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00:00 >> Obviously, a tale of two halves against second half, God, I haven't been good.
00:04 And I know they went to zone, but your three just gone away.
00:10 >> Yeah. >> It's been them, is that the zone or
00:13 you, the opponent or you?
00:16 >> I wish I knew, I don't.
00:21 I'm not sure I got a great answer for you right now.
00:25 Obviously, by our body language,
00:30 by the way we shot it down the stretch.
00:35 Our level of confidence, our level of swagger, whatever you wanna call it.
00:42 We didn't shoot it the way we needed to shoot it down the stretch.
00:45 We didn't lose the game cuz we didn't make shots.
00:47 That's not, I don't want it to be like that.
00:49 South Carolina's really good, really good, really connected,
00:53 tough, physical, sound, 25 assists to nine turnovers.
00:58 And we, I mean, we pressed most of the game.
01:01 Man, solid, they can beat anybody in the country when they're playing well.
01:09 And their zone was really effective.
01:14 They've only played a few possessions all season.
01:16 It's a great call by Coach Paris.
01:19 And after those first couple offensive possessions, we lost some mojo for sure.
01:26 >> Mike, why were answers so hard to come by in the paint with what they're doing
01:30 offensively?
01:30 >> I thought that they passed it really well to one another.
01:37 We probably exerted ourselves a little bit too much with press and
01:41 with trapping of the post.
01:46 We were cross matched at the end of press at times cuz we were zone pressing back
01:50 to man.
01:52 We were doing some switching with Mac because he presents problems
01:55 with his picking and popping, his ability to stretch you from three.
02:00 So as we're switching, when he was cross matched onto guards at times,
02:04 it required a fire up post.
02:07 And then our sprinting out or
02:09 rotating out of some of those fires were just a little bit slow.
02:13 It made us pay late clock a couple times with a couple big daggers.
02:16 But they do a good job too just with their passing, just simple plays.
02:22 Just they pass it out of a double team.
02:26 The next guy catches it, he looks to the interior.
02:29 And they've got big physical guys that get wide, demand the basketball,
02:33 catch it cleanly, and drew fouls and scored at point blank.
02:38 I thought Murray Boyles as a freshman is just a physical presence,
02:44 a very, very good player.
02:46 Josh Gray I thought was a huge factor off of the bench going seven of 19 plus 15.
02:52 They had their way on the interior.
02:54 >> There was a stress in that second half where you guys nearly went eight minutes
02:58 without a successful shot from the field.
03:00 Just what did you just see as far as the issues that you guys had scoring in
03:05 that second half?
03:06 >> I think that stretch included, was that all zone, would you remember?
03:10 >> I love it, yeah.
03:12 >> Yeah, and it may have been all of it,
03:16 you would think they jumped into it after a basket or two.
03:21 I don't know that without watching the film, but that was a big factor.
03:26 Again, Davis, stunning playing cat and
03:30 mouse with our ball handlers at the top of the key with his length and size.
03:35 Gray on the interior, Murray Boyles at the nail, and
03:40 their wings did a good job preventing us from throwing into the corners.
03:44 We tried a couple different things.
03:46 We had four guards out there with our fives.
03:49 Certainly, I don't know about the first couple possessions,
03:56 but after that I thought we had some pretty good looks.
03:59 And a zone that's packing the paint to that level
04:04 sometimes requires you just to step up and make a shot.
04:10 And we weren't able to do that.
04:14 Unfortunately, we're a really good shooting team and
04:15 we showed that in the first half.
04:16 Again, great call by Coach Perez.
04:20 >> RJ, Belinda has only had five shots and he got off today.
04:24 I think you had your best plus/minus.
04:26 Your starters, is it a matter of having a hard time getting the ball in his hands for
04:30 shots or other people maybe see a lot of volume with no degree of a low percentage?
04:35 >> I thought we did a poor job cutting today.
04:37 They're really good at defending one on one.
04:43 And we had a few possessions where we over dribbled it a little bit
04:46 along the baseline, as I'm sure you guys saw.
04:50 And as opposed to these guys collapsing and allowing easy kicks,
04:54 they stay extended like a few other teams in our league.
04:59 And we weren't live enough as cutters, active enough as cutters to the rim or
05:05 searching to the corner or searching, just cutting to the top of the key.
05:10 We did the raise your hand and kind of walk back to half court and
05:14 throw me the ball and we get nothing out of that.
05:16 We tried to play in more continuity stuff today.
05:23 We tried to keep the tempo up.
05:25 We thought that would be to our advantage.
05:28 That's why we pressed, that's why we tried to trap in the post.
05:31 We were a little bit less call heavy.
05:33 In learning from a couple of the other games here,
05:40 where we've struggled against really good opponents as of late Tennessee and Bama.
05:44 If I could have those back going into this game,
05:48 we probably would have been a little bit more continuity heavy,
05:51 played more downhill, continued to play like we did offensively in the first half.
05:56 We tried that today, really sold out to it and didn't get a lot out of it.
06:01 So it's trial and error, right?
06:03 We gotta reevaluate this weekend and
06:07 on Monday and figure out what our best chance is on the road.
06:12 >> Is there a fair to say that it was a looser?
06:15 When I look at the free throws, I've seen disparity between them.
06:19 It appears there's a disparity between the way games are called.
06:22 Is that just common knowledge, like in umpires,
06:25 some referees are gonna call the game, allow a lot more physicality,
06:28 like today maybe than others, or maybe?
06:30 >> Yeah, I think each game's different, I do.
06:33 And I think the best crews as a team have a feel for it.
06:41 And try to be consistent throughout the game.
06:43 So as players and as coaches, if it feels different,
06:49 you just gotta adjust.
06:50 >> Third trade game, the opponent shot above 50%.
