Logo

Athens, GA (Mar 21, 2009) - Ohio State lost to Siena last night in double overtime by a score of 74-72. This is the transcript of the Ohio State post-game press conference as provided by the NCAA and ASAP Sports.

THE MODERATOR: Joining us this evening are Ohio State student
athletes Evan Turner and Jon Diebler. Coach, an opening statement,
please.

COACH MATTA: Well, it was an odd we were never I didn't feel we were
ever mentally out of 50 minutes in the game the way we needed to be
tonight.

And I don't know if it was I'm not sure what it was. We never had a
flow going even up 11 points. We didn't handle pressure well. We
didn't rebound the ball well. I give us credit. We kept playing, but
obviously Siena made some huge plays down the stretch. A couple of big
shots.

We didn't do what we were supposed to do, and that's what happens
when it comes down to possession by possession. Give them credit,
their guys made the plays.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes only, please.

Q. Evan, talk a little bit about the last possession. I know you
guys didn't have a lot of time, what you were trying to get and how it
felt coming off, if you thought maybe you had a shot there.

EVAN TURNER: They were just taking the ball to pass it in, so I
could get a full head of speed and try to drive it to the rack. But I
was driving, somebody got in my way, I had to go to the left a little
bit. And I saw the clock, and it was still at one so I tried to put up
a three. It felt good. I probably didn't follow through like I should
have and it went out. Shouldn't have come down to that, though.

Q. Jon, their defense was fairly effective all game on you. Could
you talk about what they were doing and what things were bothersome?

JON DIEBLER: I think they just were mostly running guys at Evan, and
then trying to stay home with me. But when I did get open shots I
didn't knock them down. I thought Evan did a great job for creating
for guys on the team, but it came down to their guys making shots, and
we had open looks that didn't go in. You have to give them credit,
they played pretty good team defense on us and we didn't shoot that
good of a percentage.

Q. Evan, Coach McCaffery said sometimes you guys were playing not to
lose, did you feel that way?

EVAN TURNER: What do you mean?

Q. I assume he meant being conservatively, not being aggressive, you
were ahead and trying to hold them off as opposed to

EVAN TURNER: I think in certain situations I think he wanted to
speed us up and I think we slowed it down in certain situations. We
saw at the end of the game when we took our time and ran our offense,
we're scoring pretty much any time we wanted to.

I mean, shoot, we shot like 45 percent for the game which was pretty
good. And I mean when you say playing not to lose, sometimes we just
made bonehead decisions, turned the ball over when we shouldn't, we
gave up 3s. It was just stuff that didn't help us win.

Q. Jon or Evan, as you look at the stats, what offense rebounds they
got and the turnovers you had against their pressure, was it kind of
what did you in last night pretty much the same thing that cost you
guys throughout the season when you did lose, offensive rebounds and
turnovers?

JON DIEBLER: I just don't think we did a good job on the weak side
rebounds our wings dropping and sinking, I think knowing our bigs,
especially Dallas and B.J., when they go up and challenge shots, and
Evan did a nice job challenging shots. They got in the middle. I just
think we needed to do a better job sinking and trying to get the guys
off the glass, but it's been kind of a thing throughout the year we
need to do a better job rebounding. I think it came back and got us
tonight.

EVAN TURNER: In all that, they were still chasing us. They hit a
couple of shots to tie the game, take it into overtime. They hit a
wide open 3 where the ball bounced around a couple times and landed in
the player's hand and hit a 3. And it was a wonderful game and they
were chasing us and made some big plays.

Q. Could either of you guys talk about how you're going to view this
season? Obviously getting to the tournament a positive but ending in
disappointment in the first round?

EVAN TURNER: The season was good, I think. Young players grew up. I
think Jon Diebler and myself got more experience as far as becoming
leaders and trying to lead our team. It was just a good growing
season. We're glad we got our foot in the door in the NCAA Tournament.
But this is Ohio State basketball. We've got different standards.
Coming in fifth in the Big Ten and getting an early out in the
tournament isn't what we want.

