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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2008Jim BoylenJohnnie BryantLuke NevilleLAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you want to begin, speak for a minute or two, just opening remarks about the game. COACH BOYLEN: Well, first of all, I want to say I'm a little disappointed in the media. I tell my guys when they go to class to sit in the front row, and everybody is sitting way back there (smiling). That was a joke, guys. Obviously, thankful for the win. I'm proud of my team. We've been close. We've been there before. We've been in every situation you can be in. And we've lost games almost every which way you can. I felt like we were a team that was better than our record, played harder than our record, and just hadn't got a break, hadn't got a bounce. I kept telling my team to just fight through, persevere, hang tough, believe in what we're doing and come together. I'm just proud of what they did today. Obviously New Mexico is a very good team. I knew it was going to be a close game. I told my team that. Every game with New Mexico has been just a terrific college basketball game. I'm proud of Luke. I thought he played very well with four fouls. I'm proud of Johnnie for his leadership. I'm proud of these two guys because "Utah" across their chest means something to them, and that's important to me. THE MODERATOR: Next few minutes, questions directed to the student-athletes. Q. Luke, I wonder if you could take us through the last sequence with the dunk, the block at the other end. LUKE NEVILL: You know, I saw him driving to the basket. He put up a shot. It kind of reminded me of the Wyoming game last year where, you know, it was make or break time. I knew it was going to be a close basket, so I just went up there, blocked it. I just knew I had to do it. I knew I had to risk, you know, maybe getting called goaltending. I went up there and just blocked the shot, I guess. On the last possession, I was kind of disappointed in my first-half effort, how I kind of didn't go up strong a few plays. Took a couple plays off offensively. So I just tried to go up strong and just tried to dunk the ball every single time. My teammates told me that. They said, You're the biggest guy on the court, you need to dominate inside. I just tried to have the heart and just competed. Q. Luke, talk about playing with four fouls for so long. Did you have to do anything different during that time period? LUKE NEVILL: Yeah, I've been in foul trouble a lot of games. I knew I had to stay in the game whatever it costed (sic). I wasn't going aggressive to the ball as I would if I had a foul to give. A couple of times I gave them a layup, gave them an open shot because I just needed to stay in the game. I thought maybe giving them a layup would be less costly for us than me being out of the game. I was a bit passive on the defensive end. I just knew they needed me there for the offense and they needed me there for rebounding. Q. Obviously you don't have a lot of time to celebrate. Tomorrow night against UNLV. Talk about the matchup tomorrow. JOHNNIE BRYANT: UNLV, they're a great team, very athletic, they like to pressure the ball. We match up great against these guys. We got them at home and they got us last week. It's going to be a real tough game. We just got to go out there, compete, rebound, take our open looks. Put ourselves in a place where we can win the game. THE MODERATOR: Guys, we'll let you two go. Thank you. Questions for Coach Boylen. Q. Talk about finishing this game out, finishing the game well. You sometimes struggled to do that at the end. COACH BOYLEN: I feel like a broken record in a way. I've been saying it all year. We've been in this situation before. Every game it's a three, five-point game. In the timeouts in the huddles, I just say that to my team, We've been here before, we got to get a solid shot. We've got to get a three. I kind of repeat all the things that have happened to us during the year, put it in their head we can't let it happen again if we want to move to the next level as a team. The other thing I want to get -- this team needs to get credit for, they're a very good defensive team. That is a very good offensive team we just played. You know, they made threes, they averaged 10 a game. They made six. They shot 38% the second half. My guys just gritted their teeth and grinded it out against a very good team. That's what you have to do to learn how to win. You have to take care of the defense. You have to give yourself a chance to win, and then learn how to win. You know, we've been working on that all year. Today we were blessed to get one. I said on my radio show, I really feel like this team is kind of an iceberg. There's so many good things, big things under the surface. We just haven't broke through yet. Maybe this is the win that will give us some confidence for this year, but also for the future. Q. Can you talk about your emotions there. Looked like you had the game for a while, then looked like they were going to win it. In a matter of seconds, you win the game. COACH BOYLEN: I guess that's why they call it March Madness. It's up and down. It's an emotional rollercoaster. Big plays. Big plays by them. Giddens is just such a difficult guard for us. He just jumps over us, goes by us. Believe it or not, we were trying to guard him. We were trying to keep him under control. Man, I thought he had a monster, monster game. I actually thought we did a pretty good job on him. But he's just so talented. You know, we had timeouts left. I felt like we were in control of the game with our timeouts, with our conditioning. I thought we were in a good place, even when we were down. I felt we were right there. Then when you can throw the ball to a 7 foot 1 guy, has good hands who can make places and you have Luka Drca running my offense, I think we got a pretty good team. You know, that's what we had. Q. Talk a little bit about playing Vegas again. You played them five or six days ago. COACH BOYLEN: Well, you know, we've had a great series with them, too. A great game at our place, a great game here. 61-61 I think with a minute 36 to go. They're difficult to play against with their pressure defense. Obviously they got a terrific leader over there in Lon Kruger. We just have to get ready to play, play defense, challenge the three, rebound the ball. You know, we turned the ball over in the last minute down here last week. I thought we had the game under control. We made a mistake at the end. That cost us. We got to try not to do that tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Appreciate it. Good luck. COACH BOYLEN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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