Full press conference video and transcript after the jump.
Full UConn Huskies and Michigan State Spartans Press Conference video
THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Connecticut. We’ll stay a statement from Coach Calhoun and then take questions for the student-athletes.
COACH CALHOUN: Well, first thing, I want to congratulate Tom and Michigan State. This ended up being a game of who made the small plays make the big difference. I really felt their bench, 33-7 off the bench, was enormous. I thought early their rebounding, fast-break was great. We were able to equal that in the second half, but quite frankly probably didn’t take as many good shots as we should have.
But every time a coach says that, I think someone usually has something to do with that, and Michigan State probably — not probably — did tighten up on defense. All credit to them. They played a very good basketball team, against a terrific basketball team, who gave us everything they had tonight. Maybe not our A-game, but they gave us everything they had.
As a coach, I can’t ask any more than that. Shots we normally make, things we normally do, we necessarily didn’t. Once again, I’ll turn it over to Michigan State. They just kept — they were relentless. They came out with their game plan. We were able to do exactly what we wanted to do, particularly getting the ball inside, continuing to Hasheem and to Jeff. They were able to run early so the game was exceptionally close.
Anytime, even when two minutes to go, as we started about our eighth run, they had about 15 runs it seems. Both teams had an enormous amount of runs, it was who is going to make that play, make those foul shots, which we didn’t in the second half. That made a difference.
It was one of those game-swinging things. The 72,000 people quite frankly could have been 7,000 people as far as I’m concerned. I thought the court was great. I thought everything about it was fantastic, except for the outcome.
I love my kids. They had an incredible season. They had to start one way, add Stanley, lose Jerome, have some things thrown around for the past couple weeks, and yet we were in a position tonight to advance to Monday.
We didn’t because Michigan State took that. It was there for both teams, and they took that. Give them all the credit. Tom is a dear friend. His team played exceptionally well.
Just as one footnote. Someone asked me, the player on Michigan State that I would like to have. I have a great point guard, I have a terrific four man. Obviously Stanley Robinson is emerging as something special, and Hasheem, et cetera. But I said, you know, Morgan, we recruited him like crazy. Dumbest thing I think I every said. He must have heard that, too, because he had 18 points, and he emerged out of that slump, and was the guy who I thought everybody has always seen. He, to me, may have been the difference maker tonight.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.
Q. Can you talk about Raymar’s game, Jeff?
JEFF ADRIEN: They just did a good job finding him. He ran the floor pretty well. He hit the open jump shots. I came into this game saying the same thing: if they was going to have an X-factor, it was going to be Raymar Morgan. He came out the slump today. Could have waited a couple more days, but he didn’t.
Q. AJ, would you comment on their defensive effort on you and the entire back court.
A.J. PRICE: I think they did a great job being physical with us. They didn’t give us anything easy. We had to work to get ourselves into the lane. Once we got in the lane, they converge. Like I said, they were physical. They just kept their hands up, kept the body on us, made it tough for us to score over the top of them.
Q. AJ, you pulled close there late. Did you feel at that point you had some momentum going?
A.J. PRICE: Yeah, I think we did have some momentum going. We went down 10, then we cut it to four. I felt like we were going to make that final push and try to get the lead back.
But, you know, every time we made a run, they did something to counteract that. You know, hats off to them. They finished the game out.
Q. AJ, how surprised were you at how much they run? Everybody kind of treats the Big-10 as plotting teams. They weren’t that way.
A.J. PRICE: Yeah, you know, they ran the ball off missed shots and made shots. We were kind of surprised by how much they pushed the ball after they many baskets.
I think it took us a little too long to make that adjustment. We didn’t start till the second half to get ourselves back. The whole first half, they did a great job of pushing after made baskets.
Q. Coach said it could have been 7,000 people. Did it feel like the biggest crowd you ever played in front of? Did it make a difference, not just how many people were there, but who they were cheering for?
A.J. PRICE: No, I think coach was right when he said it could have been 7,000. It didn’t make a difference at all. When you’re on the court, you’re not paying attention to the crowd. I know we have a lot of fans there, sorry to say that, but you don’t pay attention to the crowd. You pay attention to the game, try to play as hard as you can. It really didn’t make a difference.
THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much.
We’ll continue with questions for Coach Calhoun.
