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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2007Jamie DixonAntonio GravesNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK JAMIE DIXON: First of all I'd like to congratulate Georgetown, obviously they are well-deserved and played well and deserved to be champions. We're obviously disappointed. I thought we would play better and I know our guys feel they could have played -- had hoped to play better. So they really beat us in every aspect of the game, and you know, I can't say enough about how well they played. I wish we could have played better but it just didn't seem to be our night. Nothing seemed to go right offensively and we didn't seem to be making shots. I thought we got good shots early and didn't knock them down and then we got just -- just really got -- never got in a rhythm offensively. Not a good team to get down against. Obviously they're patient offensively, they are rebounding, and once we got down, it became even more difficult to execute offensively. Q. When Aaron struggled from the field in the postseason last year, he said a lot of it had to do with conditioning; has that maybe become a problem again with him, conditioning late in the season again this year? JAMIE DIXON: No, I just think it was a big game where the shots didn't fall and rushed a few of them. I don't think -- he only played 25 minutes, so I don't think that was a big part of it. I think it's just one of those days where things didn't go well. It happens, it happens to all teams. This is the same team -- Georgetown just lost up at Syracuse by a large margin and then they looked this good tonight. Some teams you just can't explain and I think that's a good comparison right there. We looked so got last two days, and obviously didn't look very good tonight. Q. You trailed by 15 at the half tonight, 11 at the half yesterday; what was so different between the second half tonight and the second half that you put up against Louisville? JAMIE DIXON: Well, I think the second half, you know, we came out and hit a couple of shots in the second half yesterday and that can change a lot of things. It can make you feel a whole lot different and we didn't do that coming out in the first half. I think we had a couple open looks that we didn't knock down that could have changed things very quickly two, wide open 3s to get it to 10 that we just didn't knock down whereas the other night we hit it. We can analyze it, talk about it, but the shot goes down, it's a whole different feeling, whole different mood. Q. You mentioned shots not falling; is Aaron getting the shots you wanted on the plays you wanted? JAMIE DIXON: I thought for the most part, yes. I thought we had -- high-low action, we ran the way we wanted to, and it wasn't just that -- our defense wasn't as good as it needed to be as well. We gave up too much penetration, gave up too many open shots and we're down on the boards, too, as well in the first half. So, you know, you get beat like this, it's not just one thing. Q. Could you see Georgetown as a No. 1 seed? They obviously looked very good this week here. JAMIE DIXON: Well, anybody I think that wins the BIG EAST Conference and BIG EAST tournament should definitely be considered a No. 1 seed. Yeah, I think there's no question, I don't think games -- I think anybody, that's always the case and I think this team has proven it. You know, I mean, I think we're in the toughest Conference. They won the league and they won the tournament and I think that's usually a good indicator. Q. How are you feeling about this team going into the tournament versus the other teams you've been a part of that got The Finals coming out of New York? JAMIE DIXON: Well, I felt very good. I think we had two quality wins against two very good teams and played well in a lot of areas and didn't carry it over to tonight. I'm a guy that looks at the 27 wins and not the performance we had tonight. I mean, you can't -- that's more of an indicator of your team. This, we got down, it just got bigger and it just seemed like we got away from doing the things that we tried and wanted to do. Q. Just about your defense, are there nights when a team is just playing so well and doing so many different things well that there's just not something you're going to be able to do to stop it all? JAMIE DIXON: Well, I never want to have that attitude, so I don't think any coach has that attitude, hopefully. I won't. There's always a way, you try to find a way, and we couldn't find it tonight. I mean, again, it wasn't just the defense. If we make some shots, it's a different game. It was a combination of things, rebounding. Again, they are very good and they played very well. It's the third time we've played together. We beat them the first time, they beat us the second time, best of my knowledge good games. We thought we should have won that second one, we were up with six minutes left, six points. So they got us tonight and they beat us soundly. Q. Can you address your seeding? You beefed up your own Conference a little bit this year. JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, I saw the RPI this morning across the ticker, they had us four on the RPI. That's usually an indicator of where you're going to be. It seems that's usually a pretty good indicator. I mean, there's all these different things, but that seems to be the only objective tool to use. You can say what you want, you can figure out what you want to use, but I think when your RPI speaks to what you did over the 27 wins, best Conference in the country and our schedule's amongst the toughest in the country, plus we played more road games than other teams that had high strengths of schedules. So I think we are going to have a very high seed. I thought we could get a 2 if we won this one. I would say we are probably a 3 now. Q. You've done a pretty good job when you've been behind, was it harder -- inaudible? ANTONIO GRAVES: Not at all. We are going to definitely have to put this behind us and look ahead. We have another tournament coming up which is the most important tournament. It's what all the teams in the summer prepare for and in the off-season prepare for. So we definitely have to look ahead. We have a couple -- some games coming up that we have to take seriously, and you know, use practice to get this out of our heads and look forward for the future. Q. Talk about your experiences in the BIG EAST tournament, this one, a tough loss to take, but just what do you take to your senior season; talk about your experiences in New York and how it's helped you through your career? ANTONIO GRAVES: It's helped me a lot to play in the BIG EAST, period. Madison Square Garden is a great place to play the BIG EAST tournament. But I think it's the game in the regular season that prepares us for Madison Square Garden and the tournament ahead. It's basically been a good experience and we have to just use our experience. A lot of our guys, even our sophomores and juniors have experience. So we have to use that as a plus for us and an advantage. Q. Where are you feeling the most confident about this team going into March Madness and what areas do you think need the most work going into the tournament? ANTONIO GRAVES: I think we just need to stay focused on our principles as far as like our defense and rebounding. If we can get that done, you know, a lot of things will just come along with that. Basically we can't start the games off like we have been in the past. So we have to you know, look for it again, a good start in the rest of the games. Q. Can you talk about being named to the all-tournament team? ANTONIO GRAVES: It's not -- I'm sorry, but it's not really that big of a deal for me because I just want to win, I want our team to win. If we all got the win, then, you know that, would be most important. But unfortunately we didn't come up with the win, and individual award right now is not going to help the team. You know, it's all about the team and we've got to look forward to the future. End of FastScripts |
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