So just go back, have some great workouts, be ready for next
November and get it cracking.

JON DIEBLER: Kind of like Evan said. I think this was a good
experience for us because we are such a young team. And just to use
this as motivation, especially in the workouts, because I think last
year the guys that came back from last year's team really took going
to the NIT and not making tournament motivation and I think we got a
lot better. So I think guys are really going to work hard in the
offseason, and like Evan said, we hold ourselves to higher standards
and making the tournament, that's our goal, but we just don't want to
settle for making the tournament. We want to make a run in the NCAA
Tournament.

So again it's going to be motivation for us.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. Questions for Coach.

Q. Siena had five players who had two tournament games under their
belt from last year and that experience and you didn't have that. Did
that play any part today, do you think?

COACH MATTA: I think it may have. I think that they were obviously
they never dropped their heads and they just kept coming, which we had
seen that in them, and we had seen them down against some teams big
and scraping, clawing back into it.

I do think the fact of being through it or going through it
obviously does help you, and having guys that are on the floor that
have been in these situations you know without a doubt it's something
that I think is advantageous for the teams that has those guys.

Q. Thad, you've obviously had lots of big games in your career.
What's your emotion after this game? Are you angry at all? Do you feel
like you guys let this one get away? And how does this maybe have you
felt like this very many times in your career?

COACH MATTA: Yeah, I think that I haven't really had time to sit
down and think about it. I think as I look at what this basketball
team has done this year, I'm extremely, extremely proud of the
progress that we've made. I think from that standpoint, when I look
and say what this team, with 22 wins and just the way it's come
together, that's exciting to me.

I think that it is disappointing to lose a double overtime game. I
don't care if it's your home opener or NCAA Tournament, because
there's so many plays you can go back and look and say had we done
this, had we done that, and I think as I get out of here and really
sit down, I'm sure I'll get a bit pissed off.

Q. You're up 3 on that last possession of the first overtime when
Moore made the 3 to tie it. Did you think about, were you calling for
the foul or what?

COACH MATTA: Yeah. We were. And I don't know what honestly what
happened. We had said if we hit 1, we're up 2, do not want to give
them a 3. The ball will be coming off on the second one.

If we got up 3, we definitely wanted to we were going to attempt to
foul, make them shoot the free throws it kind of worked out because he
kept dribbling around dribbling around. I was waiting for it but it
never happened.

Q. Their rebounding, this is an obvious question, but how
disappointing was that? Beat you 53 37, whatever it was?

COACH MATTA: I don't know. It seemed like they had four in the first
two possessions, I think, and we just we didn't get the job done, and
like Jon said, I think a few on the weak side. But balls were hitting
us in the hands and we weren't coming up with them. And obviously
obviously something we've got to get better at.

Q. You talked about how, I don't know, didn't look like their heads
were in it or whatever. Why do you think that is? Is that youth or
what is that?

COACH MATTA: No, I don't know. We didn't when I say that, we had the
attacks down that we wanted to do. And we were very, very hesitant on
the offensive end. And a few of the turnovers we had, and I don't
know, it just never seemed that we were the emotion that we play with
and I don't know if we were star struck or I don't think that was the
case, because of what this team has been through.

I never ever worried about that coming into this game. I just don't
know. It just wasn't from where I was sitting or standing, it just
didn't seem like we had it. Picking our dribbles up, we weren't
flowing the way we needed to.

Q. Turner came up big for you guys all season long. How good of a
look do you think he got there at the end of the game?

COACH MATTA: I thought it was a pretty decent look, about as good as
you can get in 3.9 seconds and they executed the action to perfection.
I thought it was pretty decent.

Q. Did you talk with regulation about trying to foul out these guys
as they're killing you?

COACH MATTA: No, it's easier said than done that we're going to foul this guy out or whatever. They're a team that doesn't foul a whole lot anyway. And so that always sounds good, but we don't have the NBA rules in there where you can stand one on one and that sort of thing.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.