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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2014Josh AdamsJerron GranberryLarry ShyattLAS VEGAS, NEVADA UNLV – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Wyoming. Coach, if you could make some opening remarks about tonight's game. COACH SHYATT: Yeah, I'm not sure some people see reality. I don't know if there's a coaching staff in the country that could be prouder of a group that in the last 14 days lost two of their six players and never once talked about it, thought about it, and just tried to make up for it on the court. They're a great group. They play till the end every night. And the best thing about 'em in my world is, they don't try to be somebody they're not. They just try to be who they are, play hard every night, home, away, win or lose. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Josh, how proud are you of your team? There were points where you could have given up, to be able to keep fighting back... JOSH ADAMS: I don't think I've ever been this proud of a group of guys. So many people around the country, even back home said we're done when we lost Larry. That's not the case. These guys played their butts off every single night, every practice. We knew we would come out and be in a dogfight. Every night we could count on each other to fight till the end. There's not one guy. I couldn't be prouder, especially of these two guys, the leadership they brought and the impact they had on each individual on this team. Q. Jerron, how much of a sense of urgency, being a senior, this could be your last game? Second half you got aggressive. JERRON GRANBERRY: That wasn't my mindset. Josh came off that hot start. Everybody was playing on him and focusing on him. So everybody was just making shots. They left me open. Thank God they were falling. I think everybody just played well. Q. Jerron, how hard is it to play a team like that that has such a good inside game? JERRON GRANBERRY: You know, they have the defensive Player of the Year in Birch. Roscoe came from a National Championship team. Those are two big forces right there. They're hard to handle. I felt like D.C. and Matt, Austin and myself, we played them as best as we could and that's why the game went to the wire. Q. I know you feel you deserve to go to the post‑season. As a senior, are you hoping, feel like you deserve to play in the post‑season no matter where it's at? JERRON GRANBERRY: I hope this team can get together and play again. That's all I pray for. We're looking forward to seeing what happens. We'll keep fighting. Q. Josh, what was your mindset with a 10‑point lead, to be able to cut it back? Was it about continuing to keep pushing till the very end? JOSH ADAMS: Yeah, you know, just play our game like we have all year. It's been a dogfight every single game this whole year. We knew it was going to come down to the wire. That's just of the way we play. The teams know that's the way we play. Nothing really changed. Just play our game and do what each one of us knows that we can do ourselves. We had a shot to win it at the end. Some shots didn't fall. They hit some free throws. We were right there and played hard. Q. Starting that game hitting everything, being aggressive. How were you feeling from the get‑go today? JOSH ADAMS: Good. It's not my mindset to go out and score a lot every single game. Some of the shots were falling and the guys were giving me the ball. Just like Jerron said, in the second half they focused on me and people stepped up. That's the way we play. We don't have a superstar. Someone will get hot, pass the burden off to the next person. We trust each other to do that. We have a bunch of great athletes that play hard. There's not one person you can accredit our games to. Q. Josh, you were incredibly effective in the first half. What did you notice in UNLV's defense that you were able to exploit? Jerron, it happened later on for you in the second half. JOSH ADAMS: I mean, they played really aggressive. They're really up in your grill, kind of a defensive team. The bigs set some really good screens for me, gave a little bit of space, I was able to knock some shots in. The second half, they keyed in on me a little bit more. The bigs helped out. That's when Jerron, Nate stepped up, D.C. stepped up. JERRON GRANBERRY: Exactly what Josh said. After the half he had in the first half, they had to do something. Focused four guys on him which left us wide open to shoot shots and thank God make them. Coach had to trust in us to run plays for certain players. We thankfully knocked them down. Unfortunate we couldn't knock them all in. Q. Jerron, what was it like playing out there, UNLV's court? Huge Wyoming crowd. JERRON GRANBERRY: It was just like a home game. I told these guys that they're cheering for us. We have most of the fans here for us. We have nothing to lose. They're the top dog that everybody wants to talk about. We're just a bunch of kids, student‑athletes, just from Laramie, Wyoming. I mean, it was exciting. I'm excited to see these guys grow. I'm glad I got to play with my best friend Nate right here. I'm just excited to see these guys grow. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Josh had the big first half, Jerron the big second half. Did it seem like until the late run you couldn't get two or three guys get going into a rhythm? Did UNLV do anything to cause that? COACH SHYATT: Well, I'm sure their defense had something to do with it. That's not in my DNA to think that way, like who is hot, who is not. We're going to move the ball, try to move people around. They're going to try to take chances. We're going to take it to the rack. I thought our guys traded some threes for some rack play, especially down the homestretch. I think that really helped our comeback. We mixed up twos and threes. I really at that point didn't see somebody that was hot. We ran a couple sets for Jerron once he made his first three. But that was as much who was guarding him as it was Jerron. Q. You talk about the resilience of this team all season. What did it take for this team to fall down so many points in the second half and make the push till the end? COACH SHYATT: That's sort of been our MO all year. 'Falling down' is probably a pretty good way to put it. We had some obstacles we could have tripped on or made excuses. That's just not the character of this group. You know, I thought they played today like I'd like them always to play. You know, they don't want time to run out. They just want to keep playing ball. They enjoy each other. They enjoy being around each other. I just was sort of hoping that Jones hadn't made up with coach yesterday. Q. You've said all along that you feel like this team's body of work is worthy of post‑season play. I don't imagine your mind has changed in that area. COACH SHYATT: Well, we'll leave it to the people who make those decisions. I would tell you that I would love to coach these guys again because I enjoy being around them on and off the court, especially the way they played the game. I enjoy watching good ball. I enjoy watching good guys play good ball. That's what you have in Wyoming right now. Q. What was the atmosphere like in the arena where you really couldn't tell this was the other team's court today? COACH SHYATT: We probably had a few people that were from different places rooting for us. That happens in any of these tournaments, in the SEC, the ACC, the Big East. We were the underdog, obviously. That helped. That gave us some energy, particularly down the homestretch we could have dropped our chins, felt sorry for ourselves. They started to do what has been done to us quite often down the homestretch: that was get second shots. Second shots sort of made a difference. I got to tell you, the one common denominator all year, we missed seven free throws, if I'm not mistaken, the second half. We were one, two, three in this league all year at the foul line. Maybe if we drop those, it's a different outcome. That's the way I saw it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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