Here are the postgame quotes from UConn Huskies players Shabazz Napier, Jeremy Lamb and Ryan Boatright as well as head coach Jim Calhoun after their 77-64 loss to the Iowa State Cyclones in the second round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament.
Transcript courtesy of ASAP Sports:
THE MODERATOR: We’re going to go ahead and get started with the University of Connecticut press conference. We’ll begin with a brief opening remark from Coach Calhoun. Coach?
COACH CALHOUN: I’m as surprised as anybody. Clearly. I imagine our players are too. Fred and the Iowa State team showed up at a different speed, a different level than what we played.
At times we certainly made a dent and came back, but the opening few minutes kind of set the tone for the game. When we did come back, we didn’t have enough whatever it may be to stay with it. I thought we still had opportunities to win the basketball game.
Give them all the credit, Iowa State. There wasn’t too many ways in which they didn’t beat us tonight. It’s very disappointing to have to end the season this way. I’ve cared about these kids all through the season. I continue to care about them.
Somebody asked me was it a disastrous season? If UConn goes to the tournament and wins 20 or more games every year, I’m pretty happy. I’m not happy with the way we played tonight. I’m sure the players aren’t happy with the way they played tonight. If I were Fred, the Mayor of Ames, I’d be happy with the way they played tonight. They played at a different speed, and that’s why they won tonight’s game.
THE MODERATOR: We’re going to take questions for the student‑athletes.
Q. Shabazz, could you just talk about how the opening minutes went for you? Coach mentioned he thought they came out at a different speed. Is that what you saw and what you felt out there?
SHABAZZ NAPIER: Yeah. They came out, and they threw the first punch. We weren’t ready for it.
It’s my fault I didn’t get my guys ready for the game, and as a point guard, you’re supposed to guard the speed, and I didn’t allow myself to do that. Just not playing as well as we should have. We lost the game in the first half. We gave up a lot of points, down 24 points.
You do that in the NCAA Tournament, more often than not, you lose the game. The team you’re playing against is a great team.
Q. Ryan, you had it down to eight a couple of times, but both times they had three‑point plays to go back to 11. Then you had those shots back to back where you got it down to 6. Did you think at that point you guys had the momentum that maybe you could get back and at least tie it?
RYAN BOATRIGHT: Yeah. Once we cut it to six, I felt like if we dug down a little deeper and tied it up, maybe it’s going to crack.
I felt like they had made their run and it was our time to make our run. But they made plays at the end and we didn’t.
Q. Jeremy, did they do anything special defensively on you early in the game? Looks like you had trouble getting free a couple times?
JEREMY LAMB: They didn’t do nothing special. They were a good defensive team, but I was able to get free. I just had open shots and wasn’t able to knock them down.
Like I said, they played good team defense, and they contested my shots. A couple of them they contested, I could have made, but I just missed some easy shots.
Q. Shabazz, you’ve played on a championship team now and now one that went out in the first round. Can you sort of define what the fundamental difference between the two teams and the seasons were?
SHABAZZ NAPIER: Effort and attitude. We had a great player last year who brung it every single day. And as a point guard, it’s my job to bring that. When you don’t bring that effort and attitude to be that leader for your teammates, you lose games.
More often than not, you sit up here talking about what you could have done and what you should have done.
To see what Calhoun had to say about the loss, click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We’ll open it up for questions for Coach Calhoun.
Q. Jim, can you just talk a little bit about the foul trouble Andre had, and how did that impact what you wanted to do?
COACH CALHOUN: I don’t think any single foul situation‑‑ except for us missing foul shots‑‑ really didn’t have anything to do with the game.
The game was the fact they played 40 minutes full hard and fast.
At times we came back and played pretty good basketball. But in the main, we had too many shots at the beginning of the game, getting down to 24, back up to 8, back up to 14, down to 6. They played 40 minutes. We played sporadically and thus was the game. Foul situations really had nothing to do with it anything.
Q. Jim, I’d like to ask you the same question that I asked Shabazz. You had a lot of the same players on this year’s squad that you had last year. Obviously, you lost Kemba. What do you think was the difference between last year and this year?
COACH CALHOUN: We won the first game last year, and we lost the first game this year. I don’t know what to tell you. You saw the game. We played very poorly. We deserved to lose the game. They deserved to win the game. Last year we played Bucknell and beat them by 25 points. We deserved to win. They deserved to lose.
Mike, we played very poorly. I don’t know really what to tell you. I’m sure our kids are‑‑ I feel badly that Shabazz is trying to take credit for it. Shabazz wasn’t the problem. We collectively didn’t play like Iowa State did.
