|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2014Deonte BurtonDavid CarterCole HuffLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Boise State – 75 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Nevada. Coach, we'll ask for a few opening remarks about tonight's game. COACH CARTER: I thought we got behind the first half.  Fought back. Had some momentum going into the halftime. I thought the second half they shot the ball very well. Defense wasn't very good to start the half. They got a lead by 10 or 12. Tried to fight back. Came up short. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Deonte, you being a senior, how does this one feel? DEONTE BURTON: It hurts. But I can't hang my head. We had a good run all season. I mean, it hurts a lot that we lost and we don't have anymore games left and we're done. But can't hang my head. Q. How does this loss compare to the one against Louisiana Tech two years ago? DEONTE BURTON: I think this one hurts a little bit more because then I was a sophomore and I had next year to look at. Now I'm a senior and we're done, so no more college basketball for me. Q. There's a chance you could go to another tournament. Do you think you have a résumé to play again? DEONTE BURTON: I think so. We should get invited. I'm looking forward to that. But, you know, nothing's guaranteed. So just got to hold back and see. Q. Cole, do you think you guys have done enough to earn a shot to play somewhere else? COLE HUFF: I'm not really sure. It's not up to us. Like Deonte is saying, nothing is guaranteed. But did come in third in our conference. That might help us. But, yeah, not really sure. Q. Cole, seeing the season come to an end, you're coming back, to see these seniors go out like this, how does it make you feel? COLE HUFF: It's tough.  Great group of seniors. We play our hearts out for them, they play their hearts out for us. You just hate to see it end like this. Never want to end a season with a loss. But it happened. We have to move on. We get a CBI invite, we'll have more games with them. If not, who knows. Q. Deonte, talk about how great the four years were. DEONTE BURTON: I loved them. I had a great experience here. I'm glad I chose Nevada over other schools. I think I made the right decision coming out of high school. I love playing for Coach Carter all four years. Q. This game felt like a lot of the season, kind of like the UNLV games. Did you feel like it was going to be down to the wire again? COLE HUFF: Yeah, just because, you know, we started out the conference 4‑0, they came to our house, ended that. We went up to them and went into double overtime. We knew it was going to be a tough game no matter what. We were prepared for it. Unfortunately we came out on the wrong end. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions to coach. Q. Not a lot of minutes from Evans. What was the reasoning behind that? COACH CARTER: I don't think his head was in it. He asked to come out. There was I think a two‑on‑one, missed a play. Then he turned it over. Wanted to come out. So I didn't think he was ready to play. Q. What were you doing to combat Boise State's three‑point shooting? What was your game plan? COACH CARTER: No, we were helping off the wrong guys. We were helping off of guys that we felt like weren't three‑point shooters. The first half I thought was pretty good. They started off in transition game3s, but then we started to guard them a lot better. Shot 30% the first half. Second half, felt the penetration kick. Again we were helping too much out of shooters. They made timely threes, I thought. Q. You had a lot of special players at Nevada. Talk about Deonte. COACH CARTER: It's been great. Obviously going to miss him. He's been a true leader. He's really raised the bar for our program in terms of work ethic. His competitiveness, competing, I always knew what I was going to get from him. That's a special player when you know he's going to come to battle for you. He's been special. I think he's had a great impact on our program. Q. After a couple years being in this tournament, in the Mountain West, compared to the WAC, what kind of challenges does this conference have? COACH CARTER: The competition from top to bottom is just tougher. Every round that you play in this league, in the conference, you can have an upset. Any team can beat anyone. I think that's the big difference from the WAC. There were a couple teams in that conference you felt like you could win one or two rounds, look forward to playing one or two teams. This league you can't look past anybody. Q. After this team lost five in a row, seems like you regrouped and made a run down the stretch. How proud are you? COACH CARTER: I'm proud of them all year really. I just told them in the locker room, with all the injuries, AJ not being able to play half the year, two kids having surgery in January, showed great character, great fight. They never gave up. I was proud of them how we bounced back after a very, very disappointing loss against San Jose. I thought we recovered a little bit, had some momentum coming into the tournament. Like I said, it was a tough tournament. Every team is very good. I'm very proud of them. Q. Do you think you have done enough to earn an invitation somewhere? COACH CARTER: I think so. Obviously we have to wait for the invitation if we get an invite. If not, I tell these guys all the time, nothing to hold your head down. You came in third compared to last year coming in ninth. We just have to get better in the spring and summer with the returning guys. Q. Talk about AJ for a minute. When he came in in December for a while he was posting some pretty good numbers. Seemed to tail off a little bit at the end of the season. COACH CARTER: More consistency. I thought when he came in, as we all know, you're not on the scouting report. He came in making good numbers. He was almost averaging double‑doubles. Now they're blocking you out with two or three guys, making you guard outside of the paint a little bit. I thought he probably hit a little wall. I think first‑year players go through that. AJ didn't play in the pre‑season. He'll have a chance to understand a little bit about Division I. I think the start of the season, a lot of it was new. Once we got in conference, guys figure you out. You still have to find a way to be consistent. Q. In the beginning of the second half Boise went on a 15‑0 run. Talk about that. COACH CARTER: We scored the first basket. I thought we got a couple stops. I thought the play with two‑on‑one, I think we tried to throw an alley‑oop and we turned it over and they made a three, I thought that was a turning point. We never really recovered from there. Guys were bickering at each other. Never recovered. Q. Was all the turnovers Boise had give you new life? COACH CARTER: They were giving us a chance to get back in it. We didn't take advantage of that. We had some good looks. Missed a couple shots. You just couldn't do that against good teams. We didn't make them pay for the turnovers they had. Q. What was the explanation from the refs on the technical? COACH CARTER: Marqueze Coleman wore jersey numbered 0 last year. He wore jersey numbered 1 all this year. Somehow in the book it was 0. So in the book it was Marqueze Coleman, 0, but he had jersey number 1. When he subbed in, it was obviously a technical. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH CARTER: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|