March 12, 2009
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
LAS VEGAS - COACH FISHER OPENING STATEMENT: I thought our three performances against UNLV were good, better and this was the best one. This was the best of the three. And it was keyed by our seniors. You see three of the five right here that were determined to play with poise when stress hit and make important plays, make plays you don't draw up on clipboard. And they did that to a man.
But I'm more proud of our group collectively, and in particular our seniors who have done so much for this program. I think it's fitting for them to play on. So they led this team. They led this team to a victory against a really good team that is almost impossible to beat here, and we found a way to do it.
Q. Lorrenzo, significance of beating this team in this building twice this season and twice in five days.
Lorrenzo Wade: It's pretty big. We knew coming into the Mountain West Conference tournament this was gonna be a game that had a championship feel to it, especially playing Vegas on their home court.
We know that it says Mountain West Conference on the floor, but we know this is Rebel nation. We had to come in here and buckle down defensively and go from there.
Q. Everybody had made such a big deal out of beating this team three times. Did you think maybe you had them on their heels as much as you might have had concerns that you couldn't do that?
Lorrenzo Wade: You never really know with a team like this, especially with a player like Wink Adams. You saw in the first half especially when he gets on a roll, they're a totally different basketball team. So, no, I didn't feel like we had them on their heels at all, especially because the records in this tournament were 0-0. So it really didn't matter. You just had to come here and do what you had to do to get a win.
Q. Lorrenzo, I can't help but think that your experience, I noticed this was a while back when you were with Louisville, playing in all these big games, had to serve you personally well at the start of this portion of your career. Can you talk about any correlation between the time you were at Louisville and the way you played today, way you were able to lead.
Lorrenzo Wade: Playing with players like Francisco Garcia, Ellis Myles, Taquan Dean, you learn to carry yourself on the court. You learn to keep your composure and how to lead.
What you don't want to do out there as a leader is lose your cool. You want to remain as confident and positive as possible with your teammates. Coach preaches that each and every day. Watch how you say things to your teammates. Have some compassion for them. That's what we try to do as senior leaders. We know we might get the majority of the touches, but each and every person on our team is just as valuable.
Q. There were near 11,000 people in the stands. You could hear the Aztec fans. Talk about that. Did that affect you at all on the court?
Richie Williams:
It's great to come out here and have some support. We didn't think our fan base was going to be as big as it was. But we knew we were going to have to come here and take care of business. This is UNLV's home court. We expected them to have the majority of the crowd. So we wanted to make sure they were sitting down the whole time and make stops defensively.
Lorrenzo Wade: I was excited to have as many people here from San Diego as we did have.
I personally didn't expect for there to be 11,000 people at the game. You know, I figure students would be in class and everyone else would be at work. But they managed to make it out. It was a great atmosphere out there. I definitely appreciated it.
Q. Kyle, could you have played a better first half? How important was it to survive that first eight or ten minutes, especially coming back into this building?
Kyle Spain: I believe this game, all of us came out with a lot more passion than we have in the previous games. Every minute of the game is important. But I believe the most important is in the second half. That's when we really needed to buckle down. Some people get stiff. Some people get sore. That's when the concentration level needs to increase.
Q. Lorrenzo, as a senior, this is the time of year where it might be very easy to play for yourself and be selfish. You were never more unselfish than you were today. Is there a maturity about you that has come over the last few months? If so, what brought it about?
Lorrenzo Wade: You know what, I actually try to follow Coach Fisher's lead. Coach Fisher is the head honcho at San Diego State. He doesn't make anyone else feel they're less of a person than he is. He's a very unselfish guy with our assistant coaches or us as players. I basically go out there. I'm an extension of Coach Fisher out there on the court. It's not about me, it's about us winning as many games as we possibly can and achieving a goal as a team.
Q. Every year, going into the tournament, people talk about beating UNLV because it is such a tough thing to do on their home court. Now that you have done this, do you feel this is your tournament to win?
