Monday 12/14/2015
Opening statement:
“Well, extremely disappointing way to lose a game, with a ‘pick six’ there at the end of the game. In the end of it all, we didn’t play well enough to win tonight, defensively we were a little slow early and I thought Alabama got a lot of open shots, we were slow to the ball, they had a lot of long rebounds off of missed threes. They weren’t shots that landed around the rim but balls that went out around the free throw line, 12 to 15 feet away, and I just thought we didn’t get to enough of those. We didn’t chase the long rebounds down well enough and we talked to them all throughout the game about that. We did a much better job in the second half about defending we also didn’t get into rhythm offensively and they had a lot to do with that, I thought they played very well defensively, trapping JB (Jaron Blossomgame) in some situations and he might have gotten a little frustrated. We just didn’t execute as well as we would like, but we fought back and I have to take some responsibility with that sideline play, there are two options there and I have to make sure Donte (Grantham) understands that if he doesn’t feel comfortable with the first one.”
On if he has any second thoughts about calling the timeout with 29 seconds left:
“No, I don’t have any second thoughts, I mean I obviously wish I hadn’t called it and it led to that, that is easy to say. But in the same scenario we should have been able to execute the play and get it into Jaron; we had just run a similar play and got it into him and he got fouled. So we are trying to get the ball into our best player at the free throw line or top of the key, with a chance to get to the rim and get fouled again or pass to the shooter in the corner. And if that is covered, then Donte should throw it directly to the five-man around the basket, and I’m pretty sure when I go back and look at the film that will be open, but he (Donte) panicked a little bit and give Shannon Hale credit for making a great play, and obviously it ended up being the difference.”
On what the first option offensively was after the steal and dunk:
“We were running a ball screen action again and trying to get Avry (Holmes) with the ball in the middle of the court making a read of whether the five man would be open on a roll, or whether he might have a shooter behind him. He had the opportunity to be aggressive and make a play. I think if you look back at it, he probably had Donte open behind him for a wide open shot but he missed a 10 or 12-footer over on the side and we battled for it, had three guys under there fighting for it. Obviously that isn’t what cost us the game, those plays at the end are part of it, but we won’t sleep well for a while because of it, we will be thinking about this one in February. This is another game that you had a chance to put away with good execution, and we didn’t execute very well. The long rebounds and inefficient offense at times really hurt us tonight. The way they were playing us tonight, this was a game where our guards needed to make a lot of shots. I won’t say they were being dared, but the way they were guarding the ball screens there was a lot of room to pull up jump shots for those guys, and they were never as aggressive or in the rhythm that they needed to be in to keep doing it. You can understand it a little with Avry, he hasn’t played a whole lot for us yet. He is one of those guys that still wants to get everyone involved, but some games the way they are playing him they are staying home on other things, so you have to keep taking that shot and be aggressive. Jordan (Roper) didn’t have his best game tonight, in terms of shooting. He did some good things distributing, but just didn’t shoot well tonight. I want them to stay aggressive, and we were trying to tell them that throughout the game but I guess it didn’t get through to them.”
“Well, we’re really excited about coming on the road and playing against a tough Clemson team and getting this win. Whether you win by one point on the road or 10, it really doesn’t matter. A tough road win against a really good team that potentially is gonna be in the NCAA Tournament is very gratifying for our boys, our men, they’re growing up now. They’ve gone from boys to men. These two young men (Retin) Obasohan and Shannon Hale, are a major part of what we’re doing, major part of how we’re playing team basketball, unselfishness. Retin carried us offensively most of the night. Shannon came up with a huge, huge steal for us there at the end playing against a tough guy in (Jaron) Blossomgame. So we’re ecstatic. We’re thrilled that we won this game. We know when we come on the road, we know we’re not the favorites, but our guys, they don’t make any excuses. They just play basketball and I’m excited for them.”
On having a tough schedule:
“Well you know, the schedule is what it is. We’ve tried to have a team with our men where they don’t make any excuses: being away from home, playing against a ranked team, playing against a bigger team, playing against a team with more experience. As I was sharing with the refs, we don’t want to be a team that complains about calls. So I think they appreciate that our men were intense, but they don’t whine. They just try to play through stuff even if they disagree with it. So that’s been the whole mindset. That we don’t have much margin for error. We know where our weaknesses are. We try to stay away from them. The more we can play as a team, the more we can be synchronized on both ends of the floor that will give us a chance to be successful.”
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