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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2014Alex DavisAllen HuddlestonRodney TerryLAS VEGAS, NEVADA New Mexico – 93 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Fresno State. Coach, if you could make a few opening remarks about tonight's game. COACH TERRY: We played I think one of the better teams in the country today. The way they played today in terms of the way they came out with the mindset to start the ballgame, they got off to a really good start. Again, when they're playing at that level between the two big guys inside, you throw Kendall Williams in there who has been one of the better players in our league, Player of the Year at one point in his career, they're a hard team to beat. I think, again, they're a team that cannot only advance in this tournament, have a chance to win this tournament, but go a long way in the NCAA tournament. They have all the ingredients to be a Sweet 16‑type team. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Talk about the challenges that you faced today going up against those two big guys in the paint, the difficulty in scoring. ALEX DAVIS: Those two guys, they're very good. They got good size on 'em. Going against those guys is tough, because those two guys are two of the biggest guys in the league, like coach said early. We tip our hats off to them. Those two guys played great. We knew they were going to come out strong, try to feed high‑low. Like coach said, we just had to give it our all, try to keep the ball out of there. Q. The atmosphere in there, does that affect you at all? Felt like a home game for them. ALLEN HUDDLESTON: Not at all. We're used to playing in those kinds of environments. We've gotten wins on the road in those kinds of environments. Utah State. We're used to that. I don't think that had any effect on the game at all. We played as hard as we could. We just didn't come out on the winning side of the game. Q. You won 9 of 11 coming into this. Anything different tonight about what happened going on those previous 13 games? ALLEN HUDDLESTON: I don't think anything was different. We played and ran our stuff. We prepared for them. We approached the game in our usual way. The pregame was the same. Everything was the same. We didn't execute on the defensive end. We allowed them to get too many second‑chance points. When you're down 10, it's really dicey because if you get that stop, you hit a three, the game will be down to 10 or 7 as opposed you don't get the stop, they get a basket, the game is up to 13. It's a big difference and we didn't execute in that area. Q. Allen, you were able to come back from 15 points yesterday and get the win. You fall down 10 within five minutes there. What kind of challenge did that present? ALLEN HUDDLESTON: I mean, it's a 40‑minute game. We knew we had to work the game for 40 minutes. Being down early on, we didn't hit the panic button. That's something you never want to do. We just kept fighting and kept fighting and kept fighting but it just didn't work out for us. Q. It seemed like last time when you played New Mexico, there were a lot of free throws in that game. A lot tonight. How tough is it with the pace of play? ALEX DAVIS: It don't affect us at all. We just got to make sure we get back in transition. That was the main thing, getting back in transition because that lead up to easy baskets for them. We have tried to limit their easy baskets. Finish the possession with rebounds, that was our main focus. Q. Alex, you were very aggressive against their bigs. How do they compare to the length that San Diego State has? Do you think they're two of the best bigs? Do they have the best front court in the conference? ALEX DAVIS: Bigs‑wise? No doubt about it because they have two big guys. There's nobody in our league that have two dominant big guys. Yeah, I would say they the best big mans that we have in our league. Q. Can you talk about the season as a whole here. Able to win 9 of your past 12 to close it out. How would you describe the season. ALLEN HUDDLESTON: I would say the season, you know, we knew we wanted to play our best basketball in March. I think we came around to that. Early on things didn't go our way in the season. Even though we were playing hard, we were executing our game plans, we didn't come out on the winning side of a lot of games. Once league started, we kind of got more in the rhythm, got more comfortable with each other, players grew up and matured. I think that was like the turning point in our season and that allowed us to play better. ALEX DAVIS: Winning the last 9 of 12, the team really got together. We really put it on, like coach said, it's us or nobody. We all for ourself. We all we got. That's a quote he brought to us and we started to use. A big quote was 'family'. So we matured individually and as a team. Early on we faced a lot of adversity as a team. We had a couple big guys like Tanner break his wrist, Braeden out with the car accident. Me, I tore my PCL. There was a lot of injuries that happened, but we never dropped our heads, never got too low. We continued to fight and it showed the second half of the season. Q. What do you think of the possibility of continuing your season in a post‑season tournament? ALLEN HUDDLESTON: We're very excited about that. If granted the opportunity, I think we should definitely take that offer and continue to play. It's good for growth for the program, for this team, and the guys that will be returning to get a chance to experience post‑season play and get a chance to know what it's all about. ALEX DAVIS: It's a pretty good opportunity for us as a team to continue to grow, continue to play with each other, continue to get our experience on the court within post‑season play. I think it's going to be a big opportunity for us. Like coach was saying earlier, three years ago Wichita State played in that tournament. No team is too big for any tournament. We're going to go in there, play balls to the wall, like coach say, and come out of there victorious. