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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2014Ed CooleyNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Providence – 65 COACH ED COOLEY: First, I want to say how proud I am to stand here as the head basketball coach of Providence College. I also want to say how tough it was to play an unbelievable team in Creighton and Coach McDermott's team. They deserve a lot of applause and credit. Those kids are hard to play against. It took a brave effort from us to get over the hump. Very, very hard to coach against because he has interchangeable pieces, and in my opinion, the best player in college basketball. He is an amazing, amazing player. We were fortunate. It was brave of us as a staff to‑‑ everybody thought we were crazy probably trying to play one of the best three‑point shooting teams in the country zone, but because of Dougie, you always have to have a man and a half around him, and you know, he almost pulled it off. It's a credit to our players. It's a credit to our seniors. Bryce struggled the first couple of days here in the tournament as far as shooting, but I thought he still controlled the tempo. Our game plan today was to make sure we got to the foul line and got to the rim, and we wanted to play defense with the ball. It's almost like a football team that runs the ball to make sure that we dictated tempo. They had too many possessions in the game at Creighton, and that was a buzz saw that we run into. So we had to come up with a different strategic plan. I'm amazed sitting here. If somebody asks me about the bubble, I'm going to yell at you (laughter). That bubble was popped probably a couple of games ago because of the league that we play in. I said it from the beginning, this conference will have four, five, or six teams in that‑‑ today showed that, the strength of our league. You just never know from top to bottom. It is so, so competitive night in and night out. I'm gassed. I feel blessed, blessed to represent Providence College. Q. Coach, how did you maintain that tempo, that even keel the whole game? COACH ED COOLEY: When you say "even keel"‑‑ Q. The team, offensively. COACH ED COOLEY: When you say "even keel", I think of one guy because I've been in this position before as an assistant, and that's Al Skinner. He talked to me today. He told me, "Don't overcoach. Let your kids do it. Give them a game plan, and I promise you, they'll follow it." So that was in my head as I was coaching today. Q. After McDermott gets going a little bit in the second half, what's going through your mind down the stretch? COACH ED COOLEY: We were still in the lead. We were getting the possessions we wanted. We didn't want to lose our composure. Today I thought our senior leadership and our veterans stepped up. They really did. Bryce Cotton was Superman in the second half. LaDontae was the man again. We had timely free throws. Being the best free‑throw shooting team in the country came into play today, especially down the stretch. And I really thought we showed a lot of poise. Q. Ed, if everyone thought you were crazy for playing zone against Creighton, why did you decide to do it? COACH ED COOLEY: Because I'm crazy (laughter). Q. Is it something that you saw? Is it something that you‑‑ COACH ED COOLEY: It was a gut feel. I said, hey, let's get it. Again, it just was a feel. It was a gut feel as a coach, and our players bought into it. I think, if your players believe it, then you should execute it. As I said yesterday, sometimes you can overcoach. Q. Just to follow up, what was the reaction of the players, Ed, when you brought that play up? COACH ED COOLEY: Their eyes told me everything I needed to know. When you as a coach know your team and know your players, when I asked them, "Hey, you guys want to go one right here?" They said, "No, Coach, we're good. We're good. We know where they're at. We know our slides." That's when you've got to listen. You've got to be more of a listener than a talker. Q. Ed, you haven't won this tournament since 1994. What does it mean to win this tournament, especially with everything you guys have gone through this year? COACH ED COOLEY: Wow, it means a lot. We have faced a lot of adversity this year. It brings me back where I was‑‑ I remember where I was sitting. I remember where I was standing. I remember being so excited for Providence College. And I've got to pinch myself as I sit here right now because I can't believe, this is the first time as a head coach I'm going to the NCAA Tournament as a head coach. It is been eight long years to get to that blue carpet. And I feel gratitude to the school that gave me the opportunity to come home and coach their organization. I'm kind of speechless, but I'm very, very appreciative. Q. Coach, you mentioned limiting possessions for them, but offensively you remained aggressive. How