and just put on display of shooting the basketball. You have to take your hats off to Pangos. This guy played 39 minutes, man, and it seemed like he played perfect basketball. You shoot the basketball, and they did a good job of finding him, and he did a good job of getting to the basket. But I won't take anything away from our guys. I thought they gave great effort. But it goes to show we don't shoot the ball well. We're 4 for 20, 1 from the three‑point line, and they played the zone. They played against the zone. The thing about it, we've executed so well against zone, but maybe the games, three games in three days may have caught up with us, I don't know. But hat's off to them. Our guys refused to quit. And that to me, we'll use that as something we can build on. Q. Coach, talk about both of your young big men. They both had a solid tournament. Talk about how they can use this to build on? COACH ANDERSON: That's what we said, we'll build on this experience for the whole basketball team, but more so for them and the nation. We'll got a chance to see that we had some young, talented young players. Bobby, fought each and every game, he got better. He got better, it was really on display today. How about Moses? Last night you thought he played well. Well, he built on that even more so in our game against a very good basketball team in Gonzaga. So he shows no fear. With that, you can work with that. We'll get better from this tournament. We'll other use this experience, not only for him, but for all of our players, including a guy like Alandise. This is three games against three darn good competition, good competition. Teams that you'll probably see in the NCAA. So that tells me we're not that far off. We'll go back, work, and get better. We got exposed on some things and we'll work on it. But it's nice to see some guys with some size that can play the way we want to play. Q. Before tipoff I saw Coach go up to you and say something along the lines of, get tough or something like that. What's it mean to you for your coach to have that much belief in your ability and trying to pump you up before the game today? BOBBY PORTIS: Coach always tells me to be aggressive on offense and defense. So I tried to go out there and play as hard as I could from both ends of the floor. Q. At the beginning of the season you talked about finding your core guys. Do you feel like after this tournament in Maui you've found those core guys that you can go with? COACH ANDERSON: I think we're horning in on some guys. You saw some guys out there probably a little longer period of time that we went with. So to use these games, we'll go back, my staff and I and sit down and evaluate and see what these guys have done in each and every game. How they perform. That will be a great indicator of who those guys are going to be. But that's not to say that the other guys won't be called upon. Just like a guy like Moses. He's sitting there just waiting his turn, and all of a sudden an opportunity presents itself, and now he puts himself in a great, great position. I knew we were going to need him, and I'm just happy to see him come on a lot faster than most people thought he would. Q. When you see a team that goes 80% from the three‑point line in the second half, how do you keep the spirits going? They just seem like they can't miss a shot? COACH ANDERSON: I thought they made runs. We made runs. That means we have to take it to another level defensively. I thought there were a couple times where Pangos did a good job of running off some screens. We had a chance to possibly switch to stop that. Good teams make adjustments. I think we'll learn how to make those adjustments. But they're on fire. It's amazing. Even Dower there in the second half, any shot they had open, they made it. But now you've got to contest those shots, move those guys off the mark. Not only that, as you move them off the mark, I didn't think we did a good job of protecting the rim. I thought that's why you probably saw those shots. In the first half they were attacking, missing lay‑ups, and in the second half they stepped out and made the three. We didn't make one in the second half, and they made like six or seven or something like that. Hat's off to them. They shot the ball well. We didn't shoot it well. End of the ballgame. THE MODERATOR: Coach Anderson, would you like to make a closing comment about the trip here to Maui and the impact on your program and your team that this trip has made? COACH ANDERSON: I tell you what, it's been a while since we've been here. I think it was in '91 that we came. It's been a great experience. I was telling Dave, one thing about our fans, man, they're loyal. They travel. They're looking forward to coming to different places, and they showed up. I'm sure everybody got a chance to hear the hog call. That's like the National Anthem there in Arkansas. But it was a great experience for me and our guys. I tell you, the hospitality from where we're staying at to all the way around, the people here at the Lahaina Center, wherever we went to eat in restaurants, you name it. It was warm. Arms were opened up to us. It's one we look forward to coming back. It was a great experience. We didn't come out like we wanted to in terms of champions, but I think we did get better as a basketball team. We had them for this period here, and that's what you want as a coach. We had an opportunity where they don't have any distractions and now they just came to hopefully get better as a basketball team. Thanks to the people on the island and go Hogs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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