NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 27, 1999

Jim O'Brien

Scoonie Penn

Michael Redd

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: Well, the first thing is congratulations to UCONN. They played a terrific game. This is, I think, a fitting ending for them anyway, with all the success that they've enjoyed throughout this past decade for them to get an opportunity to play for the National Championship, I think, is fitting. From our standpoint, I think that tonight's game came down to their ability to guard us, particularly in the second half. We really had a hard time scoring points in the second half, and the thing that I talked to our guys about was their explosiveness on offense. It seemed like every time we would take a poor shot or turnover, they would turn it into easy baskets by them. And I was very happy with, once again, the character of our guys because we had to overcome eight or nine with a ten-point lead, there were many different occasions where we could have gone away but we stayed in there, kept coming back and coming back. It was a little bit too much for us to overcome.

SCOONIE PENN: I think it was just the way he plays defense. I give him a lot of credit. He's a great defender. He did a great job covering me. He just didn't let me breathe the whole time. He did a great job on defense.

SCOONIE PENN: When I went to put my shirt back on, I couldn't find it. But I don't think that had to do with the game, that I didn't have my jersey.

SCOONIE PENN: This team is great. I think they're the best team probably in the country, they turned the stakes and got shots into easy layups. They did that, always had guys leaking out. It was always a situation where they were on offense, three on one, three on two. After a while, during the game, that starts to take a toll on you.

SCOONIE PENN: I think it was a great opportunity for, you know, the ride we had. I feel we have nothing to hang our heads about. I feel it's a great experience. We played some very tough games. I think this just gives all the guys on our team that are coming back a tremendous amount of confidence.

MICHAEL REDD: I think it helps us a lot. We're basically the same team next year. We have that confidence that we can do the same thing next year.

SCOONIE PENN: It was me.

SCOONIE PENN: I was denying Khalid El-Amin the ball. Voskuhl was looking for someone to pass to. He threw it to Khalid and Khalid wasn't there. He grabbed it, which I think would be a travel. He called time-out once Voskuhl got the ball.

SCOONIE PENN: I had a feeling he was going to guard me the whole time. I was waiting for him to turn his head the wrong way. But he did a pretty good job. He played his assignment well and covered me the whole game.

SCOONIE PENN: No, I was just, you know, I didn't get banged.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: I think that was a critical possession. There were a couple possessions at the end of the game that I thought were real, real big. On two consecutive possessions, we guarded them very well. They shot and missed and rebounded, then they ran the clock on the game. We guarded them pretty well, Hamilton makes a jumper in the link. Not only was the basket big, but time was a factor. I think we really needed time even more than the points. They got two full possessions that really hurt us. So that play was significant. I thought it was a travel, but obviously they didn't.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: Well, the thing that you really wouldn't understand, Mike, is that when you get to this point, you never know when you're going to get an opportunity to get back into this Final Four setting. And when you think in terms of two games or even one game away from playing for the National Championship, it's almost a surreal expression to me, so that's the disappointing thing. But you get this far and you're not able to get the whole thing. But I said this about our kids before, absolutely nothing is going to happen to take away the feeling that I have of accomplishment and the feeling of just appreciation for what our kids did this year. So this really hurts, but, you know, I mean I think back on how this whole thing has gone and it's not going to be that bad after we get out of here, we start thinking about when we first started practice back in September with all the learning. This is not that big of a deal to me right now. The big picture is so much more important.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: I think Ricky Moore did a terrific job. It was interesting the way things get played up. They decided to guard Michael Redd with Freeman and guard Singleton with Hamilton. And there's a trade off in matchups. Because one of the things they do exceptionally well is leak Hamilton out. So Hamilton's guarding our inside guys and he's leaking out. I think that's one of the reasons why we had as many offensive rebounds as we did. But they get an opportunity to get out, we get offensive rebounds, we needed to finish some of those plays off and I thought we did not do a good enough job doing that. But Ricky Moore deserves a lot of credit because he made Scoonie work for the entire 40 minutes.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: That's for you to decide, not for me.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: I told them not to lose sight of the big picture. I told them I was proud of them, once again, obviously it was a disappointing loss. But, you know, when you think about the big picture, I think that's the thing we need to focus in on. I'm very happy about the big picture.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: Yeah, that's the thing that has been a little disappointing for us over the year. I think we were 7 for 14 from the free-throw line in the second half. Then in the end, make a couple more free throws, maybe it's one possession, but we never could get over that hump. That was the point I was making earlier. We had some opportunities to score some points, but the free-throw shooting has really let us down the whole season.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: No, I thought there was much more of a problem for us with anybody else guarding Freeman and their bigger people. That was not going to help us too much I don't think.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: Well, that's part of the point about the big picture. I'm hoping that in some small way we've been able to restore some of the respectability to Ohio State's basketball program, and if that's the case, then maybe some of the younger players in the State of Ohio would maybe take a little closer look at our program at this point. Because obviously that's going to continue to be the life of the program. So hopefully we've been able to restore some of the dignity that I think the university deserves, and I would just go from there.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: Well, you know, we really needed to just get a little bit stable. And there was so much game left, we just really needed to calm everybody down. We had a couple of out-of-bounds situations where we scored on some in-bounds plays, and I really thought that during the home stretch after we called the second time-out we turned it up defensively. We had a couple of great things ourselves. But they're very, very difficult to guard when they get going in transition. And that was the point I made. I thought that our kids were terrific to always make a run at coming back and to always give ourselves a chance to stay in touch with it, which is not easy to do.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: I think they do a good job rebounding on defense with Freeman and Voskuhl. It gives them the luxury of leaking Hamilton out, and El-Amin does a good job of pushing the ball forward. And they are exceptional at turning your mistakes into baskets for them. That's why it's critical that you don't turn the ball over, you take good shots and you become efficient on offense. They are every bit as tough and athletic a team as we've played all year and they are terrific at getting the ball down the court.

COACH JIM O'BRIEN: I think one thing Connecticut does a great job with is they're very physical defensively. I thought that they were real good, kind of forcing us away from the basket a little bit. And they are a tough team. They're very aggressive. But they didn't really give us as many opportunities as they had in the past.