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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: KANSAS CITY

March 21, 2009

Gary Williams

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

MEMPHIS Â– 89
MARYLAND - 70

KEVIN KLINTWORTH: We'll go ahead and start with the Maryland student athletes. Coach Williams will be here in just a minute. Landon Milbourne, Eric Hayes, and Dave Neal. Questions, please.

Q. Dave, can you just kind of talk about the buzz saw that hit you and what were you doing there when they're draining shot after shot after shot?
DAVE NEAL: There's nothing we could do. They were bringing guys off the bench that hit 3s. When a team catches fire like that, we knew it was going to be a tough game. Our mentality coming into this game was we wanted them to take 3s with hands in their faces. I give them all the credit in the world. They made those 3s and made some tough shots.
They're a great team. Nothing against them. They've got a great coach. They came out and caught fire early and pretty much stayed hot the whole entire game.

Q. Dave, even though it's obviously a disappointing end to the season, when you look back at the senior season, how are you going to remember it?
DAVE NEAL: Probably one of the best senior seasons I could possibly think of. Coach Williams said it the best in the locker room. "Only one team goes out at the end of the season happy, that's the national champion."
It's going to take a couple days to put this loss behind. After that, look at the stuff we did this year. We beat Wake Forest, Michigan State, North Carolina, all top 10 teams. In the end we made it back to the NCAA Tournament.
Lot of people coming into this season never thought that we had a chance to do that. The fact that we stayed tough as a team, we fought through a lot of stuff, and at the end we made it back to the NCAA Tournament, won a game, and I mean it's been a dream come true for me. One I'll never forget and probably talk about this year for the rest of my life.
We have an awesome team. We fought hard. We have a lot of heart, and it's been an awesome season, even though we took a tough loss today. As a whole, it's been an awesome season and I'm going to miss it a lot.

Q. I'll ask, I mean, the remarks yesterday by Vasquez. You heard their fans. Can you guys address -- not that Memphis needed anything, but could you kind of address what kind of effect that might have had?
DAVE NEAL: I mean, I guess it might have sparked something. Memphis is overall a great team. They've won 26 games in a row, and they play in Conference USA. There are good teams in there. Some of those teams had good quality wins this year. He said it, and I mean nothing you can do about it.
Memphis came out, they were fired up and caught fire early, and once they caught fire, they stayed hot the whole game, and I mean they got a great coach. He got them prepared really well and Memphis is a great team. They're long, athletic and got some excellent players.

Q. Eric, what did Coach Williams tell you guys in the locker room after the game?
ERIC HAYES: You know, he was disappointed, like we all were, that we lost the game, you know, but he also said it was a great season that we had. Nobody can take what we did this year away from us and, you know, lot of people doubted us this year, but we got back to the tournament, won a game, and I know overall once we look back on this season, it's going to be a great one for us.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Do we have more questions for Maryland student athletes? Okay, guys, you can head back to the locker room. Questions for Coach.

Q. Was the goal kind of to let them shoot from the outside, and when they started hitting them, did that strategy change?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: No. It was to try to help as much as possible with Tyreke Evans, because he's such a great driver of the basketball. A lot of their offense generates from that, where you get into the paint, you help. He's good at floating it to the big guys.
With our size disadvantage, we didn't want that to happen. We were hoping we could get back out and bother their shooting, caving in on the perimeter. Beside Sallie, their other players shot 1 for 13 from the 3-point line the game before. We gambled a little bit. They made some shots. We played good defense on some shots that they did make. Others we left them open.

Q. Gary, what happened on Vasquez's technical? Did the whole events of the day get to him? Talk about the whole situation. What specifically -- what did he do to get the technical?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: He obviously said something to the referee. I didn't get a description of what he said. He just said something. That, by the way, that is a very good officiating crew. Any coach would like to see those three referees out there when you come to play a game.

Q. His comments yesterday regarding Conference USA and everything?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: You know, he's wrong -- he's wrong in saying those things like he said, but, at the same time, sometimes the translation gets lost a little bit what he says and whether exactly what he said, I didn't hear, but I know the reporter got the quote, called John Calipari to make sure he got that information which I think is interesting.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Do we have more questions?

Q. You guys kind of rallied around maybe a size disadvantage all season? Do you think it got to you guys today with taking Taggart, Dozier so big in the middle?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: It's hit us a couple times. You go into a game, you talk about boxing out, but you know when a guy makes a play two feet over the rim, that's what they can do.
We don't play up there this year. We probably will next year a little, but right now, we don't play there. So that's why we try to keep Evans out of the paint so the ball wouldn't be there on some lob passes and things like that.
But as your question stated, you know, they made some shots that they didn't make the game before. You know, you're always -- unless you're one of the top four, five teams, you make adjustments on every game you play, not just here today.
You're always -- this year it was about making adjustments just about every time once we got into league play.

Q. Gary, it's obviously frustrating. How do you think you're going to look back on this year's team?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I'll be real proud of this year's team. They were incredible in terms of support for me, number one, and their ability to be resilient I think is the thing I'll remember about this team. We had some tough losses, and we were able to come back and make the NCAA Tournament in a year where I thought there was probably, maybe 80 teams that could have made the tournament very easily based on what they did during the year, and we were one of the 64 to make it and we were one of the teams to get to 32.
So I'll remember that about this team and how they competed all year.

Q. Gary, can you just talk about -- I know it's probably common among Elite teams and top seeds in tournaments like this, can you talk about looking over at Memphis, the top to bottom talent that that team seems to have?
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I think you could see today why a lot of people felt they could have been a No. 1 seed the way things fell out the last couples weeks. In other words, there was a lot of talk I thought the last week about Memphis being the No. 1 seed.
When you have a point guard with that size and quickness and he's a little better shooter than he gets credit for sometimes, but Evans is just a terrific player and, you know, you see the 6-2, 6-3 point guards. You see many of the 6-6 guys with the same quickness of the 6-2, 6-3.
He was really -- if you didn't know how big he was, you would have thought he was about six feet the way he was playing out there in terms of when he had the ball.
When he gets inside, he's big enough to finish because he has that 6-6 size. He's an outstanding player, but when you get two inside players about that 6-10 size that can post-up and go out and shoot it, do things like that and react quick if you have to help.
You're talking about special players and Memphis has special players. They have two players back to a team that nobody ever came closer to winning a national championship than Memphis did last year. Those two guys with the new players they do have can really help carry the team a long way.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: More questions? Thank you, Coach.
COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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