University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
3/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Recap | Box Score | Notes
March 11, 2006
COACH Jamie Dixon
Levance Fields
Antonio Graves
THE MODERATOR: Levance Fields and Antonio Graves will be the players for Pittsburgh.
COACH Jamie Dixon: First thing is I don't know really what happened. Our team is very concerned about Allan and how he's doing, and our thoughts are with Allan and what happened. I didn't see the play, but I hope he's okay. That's our first concern, and we've talked about it after the game. He's a great kid, a great player. We've known him, St. Raymond's guy, we've known him for a long time.
We played very well. We rebounded and we beat a very good team a great team. I'm proud of how our guys played. I'm proud of Levon Kendall, how he responded and came back for us and how these two guys played and made plays all night long.
I thought our guys, it was a whole team effort. Just our defense, our rebounding and our decision making was solid all the way through. We were fortunate to beat a very good team, and we've got to get ready for Syracuse now, get our rest tonight. Again, I'm very proud of these guys.
Q. You've been talking about your depth all year. Can you talk about your bench tonight.
COACH Jamie Dixon: Well, I mean, I guess the numbers say it right there. I mean, these two guys here made shots all night. Made rebounded well, played well last night as well.
Bringing Levon off now, I guess you get some points there, too. It's a strength of ours. We use it. We expect it. So it's not unexpected for us. We have good players and we have a lot of good players. That's a good thing to have.
Q. Coach, can you talk about the work off the offense.
COACH Jamie Dixon: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, last two games we've talked about it. I mean, going into this game, when you're talking about a West Virginia team and a Villanova team that are very good at a lot of things, rebounding is not their strongest suit. They are great passers, great shooters, great defenders, a great defensive team, Villanova, but we really felt we had to beat them on the boards in a big way. We did that last night and we did it tonight as well.
It's something, you know, certain teams focus on certain things. Ours is rebounding. We have to win the battle on the boards. We practice it every day. Our drills are based around rebounding, blockouts, getting the rebounds. You don't finish a drill unless you block out. You don't get the point unless you block out. I think that carries over and puts us where we're at rebounding wise.
Q. Either of you see what happened to Allan in the scuffle?
Antonio Graves: No, no, we were on the bench at the time.
Levance Fields: No.
Q. Levance, did you like the idea of the matchup, getting a chance to go against them?
Levance Fields: Most definitely. We feel we have a good group of guards also. We come in, me and Tone will come in for Carl and Ronald, they start off, do a good job. Keith is in there, he does a great job. We heard a lot about them all year. We were looking forward to it. We didn't get to play them in the regular season. I think we held our own tonight.
Q. You've talked all year about not being on team's radars. Still okay with that?
Antonio Graves: Yes, yes, yes. But, I mean, we all like Levance said, we're a deep team. I think, you know, us not being our players on the bench not being on the scouting report, you know, that's little because you have to watch out for us now. Everybody should know now that you have to watch out for us. We're a deep team, we play well together, and we share the ball, so that's all that counts.
Q. For the players, Carl Krauser played 20 minutes tonight. He's been the team leader for several years now. What was it like with him on the bench?
Levance Fields: I think we all did, you know, it wasn't one person. It was a team effort, like Coach Dixon said. Carl was in foul trouble. Early in the season we had to get over that against Notre Dame with him fouling out. Things just carry over. Today, me, Tone, everybody on the team stepped up in his place, and we got the job done.
Q. The way you finished the regular season, did you come in here with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder this tournament?
Levance Fields: Most definitely. We definitely had a chip on our shoulder. Definitely because we lost our last game at home. Being undefeated at home, losing to Seton Hall really hurt us, and West Virginia on the road. Games we both felt we could have won. We wanted to come in and prove something, but at the same time, we're taking it a game at a time. Now we're going to get ready for Syracuse.
Q. Can you talk about Syracuse. You're playing your fourth straight game, both teams. That's even. Can you talk about playing them and the challenges they pose.
Levance Fields: First off, I'll say that I know they said no team won four games in a row, so that's gonna be broken tomorrow. But Syracuse, you know, they got Gerry who is playing excellent right now. They're big down low. We have to attack the zone. We'll have to be aggressive. We'll have to run some of our plays and try to get a couple of baskets in transition. We'll definitely have to attack the zone and play good defense.
Q. You talked about your rebounding, Jamie. What did you guys do, do you think, to force them into bad shots initially?
COACH Jamie Dixon: I thought Coach Sandle did a good job on the scouting report, preparing in a short period of time. Not often do you play a team in a tournament where you haven't played them before during the season. So not a lot of time for preparation.
I thought we had coverage is what we wanted to do. We had a good game plan going in, and the guys executed it throughout.
We knew what they wanted to do. We knew how good they are off the dribble and scoring, taking guys. But our guys just continued and battled. We understood that they're going to make shots. They make tough shots. They're that good. You have to continue to play defense, stick to your principals, stick to our rules defensively even after they make a difficult shot and do it again. That's something that we really stress.
