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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SAN DIEGOMarch 21, 2014Davion BerryJoel BolomboyRichaud GittensRandy RaheSAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA Arizona – 68 THE MODERATOR: We have Randy Rahe, Davion Berry, Joel Bolomboy and Richard Gittens, we will get an opening statement from the Coach and the student athletes, and then back to the coach. COACH RAHE: Proud of our guys. It hurts because believe it or not, not a lot of you probably thought that but we came in expecting to win, trying to win. The guys did a tremendous job. I thought they got up on us by 20. I thought we could have pulled in the tents and our guys got a little more tough and showed resilience like they have all year. That's one heck of a basketball team out there, Arizona. They've got great team, great talent, great coaching, they have it all. But we put our guys in a position to get it coming down the stretch and that's what we asked them to do. I count be prouder of the team. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes. Q. Randy, maybe what happened during that stretch when they opened it up, got it to about 20 and what were you able to do to correct that and get it back down? COACH RAHE: We got stops and got it the offensively and started to attack the rim. But it all started with rebounds and when we did that all year we were doing well and I thought that changed our way. We were able to pick up a couple of turn overs, and I thought they got a little hesitant because we picked up our pressure. You make runs by getting stops and being more aggressive and that's what our guys did. Q. Richaud, can you talk about that stretch in the second half, seemed like you caught a spark and started that many? RICHAUD GITTENS: I was talking to the guys Joel and Davion be active and be aggressive and Coach looked at me and he was like, don't worry about if you make mistakes, just be aggressive. So when I came out in that time I was trying to be as aggressive as I can and get baskets for the team and try to cut the lead down so we could make a push at the end. Q. Joel, what was it like to face off against their bigs today? JOEL BOLOMBOY: They're good players and rebounds didn't come easy. We battled really good but ended us short in the end. Q. Dave can you tell us about the end of the second half you started shooting the ball a little better. What kind of changed between that and the first half? DAVION BERRY: I just didn't really make shots in the first half. But, you know, I stayed with it all game long. Coach told me to keep my head up and keep my head up and just believe and keep being aggressive. Shots started to fall. They play good defense. Q. Dave what happened on that sequence, you got it down to nine, 2 minutes to go and the clock is running down and you collided with Johnson. Could you take us through that sequence? DAVION BERRY: It was a good play, I felt I beat him to the spot, didn't get the call but Nick is a great guy. Like I say, he's a friend after this game but it was great respect between both of us and it was a fun game to play in. Q. Coach can you talk about what this means‑‑ THE MODERATOR: Student athletes right now. Q. Dave, can you talk about what this means to you to help establish a foundation for the future for Weber and Joel and Richaud what you think about that going to forward? DAVION BERRY: I'm just glad to be a part of Weber and the part of the Weber family and represent them in a good fashion and now hand it over to my young brothers and let them take care of it, and Coach Rahe. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student athletes? Thank you, gentlemen. We will continue with Coach Rahe. Questions? Q. Coach, as far as the impact that Richaud had in the second half talk about the lift that you felt he provided for the team? COACH RAHE: It was huge.  He came in and we asked him to be a little more aggressive in the second half. Richaud has the type of athleticism that can play with high‑level athletes and we knew he had a chance to make an impact because of that. He got aggressive and when he's like that he's a pretty good player. But it led to a couple of steals and a couple of easy baskets. We had a hard time getting easy baskets and when he got those easy baskets that shot our confident up and everybody else kind of felt like maybe we could do this, but I thought his lift was huge. Q. Randy, in the first half as you go to the paint not getting easy baskets, throwing it into the post or driving to the paint they're just blocking the shots and stopping everything and it seemed like Dave and some other players made adjustments to that in the second half and you were able to get those shots off. How did they do that? COACH RAHE: We adjusted a couple of things off ball screens that we do and I think that helped, we got Dave in there, and they started doubling Tres right off in the post and we knew they would, we prepared for it and it was tough to get Tres looks and their double team is so hard. It's tough. They're athletic in there, they're long, and I think once the guys figured out and got a sense of how long and athletic they were, we didn't drive it in there so deep and we did a couple of other things to maybe not get the ball so deep to the rim and I thought our guys made a nice adjustment on that but that team can really, really guard. That's the best defensive team I've faced since I've been at Weber. They're outstanding. They don't make mistakes and they're so well coached and that's going to propel them into a long run in the tournament. Q. It seemed like you guys in the second half are working so hard to get shots that your defense dropped off. I guess my question is, does that make sense to you? COACH RAHE: It's hard to get shots against them. We burned a lot of energy down there trying to get shots and screening and moving and cutting and I think it's natural, we had to work really hard. That's what great defense does, it will disheartened ended your team and I think at times it did that to us a little bit. It disheartened our team and we couldn't make shots and it's hard to stay juiced up and when we made that run and that push, we made some baskets, all of the sudden we got the juice up on defense and that's how we made a run. I'm telling you, they're hard to score on, man. They can really guard you! Q. Randy, you come in here, you want to win but looking at the future, can you talk about what the seniors have done to establish this foundation to get you to this point and your thoughts about being able to go forward with the way these guys played tonight? COACH RAHE: I'm excited about our young kids. If you look out there tonight we played quite a few minutes with three freshmen and a sophomore. They're going to be really great and good leaders in our program because they're all made of the right stuff, not just as players but the character, the toughness, the unselfishness they have, they're going to be obviously the foundation to our program. I got four seniors that I tell you what, it wasn't easy in their period at Weber. We had some tough, tough losses in conference tournaments, we came up one game short of winning regular season championships a couple of different times and there was a lot of heart break along the way. These kids, they would not give into it. These seniors stayed the course. They believed in themselves. They got us a regular season and tournament championship this year and I couldn't be more proud of them. This team has come farther than any coach I've coachedsince I've been there and a lot of it has to do with these seniors and that leadership, that character, and that selflessness they have. I love them to death, I'm really, really proud of them. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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