	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NATIONAL INVITATION TOURNAMENT

March 30, 2016

Mike Lonergan

New York, New York

COACH LONERGAN: We're really excited about winning last night, being in New York, playing for a championship. Feel really good, especially for our seniors, not making the NCAA Tournament was tough for all of us. They really responded well and got refocused and made a nice run here in the NIT. We know we're playing a very talented and well-coached Valparaiso team tomorrow night and we are very excited about the opportunity to challenge.

Q. I know Joe hurt his ankle a little bit the other night. Just wondering after last night and some rest, is he 100 percent ready to go tomorrow? What's the condition of his ankle?
COACH LONERGAN: I haven't really talked to our trainer yet this morning. We'll just have a light practice day. I'm sure he won't participate and hopefully he'll be -- I think he'll be okay. I don't know about 100 percent, but hopefully he'll be okay by tomorrow night.

Luckily for us he's one of the toughest kids I've ever coached. It would take a lot for him to miss this. I think it's just a sprain.

Q. What are the similarities and differences between Tyler and Alec Peters from Valpo in the short time you've researched Alec?
COACH LONERGAN: Just studying the numbers right now. I haven't been able to watch our film yet. I'm about to meet with my assistants. I didn't -- I tried to get some sleep. We got back to the hotel last night, just because the night before I didn't sleep well thinking about San Diego State. So I can't really make that comparison.

I know as a fan, I watched Valpo a couple times. I know he's a terrific, terrific player, 45 percent free throw shooter, makes it a really difficult matchup because he can score in so many ways. But I'll know a lot more about him about six hours from now.

Q. I don't know if there's an equation that you can say, X amount of wins in the NIT kind of circumvents the disappointment of not making the NCAA Tournament, but what has been the process like to go through this? Did you have to rally the troops or anything after Selection Sunday? Do you just try to put the stuff in the back of your mind?
COACH LONERGAN: Yeah, we had to rally them because we were all, literally, all a little bit depressed really. You work so hard to reach your goal, and for us having three seniors with so much experience, and adding Cavanaugh to the mix, it was definitely a disappointment.

We had some great, great wins. Nobody can take away from us, beat the Big East Champions, Seton Hall, beat Virginia, and even a lot of other wins like Penn State in our league, we won at VCU, which is hard to do. So we were probably a game away from making the tournament.

Really for us, I thought what we really needed to do was get to New York. That was really our ultimate goal, and it wasn't easy playing teams like Hofstra, CA champs, Monmouth. But give our guys credit, each game we played a little bit looser and a little more confident. I think our guys have really been focused and we've been better defensively. That was our Achilles' heel all year, the defense.

Now, to be able to get to the championship game. Obviously we would have rather made the NCAA Tournament but this really adds to the legacy of our seniors and that's what I really feel good about. Getting to New York was probably what we really needed to do, for me, to have a good summer.

Q. Yuta Watanabe, last defense when you did the offense/location switch, you stopped him out for defense, and this year, you also put him on the best player on the other side, other team. When did that transformation happen or when did you start trusting his defense?
COACH LONERGAN: I think he's gotten a lot stronger, even though he's not put on a lot of weight, he's gotten stronger. And then just our first five to eight games of the season, when you watch film, I just noticed it, along with Garino, they were our two best defenders. Yuta is very athletic and he can move well laterally and so he can guard guards, and his length really bothers people.

He's truthfully become at least our second-best defender and right there with Garino. He did a great job against Monmouth, and then in a 1-3-1 his length really helps us. He's gotten tougher, and so I give him credit. We're really confident in him becoming -- he's become a great defender.

So even when he doesn't have a big scoring game, he's really helped us. His rebounding has improved and he's helped us a lot with his defense this year.

Q. Yuta kind of lost his confidence in his shooting during the season. What helped him confidence-wise?
COACH LONERGAN: I think he knows, since he's been here, I always told him, I think he's more than just a shooter. Last year he didn't shoot a great percentage, but he was definitely a threat from three-point range, and his foul shooting was incredible.

His free throw percentage has gone down. He's been inconsistent with his shooting. He's had some great games, but I think a lot of that is teams, those are very good coaches that we play against, and they know what his strengths are.

What I like about him is he's starting to get assists now. He doesn't turn the ball over as much as he used to. I think last night, he had two assists, no turnovers. I think he leads our team in blocked shots, or he's in second, and he's rebounding, getting eight rebounds.

I think he's just such a good all-around player and I still think the best is yet to come from Yuta. I expect him to be an all-conference player next year. Just have to keep getting stronger and working hard in the weight room, which he's doing now.

Q. You talk about the seniors, but what can a run like this do for the guys that you have coming back for next season?
COACH LONERGAN: I think it really helps. I remember when I took over at Vermont, they graduated five seniors, the best class in the history of the school, including two best players ever, Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine. But what it did, that was a winning culture.

And sometimes, we had that at Catholic University, no matter what we graduate, we graduate one time I think four 1,000-point scorers. This year I think we're looking four guys who have scored a thousand points, and we definitely are going to miss all those guys.

But I think when a program gets used to winning and we have done that consistently three years in a row, it just kind of breeds winning and the culture is really good. I think our freshmen are going to come in, and they are going to have an impact, that's for sure. My hope is, obviously on paper, we're going to take a big step back, but I hope we can reload instead of rebuild.

Some guys are going to play bigger roles, a young man like Jordan Roland is really fighting to get playing time behind McDonald and Garino and those guys, and I think as he gets stronger this summer -- and right now he's working hard to get stronger.

He was a great player in high school and great scorer. It's just hard to get him extended minutes, so we need guys like him to make a jump. And I think by getting in the NIT Championship game, it makes those off-season workouts more enjoyable and the guys can be even more motivated, I'll say.

Q. Through the recruiting process, have you gotten to know any of the Valpo players, any of these pop up along the way?
COACH LONERGAN: No, it's funny, none of them really. With San Diego State, we recruited a young man named Kevin Zabo pretty hard. We lost him to San Diego State. He ended up transferring out after his first year.

But I'm not really familiar with any of them. I was a fan of their coach when he was a player and his father, they had those great teams. What I do, I love that he's at Valpo and I think that's great. I coached at Catholic University for a long time and never thought I would leave.

I just love seeing a program that's run the right way and it's kind of a family thing with his dad and him. I'm a huge college basketball fan, so I guess I'm a fan of the Drews, as well.

Q. You mentioned quickly last night this thing about the net that you guys have been carrying around, I guess sort of as a good luck charm. Can you talk about the origin of that, where it came from and what made you decide to turn it into a good luck thing and how that all went down?
COACH LONERGAN: One of my buddies sent me a net about a month and a half ago and said, he wanted us to cut down the net in Brooklyn at the A-10 tournament.

I haven't cut down nets in a while, since I was at Vermont I think at least one year. At Catholic-U, I was cutting down nets every year.

So it's a great -- he sent me this net, and I hung it in the locker room. We started taking it on the road at the end of the year. But after we lost in the Barclays, I came back and our manager still put it up. And you know what, I thought, that's great. We still have a chance to cut down some nets in the NIT.

We just kind of touch it sometimes. I touch it before every game. We travel with it. I'm not a big motivation guy, but just kind of to let our guys know, hey, we still have a chance to cut down some nets, and this is a prestigious tournament and there's a lot of teams that are not playing in the NIT and we have to make the most of it. You can't cry over spilled milk in not making the NCAAs. I look at San Diego State, Valpo and BYU, and wow, they were probably more deserving than us.

So it's great to be in this situation. It was just something to kind of try to keep our focus that we do have a prize we're still fighting for.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297