Kyle Spain: Every game is the most important. I mean, the next game will be just as important as was the first one. Although the first game is the most important in the tournament, every game is going to be extremely difficult to play.
Q. You've had your struggles with BYU this year. What's the key to knocking them off this third chance?
Lorrenzo Wade: You know what, we have to go out there and we have to play defense. We have to control the basketball, limit our turnovers. Again, it all just comes back to defense. If we can maintain or defensive intensity, I believe in the last two to four minutes of a game, we're gonna be right in there with anyone in the country.
Kyle Spain: What Lorrenzo said (smiling).
Richie Williams: Oh, yeah. I mean, Lorrenzo pretty much touched on it. Play defense, take care of the ball, get back on defense. They're such a well disciplined team. They run well and get a lot of baskets on their transition offense. So as long as we slow down guys like Fredette and make Cummard take hard shots, I think we'll be fine.
Q. Coach, because you beat this team three times this year, twice in this building, two times in five days now, is it a little more difficult because you and Lon know each other so well?
COACH FISHER: It's impossible to beat them once. Lon is a terrific coach. Everybody knows that. He's done a phenomenal job with this program. He's as classy a guy as there is in the country. And I have great respect and love for him.
We know Barb and his family. He coaches and he's got good players. And that makes it hard.
You know, we're playing against his players, and he's kind of moving 'em around.
To come in here and win twice in the same season is significant. I mean, look at what they've done in the course of two and a half years or whatever it is. They were 30 1, I think, coming in against Mountain West Conference teams, and we were the only team to beat them. Now they're 30 2. That's hard to do.
They play. They are good. They're good anywhere, but they're phenomenal at home. And we found a way to do it.
Again, you got to have good players to do that. We've got good players, also. We've got a veteran crew of good players that stepped up. Lorrenzo had no turnovers today. He had the ball in some tough situations. Richie did a great job with the ball. We had 20 turnovers against them at our place, and that was the number one key. We said, We can't turn the ball over 20 times against them. We had two first half turnovers, seven for the game, and it was huge. Easier to guard when you can run back either from them taking it out of the net or having to get a hard defensive rebound.
Q. You heard me ask Lorrenzo about the maturity that seems to have evolved over the last few months. Could you speak to it. Maybe, could you pinpoint if there was a certain juncture where you saw this maturity.
COACH FISHER: I wouldn't know it in terms of from a playing standpoint. But when you're really good and Lorrenzo is really good at times you try to do a little bit too much. And that doesn't mean that you're selfish, but at times it looks selfish.
We came in here Game 1. Lorrenzo was sick as a dog. He was 0 7 from three point range, took some ugly looking three point shots. I didn't like some of the shots he took. I think it boils down to some degree of trust not only trusting yourself but trusting the four other guys that are out on that floor with you. Boy, he was good today, as was our team.
I think if you start moving the ball and share the ball, it becomes infectious. If it sticks in one guy's hand, and it doesn't matter who it is, then it all of a sudden sticks in the next guy's hand.
But today, and it was everybody, but Lorrenzo epitomized it. We moved the ball. When people were open, we found them. We got good shots as a result of that.
Lorrenzo is a good player and he's a good, young man.
Q. You realize by beating them here today in this setting you probably have the contract to remain here extended by another four years. Can you talk about that. Is that okay to keep coming back here, now that it's proven it can be done?
COACH FISHER: You know what, I'd just as soon not talk about that right now. I'd as soon talk about the game. It was a great atmosphere. There's no question about that. Talk about our team, getting ready for the next game.
That's for wiser men to talk about later on. I'll probably have a little input on it, but not right now.
Q. Talking about the next game, what were the challenges certainly not unique to this year, but with BYU this year, you'll have to overcome next time around?
COACH FISHER: Well, I'm hoping that we can do a little bit better job at guarding, a little bit better job at taking care of the ball, make some shots, when they put a zone against us, do a little better job of handling that.
