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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PITTSBURGH

March 19, 2015

David Walker

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

NOTRE DAME - 69
NORTHEASTERN - 65

MODERATOR: From Northeastern, student-athletes David Walker, Scott Eatherton, head coach Bill Coen. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Coen. Coach?

COACH COEN: First, I'd like to congratulate Coach Brey. Notre Dame, their basketball program for an outstanding basketball game today. They're a tremendous team and presented us with a number of different challenges. I thought our team competed buzzer to buzzer. They left it out on the floor, as you would expect in this type of venue, in this type of environment. I just couldn't be more proud of this group of young men. They never stopped believing in themselves. They took care of each other on and off the court. They pushed each other. They held each other accountable all year long. And they never, never gave in. So I just couldn't be more proud. I thought, in terms of basketball today, we had an opportunity to tie the game up or grab the lead in the last possession. I think in the NCAA tournament, that's about all you can ask for. I think what ultimately did us in was we just had way too many turnovers to beat a quality team like Notre Dame.

MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes only, please.

Q. Guys, after you get that late turnover, you got the ball with about 30 seconds left, the shot clock's turned off, take me through the final possession what you were looking for, what you were hoping to get out of it?
SCOTT EATHERTON: We really didn't expect them to turn the ball over like that. It would have helped if we would have had one more time-out. I think we could have really got a play in. But we -- I'm not really sure what happened at the very end. But I think we gave a great effort and I don't think that that last play is what lost us the game. Like Coach said, we had some unforced errors coming out of the -- to start the second half. We didn't look that sharp. That last play really didn't dictate the game for us.

DAVID WALKER: I think, yeah, like what he said. We didn't expect them to turn the ball over and it would have helped to have another time-out. We were going to go to one of our horns plays that we ran the previous three times and they did a good job of defending that and yeah. That last play didn't dictate the game. So that's about it.

Q. That last play didn't dictate the game. In your opinion, what did dictate the game?
SCOTT EATHERTON: Like coach said, I think it was lot of turnovers. A lot of we just fell asleep on some of their actions that we walked through. We knew what they were going to do and there were just a couple times we didn't execute it. That was really just of the small difference. To beat a good team like that, you have to be really focused and in the game and there was just a couple times when that didn't happen for us.

Q. David, were you looking for the three pointer at the top of the key when you came around the curl? And then I think you had to give it up to Quincy. Is that the initial thing? Were you looking to shoot the ball?
DAVID WALKER: Yeah, that was the play I was talking about, set a screen for Scott and then come off for a handoff and I was looking to shoot it, but they did a good job of reading that and so I wanted to keep the ball moving and that's when I swung it to Quincy.

Q. Coach, coming out of the half, Notre Dame comes out with some energy, scores a couple buckets. But T.J. Williams, I mean, it seemed really came into his own in the second half, whether it was getting his own put-backs coming out. That kind of spread energy throughout the team. Can you talk about his effort?
COACH COEN: Sure. You know, T.J., I thought, played a really solid game for us. We needed his quickness and energy on the defensive end to really get some ball pressure on Demetrius Jackson, who is a tremendous guard and got great quickness. I thought he did a good job of that and he did a good job of really kind of getting into the lane and trying to push the tempo when we needed him to.

MODERATOR: Reminder, questions for student-athletes only.

Q. Guys, you were down 12 with six minutes to go. What allowed you to cut into the lead and what was the mindset when you were trying to get the game tied up tor take a late lead?
SCOTT EATHERTON: I think that just speaks how close our team is. We've dealt with that kind of stuff before. We've gotten down and had to fight our way back. A key was staying together and supporting each other and staying confident. We knew that this could be our last game of the year, so we didn't want to leave -- we don't want to leave any lost effort and I think that's what helped us deal with that kind of run.

Q. Scott, can you just talk about your emotions right now, your last game in a Northeastern uniform?
SCOTT EATHERTON: I don't think it's really set in yet. I'm sure it will when I get back to the hotel or something. But, I mean, I've loved -- I'm really happy that I came to Northeastern. I transferred here. I've had a great experience. I got to play under Coach Coen, got to play with Davey, some great players. I watched them win a championship the first year. This year we had two and we almost had an upset. It's been a great career, I guess.

Q. To feed off that, Scott, also comment on your teammate, Reggie, senior.
SCOTT EATHERTON: Reggie is one of my better friends on the team, and I'm sure we'll be friends for a while. I've never met someone from Alabama, so I'm sure I'll always remember. He's been a great teammate and another great captain for us.

MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student-athletes? Gentlemen, thank you. Questions for Coach Coen.