06:53 >> My God. >> So what's gonna change in the defense?
06:55 >> A lot.
06:56 Our wallops, I know they didn't shoot a ton of free throws,
07:03 but we had four or five silly fouls.
07:08 Our communication, especially in our guys' defense,
07:13 we hadn't pressed a ton.
07:15 I'm not sure that whether we pressed too much or not.
07:20 I have a better answer after I studied the film closely.
07:23 Probably exerted ourselves a little bit too much.
07:27 And then so in some of our rotations, especially playing from behind there late,
07:32 some of the baskets were so easy.
07:35 Based on, I think, guys just being really fatigued and
07:38 our level of communication dropped.
07:40 We got two guys running to the ball and
07:44 then all of a sudden two guys are running away from the ball.
07:46 As opposed to one guy yelling ball, simple stuff.
07:49 But guys, I think, really tired.
07:52 Our guys played really hard and
07:55 their poise was terrific versus our pressure as we're trying to fly around and
08:02 just create havoc at the end of the game.
08:04 Credit their guard play down the stretch, their decisions.
08:08 >> I just wanna be clear, they don't play much zone.
08:11 I mean, that was typically.
08:13 >> No, they've only played a few possessions of zone all year.
08:18 >> Okay. >> The entire season.
08:19 Yeah.
08:20 I mean, it was a- >> You said a couple times,
08:23 it's a good move.
08:24 >> Yeah, it was a very surprising move.
08:26 We didn't anticipate seeing much zone.
08:29 But it's a zone they played early in the season.
08:31 We spent a little bit more time on it for our game in Columbia.
08:34 But it was a game that, excuse me,
08:39 it's a zone that they had success with last year.
08:42 Again, they played it a little bit more last year.
08:44 We saw it in here.
08:45 I wanna say we saw it in Columbia last year as well.
08:48 >> This is y'all's longest losing streak of the season.
08:50 Just what needs to change to get you guys back on track before having to go on
08:54 the road to start?
08:55 >> Well, I mean, you can win games a lot of different ways.
09:02 I mean, we, as inefficient as we were defensively at times,
09:06 you make four or five of those threes in the second half, you win the game.
09:10 You feel like, hey, we wanna use a great win, but we gotta defend better.
09:13 If you depend on a really high level, we could have shot it the way we did and
09:17 gotten away with it.
09:18 So I mean, we're gonna focus on everything.
09:19 We're gonna focus on being the best we can be.
09:21 We'll meet on Monday.
09:23 At length, three in a row, so
09:29 something these guys, we haven't been through this season.
09:31 It'll be heavy film and talking on Monday.
09:34 And we'll try to talk some things out, long staff meetings.
09:37 And figure out what gives us the best chance moving forward.
09:41 Is it different actions?
09:43 Is it a different tempo?
09:44 Is it different defensive schemes?
09:47 Get guys in the shot.
09:47 We'll do a lot of player development, hoping that we can shoot it better and
09:53 score it more efficiently overall.
09:56 But certainly in the second half moving forward,
09:59 we actually made some changes today.
10:00 We've seen this team come out early second half a little bit
10:06 lethargic at times, definitely last couple home losses.
10:11 And made wholesale changes to what we did at halftime today in terms of film,
10:17 in terms of the time that we give our guys to meet on their own.
10:23 Give our guys to go to the time that we give our guys to go to their lockers,
10:30 the time we give them to kind of recharge.
10:33 Did some different things today, so we'll keep reevaluating those things.
10:37 We just haven't been quite sharp in second halves here lately.
10:40 >> You said the other night you've got a group of guys that are basketball fans,
10:44 watch the games.
10:44 >> Yeah. >> Do you think being in
10:46 the postseason conversation has maybe taken a toll at all?
10:48 >> I'm not sure, potentially, yeah.
10:54 I mean, I thought late game today, just like late game Tennessee,
10:57 late game Bama, we look like the weight of the world's on our shoulders.
11:00 We don't look the same.
11:02 And I've gotta figure that out.
11:05 I've gotta help these guys.
11:07 Because if you just, if you play to your identity,
11:16 if you play to the way you played the first 15 minutes of the game for 40,
11:19 better things are gonna happen, right?
11:21 And what I wanna keep preaching to these guys is let's stop looking at the scoreboard.
11:27 Let's stop with all of the distractions.
11:29 We have, there's 9,000 in here screaming for us and
11:31 we're not used to the decibel level in this building.
11:34 Let's embrace it, but let's not rest on it.
11:37 Let's control what we can control.
11:41 And we just, South Carolina's doing that at a really high level right now.
11:45 And we've done that at times.
11:49 We did that in the first 20.
11:52 And yeah, we gotta reevaluate.
11:56 And thank goodness we got nine more and then we got an SEC tournament.
12:02 We'll see where it goes.
12:02 But we got in this league in 2024, you got a bunch of great opportunities.
12:09 You got every night's a great opportunity.
12:12 So we just gotta get back to work Monday.
12:14 >> What is the question?
12:15 >> Last question.
12:16 >> Yeah, I was asking, Blue King had a moment there.
12:20 That 9-0 run into freshman.
12:22 >> Yeah. >> That's something to build off of.
12:23 Where does Bill Blue gotta build his game to be a deeper player, minute-wise?
12:28 >> I mean, the way we're defending collectively right now,
12:34 there's an argument for a lot of guys to get more opportunity.
12:40 He's gotta continue to progress defensively as all freshmen do in our league.
12:47 And then shot selection and ball security, those things.
12:54 Fouling, we all hate him with his fouls, but you asked the question.
13:00 Just the reach around foul consistency.
13:06 But he had a good game.
13:10 He did some good things.
13:11 And he's got a chance to be a really good player.
13:17 Thank you guys.