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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 25, 2014Cole BaileyMike DalyJohn UppgrenPatton WatkinsBALTIMORE, MARYLAND Tufts – 12 MIKE DALY: I mean, an opening statement I'm really unprepared for, but just so proud of this team. It's an honor and it's a privilege to do what I do, to do it with these guys is just an amazing, amazing thing to come to work every day and be around these guys. I spend a lot of time with these guys, more time at times than my own kids, so to have it be rewarded like this is pretty darned special, and just really thankful and grateful to be here. Q. Patton, you had some unbelievable saves, especially towards the end of that game when Salisbury got on a run. Can you speak to how you stay in that zone when you have so many shots coming from so many angles coming right at you? PATTON WATKINS: Thank you. But to be honest, I just focus on myself. I got the stands, the people yelling, people screaming at me. I just focus on doing what I know how to do and trusting that the defense will have my back. Defense was locked in today. It was so much fun. So honored to be a part of this. I couldn't be happier right now. I don't even know what to say. The emotions are just all over the place. Q. Cole and John, you have an outstanding goalie in your own right, but you were facing a three‑time All‑American in Alex Taylor. What was the plan to attack Alex Taylor after you watched him on film this week? COLE BAILEY: He's a great goalie. He had played a hell of a game. Much respect for that whole team, too. That defense is great, but we just wanted to make him face shots and get on him early so he can't build that confidence, get it off his body, kind of throw it back door so we could get some quick one‑timers. I think we were able to do that. That's kind of where we found success. JOHN UPPGREN: Yeah, certainly he played outstanding. I thought he stole a couple from us in the third quarter, especially, but going into the game we really just wanted to let the shots fly, not trying to place them too much. We have faith in our shooters and our offense to get good looks. Just let them fly. Q. Cole, first of all, how does it feel to be the Most Outstanding Player in the tournament, and then secondly, what did you all do to get on a run? You're trailing 4‑1 midway through the second quarter, it's not looking so good, and next thing you know you guys kind of explode between the end of the second and third. I think you outscored them 11‑2 at one point. COLE BAILEY: I had no idea I won that award. I wouldn't have that award without the guys who are playing with me. They just set me up for so many successful plays. It's an honor to play with them, so that's that. Yeah, they got off to a fast start and I think we got a couple lucky bounces, a ground‑ball roll that goes out of the cage, and I guess we took advantage when it bounced our way and we got it going. At halftime we just said refocus, 0‑0 game, and we came out and things were clicking and we never looked back. Q. Patton, can you talk about obviously a lot is said about the offense for your team, but your defense, while the offense didn't score in the fourth, the defense held on to the lead, protected it and generally had a good defensive effort today. You put up 21 against RIT but also held them to 11. What's the defensive effort been the last couple days? PATTON WATKINS: Every day I'm out there I'm telling the guys how hard would you go if this was your last day. I tried to challenge myself to go as hard as I would if it were my last day. I don't know, sort of just leading through that, they see how hard I'm going, how bad I want it, and that's sort of, I don't know, kind of leads out to the other guys, too. I mean, we've been in the shadow of the offense all year. Scoring 20 goals a game is hard to look spectacular on defense, but we're not worried about that. We're not worried about the individual awards. We're just focused on the next stop on defense, getting the next ground ball, the next clear and the next goal. Q. John, you filled in for Chris. Was there a lot of pressure on your shoulders filling in for him? JOHN UPPGREN: I wouldn't say I filled in for Chris. You know, obviously he's a very good player. We certainly missed him out there today. But we believe we have 49 kids who can step in and play without a dropoff at all. And as far as the pressure goes, I didn't necessarily feel too much pressure from that. I mean, we were playing a National Championship. That's a bit more distracting than starting at attack. I think our offense did a great job today. We're not one‑dimensional. We have seven or eight guys who can go out there and produce on any given day and take the game over. I thought it was a great team effort on the offensive end. Q. Cole and John, you guys were really able to exploit some of the mistakes they made on defense. Was that something you were kind of noticing and maybe going to because you thought you might get those open looks, particularly when you were getting the picks, some really nice looks on the back side? COLE BAILEY: Yeah, we've kind of ran a two‑man game all year so we were very comfortable running that against them, and then any miss we kind of took advantage of, either a quick swing, just fake pick and slip it. We kind of took advantage of the mistakes, and I think that was a big difference in the game. JOHN UPPGREN: Yeah, I agree with Cole, pretty much everything he said. Watching film, we noticed they like to hedge a little bit, they like to put a guy out and kind of double the ball carrier on those picks. We knew going in that those slips could be open, and they happened to be a couple times and we took advantage of it. They