And last year during the six games, or whatever games, and last year is last year. This year in the past couple weeks, we played much better basketball collectively together for 40 minutes. Tonight, we were very sporadic in the way we played. We’d get back into the game, then out of game.
A lot of that was self‑induced, but it was taking advantage because of the way Iowa State played. Any comparisons to last year, as I said to a thousand people, we won the National Championships last year, the trophy is tucked away, safe, locked. We’re starting this season in the NCAA Tournament with an opportunity, and that’s what tonight was, and we didn’t take advantage of a great opportunity.
I thought that Iowa State took great advantage of the opportunity. I’m not trying to be a jerk to you, but last year and this year have nothing to do with each other. They really don’t.
Q. Jim, what will be the process you’re going to go through here to decide if you’re going to come back and coach next year?
COACH CALHOUN: We’re talking about tonight’s game. We’re not talking about me. I think we’re talking about that. I’m going to get on the plane tomorrow, go home, and do what I usually do, and meet up with the team on Monday.
So as far as my own personal thing, I don’t think it has any relevance here, to be honest with you.
Q. The disappointing result tonight notwithstanding, do you look back at this season as more of one that’s disappointing or one that’s rewarding.
COACH CALHOUN: That’s a good question because it has got to do with tonight’s game.
More importantly, I discovered being away from the team for eight games and almost four weeks, that this team‑‑ and I think I might have expressed this yesterday‑‑ put a great deal of pressure on itself for no reason. So when you ask about last year, last year is last year. It’s done, finished, complete. To make any comparisons is not valid because it’s not the same team. You change one player, you change it, leadership and go‑to guy and all those kinds of things.
The only thing I can deal with is I think this team got better at particular points in time. But I always felt until recently‑‑ tonight was an exception. You’re right, it’s a disappointing ending. That there were some things that made me feel good about this team. I like coaching basketball. I hated the ending today because I didn’t think we were typical to the way we played the last couple of weeks.
I really thought we competed a couple times against Syracuse, beating West Virginia, and some of the games against Pittsburgh, 3 out of 4 games. The most important thing, and it will always be rewarding when dealing with young guys. It’s always great to stand on the podium. You only get so many chances to do that.
Tonight’s game was a disappointment. This season was not a disappointment for me because I knew, quite frankly, that this team could be very good, and we just didn’t reach the level.
There’s been a lot of people saying this happened, that happened, so this should happen. I still go back to Roy Williams’ team in 2009 after the National Championship and how much they struggled. And at times, that’s who we were, trying to find who we were. Always fighting ourselves‑‑ I don’t mean fighting each other, but fighting ourselves, who’s going to be what.
If they just kind of grew up a little bit, we were much better off. But I always felt badly this team fought itself so much and probably could have achieved a little bit more. As far as kids, they came together to get themselves in the NCAA Tournament. We keep producing 20‑game seasons at UConn and getting into the tournament, have better results than we did tonight, I think we’ll be happy.
Q. Jim, young players being young players, human nature, do you think there’s any chance they may have peeked ahead a little bit to the possibility of playing Kentucky?
COACH CALHOUN: I really don’t know that. It’s obviously a valid question because we had two great‑‑ we played Kentucky last year in the classic game of the semifinals in the National Championship, and the kids do know each other. If they did, they made a hell of a mistake. I don’t think they did.
For whatever reason, we got caught as being nothing more than a street sign as they went by us a thousand miles an hour in that first ten minutes of basketball. We did regroup, came back, which I was very happy to see, but I can’t‑‑ I never felt we weren’t ready for the game.
As a matter of fact, I felt we were really ready for the game and obviously disappointed that we didn’t play better.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.
Here’s the Iowa State postgame transcript if you’re interested as well.
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photo credit: Bettina Hansen – Hartford Courant (No. 9 in gallery)
Erixon, 21, has tallied eight points (one goal and seven assists) in his last nine games with Connecticut, including a power play goal in a 3-2 win last night against Bridgeport. In the month of March, Erixon has recorded one goal and five assists in six contests. He has registered three goals and 30 assists for 33 points, along with 36 penalty minutes and a plus-four rating in 43 games with the Whale this season. Erixon leads all AHL rookie defensemen in assists and ranks third in points. He also leads all team defensemen in points and assists, ranks third on Connecticut overall in assists and sixth in points. Erixon has posted eight multi-point efforts, including a career-high, three-assist performance on November 23 vs. Portland, and recorded a season-high, four-game assist streak from February 4 at Hershey to February 11 at Manchester, tallying five assists over the span. He registered an assist while making his AHL debut on November 2 at Bridgeport, and notched his first career AHL goal, a power play tally, on November 12 at St. John’s.
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