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NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 29, 2013Bruiser FlintChris FouchFrantz MassenatNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK DREXEL – 85 Q. Chris, your thoughts on winning that game and your thoughts when the crowd cheered? CHRIS FOUCH: My only thought during the game was‑‑ after the game, actually that we really grinded it out. Like things wasn't going our way. We just kind of were back and forth for a little while but when it came down to it, we buckled down and made stops when we needed it and got the win. As far as the crowd, man, I don't know why they picked us to cheer for, but I was enjoying it. Q. Talk about the result when it was expected that Duke and Arizona, everybody was looking forward to seeing that, but being able to keep that focus going? BRUISER FLINT: You know, we came in and we thought we could win games. We didn't come here just to be in the tournament. To be honest with you, I was a little disappointed about Monday night and I explained that to these guys. Tonight, we had our ups and downs, but in the end, we talked about making plays to get over the hump. But we didn't come to the tournament‑‑ we weren't just happy to be in the tournament. We talked about going there and winning games and we were realistic about it. We didn't think we were coming in, oh, let's play a close game. That's not my thing. Honestly, I'm real honest with my team and I told them that we can play and we can beat anyone. I think we are good enough to do that. So tonight, you know, we pulled one out. We needed it. We got to learn some things from it, because we probably won and lost it probably eight times. But I mean, we were able to pull it out in the end and I got a lot of contributions from some guys that don't really play that much and if they continue to play better, that makes us a better team. Q. I know the second half probably didn't go the way you wanted, some shots you missed, but just talk about this week, being back home and nice to come back and playing the way you did and to win here in front of so many friends and family. CHRIS FOUCH: Man, it feels great. You know, I had a lot of goals when I decided to come back, and I found out I was in the preseason NIT, that was my first goal was to get back to New York and play here and play in this building. I'm happy with my teammates, coaches. We did the right things in order to get here but now that one goal is down, we got to finish up the non‑conference schedule. I want to finish that strong and then get into conference play. Q. You battled a little bit of foul trouble in the first half and you sat a lot in the first and then beginning of the second, did that help you going into all those over times? FRANTZ MASSENAT: Yeah, it did‑‑ I probably would have been way more tired. The younger guys came in and filled in and did a great job. Just being able to‑‑ playing with foul trouble, we've got to play with a little more confidence but it worked out for me. Q. Chris, had you played here since high school? And I read the other day that you said you were not sure about coming back. What would you have done if you didn't come back? CHRIS FOUCH: To be honest, well, to answer your first question, yeah, this is my first time playing since that game. So feels good to be back in this arena around people that I love and know. And as far as when I was‑‑ made the decision on coming back, it was just more the fact that I was not sure about my body and how it will hold up for a whole other season at Drexel. When it came down to it, I made a decision and worked hard with my teammates in the work room and tried to get my body right and it's working out right now. Q. Talk about what it meant to get Chris back for the season and the kind of start he's got off for you guys? BRUISER FLINT: Well, he's going to be one of the top five in the history of the school. When you get a guy like that, man, you can only feel good about what you're doing. The team, like I said before, one of the things he does he puts everybody on the court at ease a little bit because they know things get tough, he's the guy that steps up for us. He's a great kid. We had a lot of talks about him coming back, and I actually told him, don't comeback because we have a good team or anything like that. Come back because you want to come back. I said that this is not‑‑ don't worry about anybody else, this is a selfish decision for you. Come back for yourself. If you want to see everybody, stand up for a whole year, that's what you do. Don't do any favors. Just do it for you, this is for you. I know the type of player you're going to be, but I wanted him to do this for him; so then I know that he would be all‑in if he did it for himself. Q. Players had to go through a lot in college‑‑ the double double today, the guy who plays 46 minutes, after he's been through a lot the first couple of years. BRUISER FLINT: He's been great and he's playing even better, because I don't think people really understand what happened to him at the end of his freshman year with the blood disorder and all that, he lost about 30 pounds. Last year in September, they were showing him how to run and walk again and he actually played in the season. This year, he got a full year under his belt. He got the spring and the summer and he got stronger and he's a better player. But he's playing the way I always thought he could. You know, people don't understand; that was a tough thing that he went through. He was in the hospital for over a month. And he never really got back last year. He wasn't strong enough to be out there, but he played. This year he got himself back and he got his strength back and he's been playing well for us. Q. Where does this rank in terms of wild games you've been involved in, and as far as how big this was? BRUISER FLINT: Well, I don't know if I've ever had a triple overtime game. I don't know if we've ever had a triple overtime game at Drexel before. So this is probably one of the craziest games. I'm not sure if Anthony was the coach or not but we played a crazy game at BCU but we won the game on the halfcourt shot. I'm not sure if Anthony was the coach but that was probably one of the crazier games, also. Triple overtime‑‑ I'm looking down the bench and I'm like, we're running out of people, you know what I mean. Anybody that goes into a triple overtime game is going to be ready to perform. Q. Since you've had to go into over time, was this a perfect opportunity as a coach to give them that type of experience, because that's going to help you? BRUISER FLINT: One of the things we talked about after the game is we sort of had this won a few times and we gave it back to them. We do do a lot of situational basketball during practice, but when the game is going on, it's a little bit different for you, and hopefully we can learn from this experience in terms of what we need to do in certain situations. Even the stuff‑‑ talking about coming up with a big rebound, might have just closed the door which we didn't do a couple of times. Instead of turning it over‑‑ one of the things that I talked about after the Arizona game to my team was if the game is tight, you've got to make some plays. You want to come up with that upset, you've got to make some plays, and you've got to have the confidence to do that from a player standpoint, from a team standpoint. So tonight, we've got some guys who made some big plays ‑‑ and also to keep them around; guys make some plays, they get confident. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes but we have to move on because we had the confidence to play and we were able to pull the game out. Q. What are your thoughts on what you've seen from Rodney Williams? BRUISER FLINT: I've seen him every game, and he played like seven minutes at UCLA. We were playing him the first couple of games because we had some foul trouble. Now don't have to play him for foul trouble and I think he's getting more confident. One thing that he can do is play in these games because he's athletic enough. You know, only played six games, so for him, he's gotten better every‑‑ and I think this was big for him. You go against Alabama, SEC, Big12, and he played well against those type of athletes, that type of size. So Rodney is only going to continue to get better. Even Mohamed, even though he didn't play that much today. But the guys will be way, way more confident because they have been in some big battles with some big teams, so I think they will be more confident going forward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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