They're a good team. Three straight years they've won or tied for the conference championship. They're also very well coached, and they can hurt you in a lot of positions. It's not just Cummard or Tavernari or Fredette. It's all of them. They're good. It's a good team.
We're going to have to play hard. If we do, we'll have a chance. We had a chance in the first two. Late in the game, at their place, we make a steal that if we could have got it completed would have made it a two point game with under a minute and a half to go. Game 2, everybody says we gave it away. If I'm BYU, I would be insulted on that. They came back and took it. Ebbs and flows occur no matter who you are. They made plays and made shots more and better than we did.
Hopefully we'll make a few more tomorrow.
Q. What didn't you like about this game today? Can you think of anything?
COACH FISHER: I thought that we played very good basketball. And somebody asked the question of the first half. It was important for us to get off to a good start. We talked about playing with controlled desperation because we knew that's how Vegas would play. And I thought we did that.
We made some shots. A couple of 'em, it kind of hung on the rim and went in. We maybe got some good fortune that gave us a boost. But we played really, really good basketball almost for 40 minutes. When you don't turn the ball over, and Vegas makes you turn the ball over, and they put you in really tough positions. They turn you over for layups, they turn you over for open threes, and we did not let that happen today. That was so critical to our success.
We were good. We were good in an environment where if you crack for a moment, they would pour right through. We did not do that. Yeah, I liked pretty much everything we did.
Q. You were able to get out to a really fast start, keyed by Amoroso. How important was it to get out to a fast start and not allow UNLV to get into the game?
COACH FISHER:
It's always easier playing with the lead. It's hard when you're double digit down and you come back and cut it to seven, eight, nine, then all of a sudden the other team hits a shot. It's always easier when that happens.
We were able to do that. We fought 'em off. When we got that first half lead, they came over with six minutes to go. Lorrenzo, as we were talking as coaches, I came in, he says, Carry it into the half, carry it into halftime, carry the effort, carry the lead into halftime. And I think that was very important.
In our first game, I think we had an eight , nine point lead. All of a sudden two baskets and a turnover, it's a tied game. We didn't let that happen today.
COACH KRUGER: The ballgame, I thought San Diego State played great. I thought they had a lot of control of what was going on on both ends of the floor really from start. Made a little bit of a run there in the second half. San Diego State made plays they needed to at critical times to keep the margin where it was.
Again, thought they played awfully well. Wish them luck as they go forward.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll open it up for questions for the student athletes.
Q. Wink, can you talk about the game you had today. You carried the team offensively in the first half. Did you feel like you were going to have to do that the way things were going?
WINK ADAMS: Definitely. You know, my teammates told me to be aggressive today, do things in offense. Today, you know, I felt like the shot was dropping and I was getting to the free throw. Tonight was basically defense was going to win this game. Tonight San Diego State did a great job kind of attacking our defense and getting to the free throw line.
Q. What made it click for you tonight as opposed to the previous three or four games?
WINK ADAMS: Just wanting to come out. Just like I say, teammates kind of pumping me up in the locker room before the game, telling me they really needed me to come out and hit shots. Today I was focused. I felt good at practice yesterday. Today it just kind of carried over into the game.
Q. René, you picked up two quick fouls. How much of that took you guys out of your game? How disappointing was it for you to pick up the two quick fouls?
RENÉ ROUGEAU: Very crucial, you know, just kicking myself sitting on the sideline. It definitely was killing me inside just watching our team play. Just got to play smarter. You can't really worry about what's going on with the rest or nothing like that. Just got to play through and play a lot smarter.
That's been my Achilles all year. It was definitely very frustrating and disappointing to watch from the sidelines.
Q. How disappointing as seniors will it be to have to sit through the selection show, not knowing what may happen, knowing in reality it could be bad?
WINK ADAMS: It's really tough. Everybody wants to make the NCAA tournament. But, you know, you just got to wait to see what happens on Sunday.