COACH CALHOUN: I’ll reanswer that 7,000 people there. It didn’t affect us. I think it affects them. That’s the thing I think it does. I think many times a good, mature team, a mentally tough team as ours is, had about 25 different occasions when we weren’t making foul shots, we sometimes had self-inflicted wounds. That didn’t affect us. But when they made very good plays, they obviously had incredible reinforcement. That probably, for them, made a difference. Didn’t make a difference for us.
So did it make them better? When you can go 33 points off a bench, you’re probably much — a very, very deep basketball team, because the guys that start the game for them were awfully good.
I thought we did a good job on Suton. Lucas is one of the best players in America. Seeing him in person, he’s terrific, absolutely terrific. I already spoke about Morgan. I thought we could play Suton. I thought we did a pretty good job with him.
Overall, the wealth of bench talent, 33-7, probably ends up being the difference. We just needed a spark off the bench, just needed something. That was the game that went back and forth so many different times. So many times we’d go up four, they’re up three. We’d go up six, whatever the case may be. I thought it was really incredibly hard-fought basketball game.
They made enough plays, enough things to make a difference. Maybe the crowd does affect the positive reinforcement they were getting for making positive plays.
Q. You just touched upon what you thought about their depth, and could you speak about the importance of Korie Lucious’ early threes, and also, what did you see out of Kemba that you couldn’t quite get it going like you did last week at Arizona.
COACH CALHOUN: You’re asking a freshman in the biggest game of his life to play there. He just didn’t have a particularly great game. He’s a great player. Guess what, pretty good chance might not be there if he didn’t have the 23 points against Missouri. And I just hugged him, he was crying in the locker room, and told him that.
This team, as I told you, is very, very special to me. The season they gave us, you know, I realize that it’s hard unless you’re — “Coach said we went through a lot together.” Sometimes it’s an overused cliché. When you have a player nine or 10 games in, trying to get them going, lose your toughest and second toughest player all around, maybe your toughest kid, which would have been great for tonight, and then have to remake a team with eight games to go, they did.
They never, ever backed away from that after losing to Pittsburgh twice in two tough, tough games, a six-overtime game. This is a special team.
For the rest of my life, I’ll remember this team and for what they gave me this winter. They gave me something very, very special.
Q. Jim, not so much the emotion of the crowd tonight, but you’re aware of everything that’s gone on in this town, in this state. The emotion that they maybe had coming out of the Louisville game. You played a very steady level. It seemed this whole week they were on an emotional high and it carried through the game. True? False?
COACH CALHOUN: Can I be honest with you? Every time I’m honest. Yesterday, I used something that the NCAA asked us not to speak of, the facts of the case. I said a gag order. I was reprimanded about that. Would you please not take everything I say literally, please? I’m trying to do the best I can. I know I’m not very accessible to you. But would you not do that, please? Would you please not do that?
I had to say that because, you know, I was asked not to say it. And they’re right. I’ve just been asked not to speak to the facts of the case, of the review.
Getting back to that. I think Tommy Izzo, the Michigan State kids, this is where coaches really — I shouldn’t even say this — earn their money. Bad thing for me to say, I guess. Although recently, thank God for the John Caliparis of the world. But point being, point being, I think that Tommy has done an a masterful job of putting the woes of the auto industry and Detroit and Michigan on his back. I never thought they could do what they did to Louisville. I honestly mean that.
Tommy Izzo is one of my best friends. He’s a future Hall of Fame coach. He’s probably going to win his second national championship on Monday. Yet I think in all honesty, and I truly, truly believe this, that they played different. We played Purdue. We played Michigan. We beat Wisconsin by 20. We’ve seen teams they played. We saw tapes of the games. And that’s a different team. That’s a different team. And they were different against Louisville. Special. They were close to a special team tonight.
We’re still pretty good. We’re still pretty good. And they were close to special. I mean, it would not surprise me, once again, what happens on Monday night regardless of who they play. And I do agree a hundred percent with you that they’re different than what I saw on tape.
I’ll be very honest with you. That Louisville game shocked me. Not that they’re not good, but I thought Louisville was playing the best of anybody in the United States. And by the end, it was a 15-point going-away game. We were fortunate enough to come back and beat them. They played special. They have a cause. Anytime you have a cause, it’s a great, great thing to rally people around. Tommy did a wonderful job with this team.