important was it posting up Wragge all the time, using your advantage inside to control the game? COACH ED COOLEY: That was our game plan. Kadeem's a big boy down there. You see his body? I want a body like his, right? You know, he can make free throws, and we wanted to get him to the free‑throw line and be aggressive and drive the ball to the basket. Q. Coach, after the game, while you were cutting down the nets, you had the chance to take that last piece yourself. Instead, you handed the scissors over to Bryce and said to him, "It's all you." I was wondering what was going through your mind at that moment. COACH ED COOLEY: I'm always going to think of someone else before I think of myself. It's not about me. It's always about you, the person. Q. Coach, I heard you say during your interview on the court that you had told Bryce that you were going to fight him if he didn't keep shooting. COACH ED COOLEY: I tell him that every game. Q. What about Bryce made you confident he'd snap out of the little funk he'd been in the last couple games? COACH ED COOLEY: You've got to know your players. You got to know what gets them going. Sometimes you've got to get on them to piss them off. You've got to get their energy going a certain way. There's select words we use that we can't use in this room, and he gets it. Our urgency was at an all‑time high, our senior urgency. When you're playing on this stage, ain't too many times you have a chance to win a championship. Q. Coach, how great was the support from people coming down from Providence, giving you all that great added edge that you needed to get over the hump? COACH ED COOLEY: We're the biggest little state in the union, and it was more juice behind the Friars today. Everybody was cheering for Providence College because we're seen as an underdog. We may be small, but small is big in my world because we're a family, we're a unity, and I felt all that love behind us today. Q. Coach, can you just talk about the fact that something that can carry over into the NCAA Tournament is the fact that you had a different guy step up in so many different situations, with Josh at the beginning of the week, LaDontae had a big time performance against Seton Hall, and tonight a little bit of everything. Could you comment on that. COACH ED COOLEY: I think it's a combination of that. First and foremost, our player development. I think our assistant coaches do an unbelievable job in our preparation. The players believe in what you're saying. And they got better. They took advantage of opportunity. We said, if opportunity's knocking at the door, we don't want to ask who it is. We don't want to say we'll be right there. We want to kick the door down and own the other side of the door. Q. Ed, can you talk about the impact of this Big East Tournament championship to your program, your university, the city, the state. Providence College, as you know, was one of the founding members of this league. COACH ED COOLEY: Sure. Q. Dave Gavitt, the great head coach, was the guy that put this league together. It's got to be pretty special for you as the head coach to bring this program back after 20 years. Can you maybe put it into some kind of context. Pretty unique. Pretty special. COACH ED COOLEY: Context, I hear "Coach Gavitt", and I say thank God for him. Thank God for his vision. Thank God for what he's done for basketball in general. And when you look at where we were and how far we've come, I think administrations win championships, and we've got a lot of support behind us. So I appreciate Father Shanley and Bob Driscoll for supporting our dreams. We've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go. We're excited to be in the NCAA Tournament. Now we've got to look at a different dream. Q. What did you think of LaDontae? He was tough inside at St. John's. Obviously, yesterday he had a big scoring game. And tonight the biggest shot of the tournament. COACH ED COOLEY: LaDontae is the first kid that we recruited when we came to Providence College. What I've seen from him where he was‑‑ LaDontae was overweight. LaDontae had these braids because he thought he was Carmelo Anthony. He didn't cut his hair from‑‑ I think, for maybe eight to ten years, and I said, "Is that how you really want to look and represent your family and yourself moving forward?" And he said, "Coach, I can't cut my hair. I can't cut my hair." He cut his hair. He said, "How do I look?" I said, "You look beautiful." And he went out to have probably six straight double‑doubles. So it worked. He cut his hair, and he got stronger. So I'm proud of LaDontae how much he's grown. How much he's grown as a man, not as a player. He's grown as a man. I appreciate everybody today. I am so, so thrilled to be called a Big East champion. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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