I think our team fought, but we had some breakdowns. Proud of our team for what they did. We could have did better. We just got to wait till Sunday and see what happen.
RENÉ ROUGEAU:
Just like Wink said, us being seniors, it's definitely frustrating. You work so hard up to this point in your senior season. All credit goes to San Diego State. Seemed like they were hitting everything tonight, whether we had a hand up or not. All we can do is just hope for a miracle right now.
Q. René, talk about how tough they are to defend. They seem to get to the rim pretty much whenever they wanted to, dribble penetration.
RENÉ ROUGEAU: Yeah, we just had a lack of focus tonight on defense. Them being long in range, we got to do a better job of getting down, moving our feet. Richie Williams does such a good job of penetrating for them. They definitely had a great game plan coming in. We definitely wanted to take away their post up. They definitely countered that good tonight.
Q. René, what would you say to a selection committee after losing to them three times about why you need to be in?
RENÉ ROUGEAU: Basically us being seniors, we definitely worked real hard all season. We definitely have had some quality wins. Without a doubt we for sure have had some tough losses. All we can do is just pray that we can get in.
Q. Are you in a certain sense kind of astonished right now that you're sitting here with all the pre season expectations looking at NIT? Has that registered yet? If so, what are you thinking right now?
WINK ADAMS: You know, I think at the end of the season we all say at the end of the season you never want to say, I wish I could have did this at the beginning of the season. That's what we doing now. We think we could have played harder in a lot of games that we lost. I mean, just been up and down and shaky. We still in season, so we just got to stay positive and see what happens.
RENÉ ROUGEAU: Just like Wink said, whatever happens, whether we do make it to the NCAA tournament or the NIT, all we can do is just make the most of that basically. It doesn't matter where we go. We still can make a lot of noise, regardless.
So we definitely plan on working hard, definitely pushing our teammates harder than ever before. Q. Lon, as much as you prepared for them and watched film and everything, especially when Wade shoots like that, is it going to come down it seemed like you couldn't guard them well enough to beat them. Is it true or no?
COACH KRUGER: We didn't guard them very well. I thought the last two ball games we did much better on the defensive end than we did on the offensive end against them. Today I didn't think we covered them well at all. I thought they made shots, of course.
I thought they just did things in a rhythm and pace they wanted to. We didn't disrupt anything. We didn't keep them from doing what they do every day in practice. When you do that, teams get in a good rhythm and you expect them to shoot it well. That's how much control San Diego State had of the ballgame.
Q. You know what an NCAA tournament résumé should look like. Could you make a case for your team based on the wins and the win total?
COACH KRUGER: I think it would be realistically, you know, I'm not going to give any committee the reason to not select us, but I don't know that we've done things at this point that you'd sit there on Sunday expecting to be in.
If that answers your question...
Q. You had a couple opportunities to cut it to under 10 points with under 10 minutes to go. How big was it for you not to get it under 10 points? Do you feel you could have made a run to get back into it?
COACH KRUGER: What can we have, 11 or 9, never get under 10? 11 with three or four possessions, it seemed like we had opportunities. We just couldn't get a bucket at that point.
I thought during that stretch, we had gotten into a pretty good rhythm defensively. We didn't do that very often during the day. So I thought defensively we were giving ourselves a chance during that short stretch. Then we couldn't make shots on the offensive end.
Again, that's what you have to do to come back from a big deficit like that. It's tough to dig a hole like that and get all the way back.
Q. I say this with all respect, but typically most basketball teams that are good teams get better as the year goes on. Obviously a case could be made that this team peaked out at Louisville with that win. They certainly didn't seem to be getting better in the stretch run. Can you address that?
COACH KRUGER: Yeah, I thought we were just up and down all year. I don't know that we ever had a stretch where we say week after week after week we consistently did things better. That's obviously what you're looking for every year. We didn't.
We were inconsistent in every aspect of the game, whether it be shooting, rebounding, defensively, offensively. We just never did find a niche where we felt like we were consistent in our improvement.