played great team defense and individual defense, so it's important for us to get our looks and cash them in when we could. Q. Coach, I thought Cole beat his man and you had mentioned last week about how tough he was at turning the corner. Can you talk about some of the feeds he makes, some threading the needle into guys? MIKE DALY: Yeah, I mean, Chris Howell told us about‑‑ can't do the math here, three or four years ago, but just said, hey, you need to recruit this kid. Chris Howell is the assistant coach down at Severn. We liked him and this and that, but we have a ton of respect for Chris and obviously Brian Wood down there, and they were always telling us this kid is going to be something special, going to be something special. More impressive than anything, Cole is a 3.53 pre‑med student at Tufts, internships in orthopædic surgery every summer, and he's just one of the toughest kids I've ever been around, working his tail off in the classroom, showing up every day for lacrosse, and I get out of his way. I'll be honest with you. That guy I don't coach, I just challenge him every day, challenge him, push his buttons and just let him do his thing. Q. Salisbury you could argue is maybe the toughest defense you guys saw all year, yet you were still very effective. What was your game plan and how did it material on the field today? MIKE DALY: Yeah, there really isn't too much thought that goes into that. We have a system, we believe in it. We're going to play how we play. Again, we've just got really tough kids that we challenge every day, and if they were going to get timers on and they were going to take their time on offense, we were going to need to get our stops, and we just needed to take care of the ball and take advantage of our opportunities. We knew we were going to get them, and that's what's daunting about coaching the game of lacrosse. You can do all that stuff, but if a goalie plays, it can all go out the window. We had great goalie play. Face‑offs they were starting to take advantage of. We know offensively we're going to get our touches, we're going to get our opportunities, and to take care of them, that's basically the difference in all that. Q. One day they may be able to score as many goals as your team did, but offensively you had a team that broke some records this year. How much did they improve from last year to set an all‑division record for goals and an NCAA Tournament record for assists which is even more impressive? MIKE DALY: Yeah, I mean, news to me. We were focused on the gold trophy. That takes care of just about anything else within a lacrosse season. As I said, we have a system, we believe in it, and the goals are great, but it's just, as we talked about, our defense, we put a lot of pressure on them, and those guys need to be the toughest guys on the field because we just put so much pressure on them, so much strain, and those guys take it, and they get criticized sometimes, and oh, they're giving up this many goals. But at the end of the day, those are the guys that carried our team through this tournament and carried this team down the stretch. A little bit of the beginning of your question, we're in a pretty fortunate groove. Last year we had a pretty veteran defense, and we were still bringing them along. John Uppgren was just a freshman last year, not really playing a huge role, and some other guys. We had some graduation on defense, and thankfully we had a very veteran offense, an experienced offense that could carry us in the beginning part of the season, but as I said, the defensive guys in our program are the toughest guys that I've ever been around, and to just keep grinding, keep sticking with it, and like I said, carry us through this tournament, I'm pretty impressed with that. Q. You said you don't know what happened on the field, but third quarter, 7‑1 run, you had six different guys scoring. Can you talk about that third quarter, anything adjusted at halftime, but you guys looked like you clearly seized control during that 15 minutes. MIKE DALY: Yeah, I'll be honest, the only thing we said at the half to the guys was everything needs to get smaller in the second half. We need to shorten our passes, shorten everything, shorten everything we're doing. The only thing that gets bigger in the second half is our smiles, and just go out there and just show everyone how much fun we have playing this game, how much passion this team can play with, and just smile. Just get that smile as big across your face as we can get, and that's the short of it. Q. This program has won now two National Championships since 2010, two championships in three appearances. What does this championship mean to you personally and what does it mean to your program? MIKE DALY: Personally it just means, as I said, everything. When we're spending more time with other people's kids than our own kids, putting that strain, talk about our defense, I mean, strain on my wife who's back there waving at this poor seven‑year old, and he's just a seven‑year old boy and he's doing great. But the strain is on them, and personally that's what it means to me. It's just a really good feeling of reward that all that hard work and all that time and strain on the family is worth it. You know, and then as a program, again, I think it's just a great tribute to our alums and all the people and friends that support us. We're so blessed with everything and support, and just a great university, great people, great alumni and great student athletes. As I said earlier, it's a pleasure to come to work every day. It's a pleasure to be in our facility and be around what you guys got to see today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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