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Just last Saturday there was a winner‑take‑all regular season championship in San Diego. How much of that final you worked into four or five days into your game plan for tonight? COACH TERRY: We got a chance to watch a little bit of that late last night, to be honest with you. I thought coach did a great job of having his guys prepared and ready to play today. The guys came out and didn't take us lightly at all today. They came to play. They got off to a great start. We had looks early. Against a really good team like this on the road, you got to make shots. For us, to not make shots early in the game, to fall behind, have to play catch‑up the whole time, against a really good team, it's hard to do. We got a chance to watch a little bit of that. Q. Talk a little bit about the season. What is your main takeaway after having started off so slow, the injuries, middle stretch with all the overtime games, but to see the team close out the way they did during the regular season? COACH TERRY: I love this team from the summer. I said all along I really like this group. I liked how they work with each other in the summer. I liked how they were focused. They were a no‑nonsense group when they came into practice. That was something that they carried into the season. Even with the adversity and setbacks we had, they stayed the course. We had some things we had to fix throughout the course of the year. Whenever we went to the drawing board to try to fix those things, our guys tried hard to fix those areas. We got outmanned a few times but we never got outplayed in terms of working hard, competing hard at a high level. This team grew. They gained some confidence. When March came, we're playing probably as good as anybody in the league. Q. You had pretty balanced scoring, four players in double figures. How surprised are you that T.J. only had two points? COACH TERRY: Again, teams are going to game plan. They have all season long for T.J. T.J. obviously made some big shots for us a night ago. Guys are going to come in and guard him extremely hard. I thought our training staff and our strength and conditioning staff did a great job into turning our guys, such a quick turnaround, get their bodies back to play at a high level. We got some really good looks tonight. We just didn't make some shots. We've been a pretty good shot‑making team all year long, one of the best three‑point shooting team in our league. For us to beat a team like New Mexico tonight, you got to make shots against them. We didn't do that. You got to do some of that to neutralize that two‑headed monster they have, along with Kendall when he's going to get his as well. Q. They had 42 points in the post. Some teams do different things to prevent that, those touches for the big men. COACH TERRY: We were outmanned both times we played those guys. We knew going in we were giving up a lot of girth and a lot of size to those guys. Those are grown men inside right there now. Easy to say you can go post‑to‑post trap. They do a pretty good job of passing out of the post to post. The two big older veteran players know how to dive. We didn't really want to leave one of those guys diving to the basket and having to match up with them. We really tried to take it from the guy that passed it in, we tried to trap from the top and rotate out of that and stick with the guy trying to dive. That was kind of our strategy. I thought we did a pretty decent job on that at times. But that's what we tried to do in terms of trying to make it a tough catch, and once it went in there double down from the top. Q. You mentioned you got some good looks. In terms of shot selection, shooting 40%, whereas New Mexico shot 57%, your thoughts on that. Also, what did you think of Cezar's shot selection? COACH TERRY: To start the game, he had open shots. He made those shots all season long for us. Those were clean looks. Just didn't go down, you know. We knew coming in we had to make shots. I didn't have a problem with those, you know, not at all. Q. As an opposing coach, I'm curious what your thoughts are when you see a fan base travel like they do to this tournament. COACH TERRY: They're a passionate fan base, one that, again, has a proud tradition, and a very, very good basketball team that they should be excited about and should want to support. Like I said earlier, I think you got a team that can advance in the tournament. They got all the ingredients to do it. Coach has done a good job with this team all year long. Why would you not travel? It's a team you get a chance to see play for the championship game here a night or two away. Again, have a chance to advance in the tournament. Should be excited about that and they should have that kind of support. Q. CBI or CIT, are you okay with either tournament? COACH TERRY: Absolutely. I think for the growth of our program, playing in situations like we did tonight with our young guys having a chance to grow, grow up on a neutral court, semi‑neutral court. We had pretty much the Pit here. Nevertheless, playing in a hostile environment against one of the best teams in the country, we can't do anything but grow in those type of situations. Again, I said to our guys, we take our hats off to the group in the other locker room over there. They knew they had to come in and out‑compete us and play at a high level. They did that. They played to their strengths and they played well. Q. Anything in particular that frustrated you about tonight or do you chalk it up as going up against a better team? COACH TERRY: No, you know what, the only thing I was a little disappointed with, I thought we could have shot the ball a little bit better. That's what I said to our guys. This game came down to us making shots, keeping those guys off the glass. They're a good, efficient team. When they get second‑chance opportunities, they cash them in. We gave a couple that were backbone breaking for us and they scored. Making shots, I think we would have had a better chance of being closer than we were. Q. Overall the two games in this venue, the team didn't shoot well overall. Anything that might have led that? COACH TERRY: Again, I give a lot of credit to what Dave did a night ago with Air Force. I thought they did a great job defensively, really challenging us to make shots. Tonight no different. Those guys really guarded hard. I'll say this, New Mexico's defense has really, really improved. That was an area where their offense was so far ahead of them at the start of the year, their defense has really caught up and they're getting good stops to finish possessions. But, yeah, I don't think the venue had anything to do with making shots because we come to this venue and made shots against UNLV and had every opportunity to win the ballgame against those guys. We're a good shooting team, we just didn't shoot it well the last two games. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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