Q. Do you feel you might be one of the teams in the country that might match their guards?
COACH Jamie Dixon: I know how great they are. They're all guys we've recruited. We've known these guys for ever and are aware of how good they are. It's not a surprise that they've become as good a players as they are. I do have a lot of confidence in our players, I really do. Sometimes our numbers may not be as dramatic as others because we play four or five, we play five of them really and sometimes six. We understand that, our guys understand that. They understand the sacrifices that come with that. It's a big part of our team.
But they know that each time and we know it's not a surprise that these two guys are up here tonight. They've done it before.
COACH JAY WRIGHT
KYLE LOWRY
RANDY FOYE
COACH JAY WRIGHT: We really haven't had a game like that this year where we just felt like we couldn't get things going offensively. Then I thought that Pittsburgh, once they got a hold of the game, did a great job of just controlling the tempo and hitting big shots, making free throws. We've usually been able to, when we weren't scoring, take people out of what they do offensively with our defense and create some shots. I just think Pittsburgh's guards did a great job of controlling the game and taking care of the ball. They just did a great job against us.
Q. Can you talk about Allan.
COACH JAY WRIGHT: Allan has a serious injury, but he's doing okay. He's being evaluated right now. That's really all we can say at this point.
Q. How much did his lack of presence on the floor hurt you guys?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: He's one of our top players, that obviously makes a difference. But we have won games and I think that's what's made us a good team all year we've had games without Mike, we've had games without Allan, without Kyle, and we've found a way to win. We couldn't do that tonight.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the players.
Q. Was it hard for you guys, just having your minds on Allan?
RANDY FOYE: When Allan got hurt, Coach just brought us in a huddle. He said, "Don't worry about that right now. We'll worry about it after the game. Just keep our heads into the game, just keep playing hard."
Q. Does it change the way you look at the rest of the season?
RANDY FOYE: Allan, he's a big part of what we do. But if he is, like, out for the season or whatever which I doubt but if he is, then we just have to come together like we did before. Like Coach said before, Allan has been out, Mike has been out, and the team just came together. We came together and got even closer and just tried to go out there and just play as hard as we can.
Q. You guys, did Antonio Graves surprise you with what he was able to do today? Did you see that on the scouting report, he could hurt you that way?
KYLE LOWRY: It was on the scouting report. He just got it going. He was getting good looks. Every good look he got, he hit it, knocked the shot down. It wasn't surprising. He just got it going. Couldn't do anything about it.
Q. Along those same lines, Pitt has a lot of new players, Levance Fields, Sam Young. Talk about not seeing them before and their contribution.
COACH JAY WRIGHT: I mean, we got to see them a little bit on TV. I'm very impressed. If you played in that game against them, you have to be impressed. They had all the answers. When we double teamed them, they made the extra pass, they hit the three. When we pressured their guards, took their guards, they went inside, and Gray made big plays. They defended very well. Really got to give them credit.
I think they get great leadership from Krauser. I think their young guys are really good. I was very impressed.
Q. Considering that you guys start with four guards, is Pitt the type of team you fear going in? Can that team cause more problems than most because of the matchup?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: Yeah, that team can give us trouble. As I said, we have found ways in the past to eliminate that or make up for that, and I just give them a lot of credit. I thought they did a good job on the glass obviously. I mean, they killed us on the glass. But we've usually been able to be tough enough to outrebound people or spread the floor out a little bit so they weren't able to be around the basket. I just thought they just did a good job of keeping their big guys around the basket and letting their guards control the ball.
Q. As much as I'm sure you're disappointed right now, losing the game and not winning the tournament, is that affected by your concern for Allan? Are you in a strange place right now with how you're feeling?
RANDY FOYE: Yes, we're concerned about Allan right now because he's one of the leaders on our team and he's a big part of what we do. But we know if Allan can't play, we still have to come together as a team and we still have a job to do.
Q. Curtis getting injured, Jason is injured, Mike. How are you coming back from that?
COACH JAY WRIGHT: Hey, we won a BIG EAST Championship and made it to the semifinals and we got good kids, good students, good families. There's worse things in the world. They understand. They'll come back from this. They'll come back.
Q. What do you say to the team to keep them going? They're having a tough night, what do you say to the guys on the floor to keep it going?
RANDY FOYE: Just tell them keep playing defense, just stay focused on the floor, don't worry about anything on the outside. Just stay focused, keep playing hard, keep fighting.
Q. Jay, you came close before. Given the depth of the conference now, did you think it was inevitable that some team was going to win four games in four days? Someone is going to do it this year, obviously.
COACH JAY WRIGHT: You know, I didn't. I didn't think someone would do it this year because of the depth of the conference, because of how much every game is going to take out of you.
This is real impressive, both teams, Pitt and Syracuse. It doesn't surprise me, any of the upsets, because, you know, we knew we could get beat any night. But it surprised me that somebody is going to do this, and it's probably the only way you could do it, if two teams played four nights and then play each other.