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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2014Donnie JonesIssaish SykesRyan WatkinsMEMPHIS, TENNESSEE University of Central Florida: 94 THE MODERATOR: We will get started with our postgame press conference, joining us, UCF Donnie Jones, student athletes, Tristan Spurlock and Isaiah Sykes, Coach we will get your comments. DONNIE JONES: First of all what, a great basketball game. Obviously give our hats off to Temple. It's a hard‑fought game and I'm proud of our guys how we hung in there and found a way down the stretch. There was a lot of great efforts tonight and we're just very excited we were fortunate to come out on the winning end down the end and look forward to having an opportunity to play tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Coach, you didn't have Isaiah last week when you lost at Temple. Can you explain the difference in having him on the court tonight? DONNIE JONES: The difference was 36 points, which was very important. He played very well tonight and there was a lot of great efforts on our team tonight. Obviously having him, he's been a focal point in our offense in so many ways, versatile, you can see we use him in many different situations we play him at the point and we play "out" of him. So, not having him there is an adjustment when you have one of your best players not playing in any circumstance. We're glad he is healthy, back, and had a great game tonight. Q. Isaiah, did you think the buzzer beater at the end of regulation was good? ISSAISH SYKES: I wish it was, but the coaches they told me it was off late so we wanted to get on to it the next play and get ready to go the next five minutes. Q. For any of the three of y'all, this being a "one and done" type of thing, how much pressure is it as you get through the over time and get through the stretch? TRISTAN SPURLOCK: I don't think it was that much pressure. We believed in ourselves and every over time we didn't quit, we were down 4 with two minutes left and we all looked at each other and we were going to do whatever we had to do to get back in the game. Isaiah did a great job scoring tonight, and Staphon Blair did a great job blocking shots and Kasey Wilson had 10 rebounds so I think as a team we stepped up in other areas and we knew we were going to have to play some defense to get this win. ISSAISH SYKES: It was an all‑around great game and great team effort. A lot of people contributed to it from the point guard to the 1 through 4, you know. I think we did a good job in game situations, changing up our players and stuff during the game. I think our focus was on this today. DONNIE JONES: I think obviously pressure is always in any game when you're in these situations, but I think the biggest thing as a coach is we're trying to keep the guys in the next play. We're down 4 two minutes to go in the game and we play those kinds of scenarios all the time in practice. You always work on late game situations and now we just talked about, hey a lot of basketball time left it's about gettin' stops, two possessions. So I'm just always talkin' to those guys about going on to the next play, let's get a stop and don't worry about, oh, we're going to lose, if we don't make this, we're in trouble, on to the next play, on to the next play. I think that's the biggest mentality. Obviously you've got two seniors up here that have been in a lot of those circumstances. Those guys did a great job of keeping the focus and on to the next play. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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