Nov. 23, 2011

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An interview with:

COACH THOMPSON
Henry Sims
Jason Clark

THE MODERATOR: We welcome Coach Thompson, Henry Sims and Jason Clark to the podium. We'll open it up right away for Q & A.

Q. Coach, you guys played three tough games here you leave 2 1. Your impressions of the tournament?

COACH THOMPSON: The tournament in and of itself is a terrific tournament. No one covering or watching the game does not know that. It's the in season tournament to be a part of. The hospitality of everyone on the island is great.

Obviously, I wish we had won Monday night, but walking away from it 2 1, having played two of the best teams in the country in two very tough games and how we responded in both of them, even in the Kansas game, I think we did some things today and hopefully it's growth.

In the Kansas game, I told our guys we made mistakes coming down the stretch that we can control. Where tonight we made plays as opposed to making mistakes at key points. So hopefully that's growth for this group.

Q. Henry and Jason, can you guys just talk about how much you learned in just three days about your team?

Jason Clark: I think we're a very tough team. I've known that since we started working out over the summer going through the championship. I think that the team is getting better with dealing with adversity. We're getting better. I think we responded well after the loss after Kansas. I think everybody's starting to pay a lot more attention to what we need to do on the court offense.

Henry Sims: Same thing as him. This team plays hard, and that's all you can ask for is your team to play hard and allow other things to take care of themselves?

Q. Coach, can you just talk about what does it say about this tournament? I know you talked about it, but just you're playing the number 8 team in the nation, and what a ballgame.

COACH THOMPSON: It was. I think that you have to thank the staff, the committee that put this field together. It's unbelievable. It's like an NCAA Tournament atmosphere. The gym is small, but the atmosphere is the same. The emotions are the same. The teams very well may be the same.

It was good for us. It was good for us. This team, our team, has a lot of room for growth still. We were very, very and we have high expectations of each other to achieve that growth. I think we took some steps this week, as Jason said, after that game the other day of understanding just the attention to detail, that you have to pay attention to the details. Then to have the toughness to execute. The toughness to execute the game plan and execute the details.

One thing I think this group does a good job of is they believe in each other. They believe in each other. As long as we maintain that and everything else, we'll get better.

Q. Could you say the most important thing that your coach did for you in the last three games?

Jason Clark: I think just stressing that we have to play hard the whole game. I think stressing that since we started playing. He always told us if you play hard, things will take care of themselves. So we've just been stressing playing hard, playing hard and competing with the other teams.

Henry Sims: Attention to detail, which I think we did today in the latter part of the game at least. He stresses that a lot too, attention to detail. I think this team just tried their best to do that today.

Jason Clark: Just little things. Helping each other on this play and that play.

Q. Coach, can you talk about your defense and the defense there at the end of regulation and at the end of overtime, what to do?

COACH THOMPSON: I think we got fortunate. Our guys are working hard. Depending on the lineup that we have on the court, we literally can switch everything because I have some taller guys that can guard on the perimeter and guard in the post. I have some smaller guys that are tough enough to guard in the post.

A couple positions in regulation we might have gone zone. I don't remember. I don't remember what defense was at the end of regulation, but when we're in there, we have to lock up and guard them and they're going to come at you.

When I say they got lucky, they have a good offensive team. They had five players on the court. They can do like we do. I thought they did a terrific job coming down the stretch, particularly in regulation getting a shot. Joe got to the middle of the lane, and made a decision on what they had to do, and that's what they wanted to do.

I thought they did a pretty good job of executing. We just had some lucky bounces, and Greg Whittington got a terrific offensive rebound to put it back in, which was a key, key play to put it into overtime.

Then Henry got it going, and he got a little confidence down there. The one thing I've stressed to Henry, first thing I told him after the game is don't worry about scoring. Just play hard. Play hard and make the hustle plays. He starts thinking about scoring let me think about his scoring for him. As long as he plays hard.

I thought he talked about the points that he had, and a lot of those eight rebounds were hard rebounds to get. They were earned rebounds, not ones that just fell into his lap. So that's what we need out of him.