Q. You answered a lot of questions this week about your own professional future.
COACH CALHOUN: I really haven’t. People have asked me a thousand times over if we win, end of question, that’s gone. You can put that one away. Very simply, did I think after so many years for people to say things, some of the stuff that swirled around? No. I said a thousand times, though, after every season, the joy I feel for this team, the sadness I feel for this team not getting to Monday night, because that’s what I really, really wanted for them.
You know, would it be the other things in basketball could ever make me go away from basketball? Sure. But I love coaching. I love being with kids. I like the competition. I thought we had a chance with two minutes to go to win that basketball game. It’s where I want to be.
So I have never really questioned. I said I will look, like I do every spring, Dean Smith gave me the best advice, Don’t take it after your worst loss or your best win. Wait during the spring, make an evaluation, how excited are you to coach next year? And that’s a great time to do it. That’s a great time to do it. So therefore it’s the same procedure I would use any year.
But it has been speculated, but that’s mainly because people keep asking me the questions. A, probably would be some people who wouldn’t mind me leaving. And, B, some might be curious (smiling).
Q. You knew going into this game you need a complete game from Hasheem. Much of the first game you got that. Second half he tailed off.
COACH CALHOUN: Disagree.
Q. What was the change then?
COACH CALHOUN: The change was that he couldn’t move. I just felt that every team’s going to adjust. They started triple-teaming him. He did not throw good passes out of the post, obviously. When he did throw, we did not score. He still has the effect, when people go to the lane, of doing things. He still had a 17-point game. That’s the weakest part of his game right now.
The reason I disagree is I think he still is a factor in the game. I would agree with you he was more of a factor in the first half. But I think Michigan State said he’s not going to keep getting layups. The guys on the outside were open. We missed some very, very makable shots. We didn’t basket cut anywhere near as well as we should after the post passes.
It would have been great if you would have been saying what a great decoy he became, a great passer out of the post. He didn’t, you’re right. Total effect, might not have been quite as much as it was in the first half. I still think he had an effect on the game.
Q. Do you think he’s going to come back next year?
COACH CALHOUN: I think his basketball future is incredibly unlimited. So it would be very difficult for me to look him in the eye and say, By the way, you can’t move on. But that’s certainly going to be his choice. Would I like? I would like to have him with me next year, yeah (smiling).
Q. You talked about Raymar. Did you ever have him on campus? Were you in the running for him?
COACH CALHOUN: We stopped recruiting about Michigan since Lyman DePriest in 1990, Highland Park, Michigan. The most difficult place to get kids isn’t the south. Not the west. We have plenty of kids from the West Coast. Kids grow up in this area of the country, more than any other place, it happens in football somewhat in the south, Southeast Conference, particularly, but in this part of the country, the affinity to Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, is absolutely incredible.
And I don’t care how good you are, and how many great pros you have, all that kind of stuff, they have an incredible affinity, so it’s very difficult.
We really recruited Raymar, but it was impossible to get him because his ties were here. And that’s the thing we were never able to break through. We did not have him on campus. We came close. Then he committed I think the weekend before to Michigan State.
Q. Given everything that you got out of this team, given how much you love to do this, why would you even think about not coming back?
COACH CALHOUN: Some of the things, some of the disappointments I’ve had, particularly over the past couple weeks, some people that I really care about who — benefit of the doubt is usually what I try to give to most people, and I think you and I go back a long way, we probably had a couple spats, and I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt after we have our spats. I don’t think with a lot of people who I care about, like, respect, I don’t think they’ve ever given me the benefit of the doubt. For that, it’s a personal thing.
I probably shouldn’t be expressing it, but that’s just who I am. I couldn’t be more disappointed in people who just jump on and make two people all of a sudden become the expert on who Jim Calhoun is. That’s incredibly disappointing to me. And it would be to you, too, by the way. It would be to you because you have respect for them. Then you see the fact that they, in turn, say things without any factual basis whatsoever and just jump along.
So those kind of things — that’s why Dean Smith told me at 67 he got out. It wasn’t basketball. It was the other things. He wasn’t winning enough championships. He was getting too old. So the first part of the question is a hundred percent true. I love the kids, love the game. I don’t plan to go anyplace. But I’m going to give a lot of reflection, maybe more reflection than normal, because of that.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
COACH CALHOUN: Thank you very much, everybody. By the way, Detroit — there was a lot of speculation about how good this was be. I’m not going out of here as a champ. It’s a great place to have a Final Four. I thought the venue was great. I thought the people were great. We’re leaving here, except for the outcome on the court, with an incredibly positive experience. Thanks, everybody.
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