Q. Can you talk a little bit -- obviously, you don't know what's going to happen in the last couple seconds, but you had the consecutive run of timeouts that were working effectively for you. Do you at all regret not having one for the last possession? Do you look back on that at all?
COACH COEN: Sure. I think we're always better coming out of a time-out. This team is a team that's always executed very well in time-out situations. I wish we had one left, but we really had to kind of set our defense to give us that opportunity to be in that spot. We told them with our last time-out what we wanted to run so we had a play call in there. I just got -- and we ran that play pretty effectively. You just got to give credit to Notre Dame's defense for stepping up and making a play. I don't know if I had the time-out if we would have run anything different or done anything differently. It was just really a matter of execution, ask there was better defensive execution than offensive execution at that time.

Q. Bill, if I'm not mistaken, Scott's sitting on the bench. You're probably thinking they're going to foul, you're going to get him back in the game. With him on the floor for that possession, how would that change in any way as to what happened?
COACH COEN: I think we would have played it the same way. Of course, when you put Davey and Scott in the same action, one of them usually gets open and you saw that Scott got a few layups out of it and then Davey got an open three out of it because the defense has to really choose who they're looking to take away. So that changes the play a little bit.

Q. Coach, you out-rebounded Notre Dame almost by two. You doubled them and you beat them by 11 on the offensive boards despite the fact that you shot nearly 50 percent. What led to so much success in the paint?
COACH COEN: We've been a very good rebounding team all year long. And we've been a very good shooting team as well. We typically shoot a little bit better from three today than we did today. But unfortunately, I think our Achilles heel has been our turnovers and when you give an offensive team like Notre Dame extra possessions, it's very, very difficult. It puts a lot of pressure on the other aspects of your game. I thought we ran our offense pretty effectively. We got on the backboards. We made plays when we needed to. Ultimately, I thought it came down to our ball handling.

Q. Scott picked up his fourth foul with maybe 11 or 12 minutes to go. With the stage of the game, the deficit that you guys had, can you take me through the thought process of what you're hoping to do, what you're put him back in? Was it a roll of the dice to put him back?
COACH COEN: We tried to go a little offense/defense. I think we put him back in with about nine to go because the lead started to get a little wider. You don't want to not give him that opportunity. I thought he had a tremendous effect on the game when he was in there. It was unfortunate he picked up some fouls because he was off to a great day, I thought. And we need him. If we're going to pull an upset of this magnitude, we have to have our best player on the floor. He ended up playing 24 minutes today. I would have loved to see that game play out if he could play his normal rotation and get 33-35 minutes.

Q. Coach, given the stage that you're at here and the seeding and the conference that they play in, did you have any fear that they might be intimidated or wide-eyed coming into this? How do you explain that they weren't?
COACH COEN: This group, that really didn't concern me coming into the game. Most of these guys, we always, quite typically, try to play the best nonconference schedule we can play and put ourselves in situations where we play against teams such as Notre Dame from high power conferences in the hopes that we'll have an opportunity to draw on that experience. This group has that to rely on. They've been in these opportunities. We've played the Georgetowns and the Florida States and so on. So they were excited to play. They were anxious to play. I didn't think there was any fear factor going into the game.

Q. What was the challenge of defending Auguste underneath and a couple of the block charge swing calls? What did you think of those?
COACH COEN: Well those are tough plays. We try to coach our team up. When you have so many good shooters as Notre Dame has, it really spreads the floor and keeps the paint open so it's a challenge to guard the paint and get out the shooters. I thought we had a couple of times where we had it played correctly. It's a timing issue, whether you've got to get there and help or cover to a shooter. So that guy has to do both things and it's a difficult job, especially when you're dealing with a guard like grant, who is a tremendous passer and has unbelievable vision and has got great ball fakes and pass fakes. So he was able to keep the floor spread and had us cheating toward shooters and really opened up the paint for Zach Auguste.

Q. I know you probably don't take any solace in what might be a moral victory, but what kind of a statement do you think you made to the people watching across the country?
COACH COEN: I just, my hope is that people would respect our effort today. I told our guys before the game that the result today would be dependent on two things, our effort and our attitude. And if we had a -- gave multiple and maximum effort, and we had a positive and aggressive attitude, I'd like our chances with our result. And this group did that. And also, I'd like to say a little bit about CAA basketball. I think that's why the tournament is so great. We were carrying the banner for the Colonial, where some really, really good players play, really great teams and great coaches. So we wanted to make sure that we represented the CAA in good fashion and hopefully we did so today.

Q. Coach, I know this loss stings a little bit now. But how excited are you to build off this pretty good are un? Pretty much everyone coming back besides Scott and Reggie and you have a solid recruiting class coming in as well.
COACH COEN: We'll be excited for the future. Today, this is about this group and what they've accomplished over the course of this season and their careers. We had three great seniors in Scott Eatherton and Reggie Spencer and Danny Young, our manager. That's a really special group. To finish off their careers this portion of the CAA regular season title, a conference championship and a proud showing in the NCAA tournament, I'm certain that the group coming back will look to build on that and continue the proud tradition that is Northeastern basketball.

MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

COACH COEN: Thank you very much.
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