An interview with:

COACH PASTNER
JOE JACKSON
WILL BARTON

THE MODERATOR: We have Joe Jackson with us, and Will Barton from Memphis. Joe, would you like to open about general comments about the game and the overall tournament?

JOE JACKSON: Yeah, we've been playing hard as a team, but we kind of saw it tonight, a couple shots that fell down the stretch. But we were going hard. That's one thing I can say. But things just didn't go our way tonight. We made some key turnovers down the stretch, but we should have capitalized on them, and that cost us the game.

Q. How frustrating is it that you outrebounded them? You outshot them.

WILL BARTON: It was really frustrating, because we didn't play our best ball (Indiscernible). We regrouped and got ourselves together to beat a tough Tennessee game. Then we come here in our last game and we just came up short.

Like you said, we did a lot of things better for them. But they made the key plays down the stretch to keep them in it and put them over the top. They were the better basketball team in key moments, and it showed because they won the game.

Q. Tell me about that last set up there on that last play after the timeout? What didn't happen?

JOE JACKSON: It was set up for me to act like I was going to get the ball, and Will Barton to come off the flair on the left side of the court. But, no, right side. But we didn't follow through with the game plan to get the three, and it was a hard shot anyway.

WILL BARTON: They've got a very long team. And if you don't run the play like you're supposed to get somebody open, it's going to be hard because they're really long.

Q. What did Coach tell you guys after the game? You obviously wanted to win the entire thing, but what did he tell you in terms of putting this behind you? Had he talked to you?

JOE JACKSON: Well, it's a long season, and we have a lot more good teams to play. We've just got to regroup. You can't hold your head down with one loss. We wanted to come in and win it, but we didn't. We've got good enough players. We can regroup and come into practice and focus on some of the little intangibles that make us a better team.

THE MODERATOR: Coach Pastner is here. Coach, your players have been doing a fine job answering some questions and getting things started, but if you'd like to make some comments, please go ahead.

COACH PASTNER: Yeah, it was a really good basketball game. Very proud of our guys to battle. That was a tough loss, no question about that. I told our guys in the locker room, it's a long season. This is November. This is why we played the four games we've played so far to this point is to get challenged, see what we've done well, see what we need to make adjustments on. We're going to keep it positive. We've got to stay together. We're growing as a team.

We had some opportunities to close the game out, but every possession matters. The same in the first possession as it does the last possession, so it's one of those things. On this one, I'm taking the blame on this one. This goes on me for this loss. No one else.

Therefore, things I probably should have done better looking back on it. Maybe called a timeout in a situation or two. So I don't think any of the guys the guys battled. They competed. They played hard. We had opportunities to win, so this one's got to go squarely on my shoulders. And you've got to give Georgetown tons of credit.

Q. Joe talked about what you guys set up in that last play with the last seconds left. Can you talk about it? Was it Georgetown, what they did, or if not, what was it?

COACH PASTNER: We knew they were going to switch, and we tried to get we were trying to have two or three different options off of it, and do some different flair screens to try to get it on the switch to hurt them on the switch.

But they played it well. They executed it well. Defensively that happens. Just like us defensively yesterday executing an out of bounds play well guarded, so that happens. You've got to give Georgetown credit.

Again, we had chances. We were up in regulation. We just didn't close it out. But this is something we'll build on and learn from it just like yesterday's game. Again, I thought our guys battle and played hard and gave effort. So this one squarely falls on the head coach, no one else.

Q. Do you get the sense at all you talk to the players after the game, and I know for them to come in and win the entire thing, did you get the sense at all that the players' confidence is shaken at all?

COACH PASTNER: Any time you lose you're not going to be in a good mood. But you're not going to show any confidence, that's just normal. We've got to bounce back. We've got a game on Monday. I told our guys this is November. This is why the schedule we've set up. We've got a really good basketball team. I think our best basketball's ahead of us.

We've got to stay the course. We've got to stay positive. We've got to stay upbeat. We've got to look at all the positive stuff that we've done well and the things that we haven't done well. What we haven't done well, we've got to get better at. And that's what we'll get back to practice and work on those things.

These four games that we've played, it's been a great tournament. It's been great for us. So we take these four games and it gives us an opportunity to watch the film and show the guys and things that we did well and did not do well.