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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2011Jim CalhounAlex OriakhiKemba WalkerNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK UConn: 97 COACH CALHOUN: After a real tough loss to Notre Dame on Saturday which we got out rebounded and physically handled inside we made a nice bounce back game and I know that Oliver is doing a terrific job there and I know from personal experience in my first year we were 1-19 how that can be. I thought they fought, that's a credit to him and kinda kept themselves in the vicinity. I thought that in an open-court game we're pretty good with Kemba Walker and Shabazz, we looked so much better and sometimes we had defensive lapses and played the scoreboard a little too much but beyond that we're happy to get a win. It's been a while since we had a win here, seems like we were always winning the first and second game at least and last few years hasn't been true, 6 overtime, Gerry McNamara shot or whatever it was, technically how you break everything down it's important to advance. That's the whole idea. You don't say how, you say are we playing tomorrow and, yes, we are playing tomorrow. Q. Coach, what do you see Friday's game that is encouraging you looking ahead to Georgetown and what, if anything is discouraging or concerns you? COACH CALHOUN: We've been through now a season in which we played -- we played 20 out of -- 21 out of 30 top 100 opponents and we played some really, really good people and we found an awful lot of things in those games. In the Georgetown game we were fortunate enough to win at home. As I said, I think we played the scoreboard a little too much but to have the guy down the end, not this guy, but the guy down on the end rebound like he did, obviously that's very, very important and I just think we look different when he's rebounding, blocking shots and playing defense like that in the middle. Q. The decision not to start Alex, maybe to light a little fire under him? What was behind that? COACH CALHOUN: It's never one to have Alex care more, because very few people that I've known that care more than Alex, but he's been struggling, and basically I tell him it's simple, "go get the basketball." It's not simple as we all know, and today he went and got the basketball a lot and that made us an entirely different team. I thought we would give him a message and it isn't necessarily in life who starts but who finishes, and he finished and he made us stay ahead and winning big by being a true middleman and we're going to need him tomorrow and we advance beyond that we will certainly need him. He was clearly an important part of that. I benched him because it's been a 1-2 punch most of the time with Alex and Kemba and the last 7, eight games Alex has struggled and he struggled and I believe -- once again, it's not like a punish, because I wouldn't punish a guy like Alex because he wants it badly but letting him know coming off the bench he would feel better and he responded well. Q. Coach, you've been part of the Big East for decades? COACH CALHOUN: Yeah, but that sounds old (Chuckles.) Q. How memorable has the season been for the conference, like a team like UConn being so memorable? COACH CALHOUN: Memorable is a very funny word. Meat grinder, all kinds of words because there aren't many games, including portions of today's game the second half when they came back a bit, there isn't any game that you can take a breath. I've watched enough basketball through this year to know there is going like that, before we got here we had Kentucky, Michigan State, and Texas and going through the Big East meat grinder is way tougher, and the knowledge of the other teams and the knowledge of the kids you made and who played against you. Years ago when Billy Curly and Marshall and Allen Iverson and Kerry Kittles, we had five great teams in the Big East but I've never seen it where every team in the league can beat and you I truly believe every, every team in this league can beat you, we've had really, really good games I've never seen that in 25 years, everybody has had to work for every win, every point, everything they did. Decades, yes. Q. Can you talk about Jeremy Lamb giving you separation and why he got those open looks? COACH CALHOUN: He got those open looks and it's important that he has those and I really thought that at West Virginia because they load up on Kemba's side all the time, that he can come off either a down screen or flat screen when we send Kemba out usually two guys are going to be with him that he makes those. Now it changes their game plan a great deal and I thought that's exactly what happened tonight. He opened up the first half and made shots for us. We took him out because he sprained his knee in the Notre Dame game and didn't practice on Sunday. We have to play tomorrow, so he looked fine but we want to make sure that he's at best full to go tomorrow as he can. He's one of the best freshman in the league, in my opinion, he has a chance to be a great player and when he plays like that, Alex rebounds like that and Kemba does what he does, we're a very good team. Q. Coach, I would like to ask again about the depth of the conference. Is this the week with all the teams together where you really see how deep the conference is? And what would you say to someone who doesn't follow the Big East who might question if one conference should get 10 or 15 teams into a tournament? COACH CALHOUN: It's 68 teams no longer 64, number one. Number two, if you truly check what our teams have done on the outside, who they have beaten from Purdue, to Kentucky, to the teams we have beaten as a conference, to quite frankly playing in this league you know when you go into Cincinnati, and we were really fortunate to get a win there, in a sense we played really well but they're good, really, really good. We lost to -- Marquette doesn't take a play off, they're a son of a gun to play. I'm not talking about the first four, five or six, by the way. I'm talking about the people who people don't realize how good they are. We've had maybe more star power in the league, we've never had so many good, solid basketball teams. The only thing that's so remarkable is we've never had so many senior teams, too, Pitt, St. John's, the five stars at Notre Dame, we have an old league, too, so it's tough competing every night against it but it's what competitors want to do. Q. Alex, can you talk about the rebounding today, the decision not to start the game and how you responded? ALEX ORIAHKI: Before we got to New York, Coach told me to go after the basketball. Definitely haven't been playing my best the last couple of games and I definitely wanted to make it up to my teammates and help Kemba out and I went after the basketball. Q. Talk about tomorrow's match-up, are you guys going to look to run more? KEMBA WALKER: We're going to watch film and see what had he did in the game we beat them in, that's the key, I saw the players get up and down, that's nothing new. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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