Wes Miller, Simas Lukošius Texas Postgame
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00:00 First off, congrats to Texas.
00:03 That was the second best college basketball game.
00:07 When you lose a one possession game, it hurts.
00:10 Losing always hurts, but when you lose like that, it stings in a really serious way.
00:16 First thing, I was proud of how we kept fighting all night.
00:21 Didn't think we were engaged early.
00:27 Defensively, we certainly had a ton of trouble with Isu.
00:30 Isu was in the high ball screen, and they kept going through it over and over again.
00:35 The one guy that we found that could defend in it was Camille.
00:40 That's honestly why he was playing so much.
00:43 We found that he could defend in it, and he finds his way on the other end,
00:47 scoring on the box, which was good to see him come alive.
00:50 We've been seeing that since the summer.
00:53 I think it was helpful for his confidence.
00:56 But I was disappointed in how we defended the ball screen there.
01:00 A couple turnovers are really disappointing.
01:03 Both games, you know, here in the league play, we just turned it over at an
01:07 incredibly high rate, and that hadn't been the team we've been.
01:10 But you look down, you know, you've got multiple guys with two,
01:14 and you've got a couple guys that are starters with three and four.
01:18 But we've got to do a better job taking it away because they turn turnovers
01:22 into easy baskets all night.
01:25 That's the kind of stuff that you know the reason is you lost the game.
01:32 What I don't want to hear about is free throw shoot.
01:37 The thing that I'm -- I hurt every time we lose.
01:41 Our players hurt every time we lose.
01:44 But nobody's going to beat himself up more than John Newman,
01:48 and that just -- that breaks my heart.
01:50 That breaks my heart.
01:52 And it ain't fair because he shouldn't do it.
01:55 One mis-free throw on a one-on-one does not define the game.
02:01 But he's going to do that to himself, and I just hate that.
02:04 We're going to have his damn back because that's not it.
02:07 There's a thousand reasons why we had a chance -- we had two chances
02:11 to get stops tonight.
02:13 We didn't get stops.
02:14 That's why we lost the game, not because of free throws.
02:17 So, I break my heart for that.
02:19 But some good performances tonight.
02:21 D.C. Moss was special.
02:23 I thought he was special.
02:25 And he made big, big-time plays down the stretch when our team needed him.
02:30 And that's what big-time players do.
02:32 We've known that about him for a long time.
02:34 He's been battling a bunch of injuries all fall, a bunch of crazy stuff.
02:38 But he was special, special.
02:41 It was good to see Jameel come alive.
02:44 You know, Victor's kind of inconsistent all year.
02:46 I won't kind of go down the list.
02:48 But D.C. was a load.
02:51 I thought him at the five with the pick-and-pop threat makes them a
02:55 completely different team.
02:57 You know, we didn't -- we thought they might do some of that.
03:00 But Chedrick must have gotten -- I think he was grabbing his back in the last
03:03 game, so that must be why he didn't play.
03:06 But I think D.C. was just everything we could handle.
03:09 And we talked about everything we could possibly do at halftime.
03:14 But Millie kind of gave us the best chance.
03:16 I think Millie was guarding it was the way that he tried to get a pick.
03:19 And he seemed to guard it a little bit.
03:21 But they didn't have quite the same level of success.
03:24 How much does it impact -- it felt like your guards were doing a good job on
03:29 Ace, Miss, and Hunter, where you don't want to change up what you're doing
03:33 with those coverages, but you have to adjust.
03:35 Because he's who gets on.
03:38 Yeah, I mean, it's not like as simple as like they asked on the radio show,
03:44 "Let's put John Newman on the screen, and who do the other guys guard?"
03:48 There's chain reaction.
03:50 Certainly we talked about it.
03:51 If you go to switch it, and, you know, Gissel -- Day Day was great on him.
03:57 Gissel was good for the most part.
03:59 He had some breakdowns.
04:00 They get him out of the timeout on the back door.
04:02 Gets him for three, you know, getting through the screen.
04:05 But Day Day was great on him.
04:08 But then you switch it.
04:11 Well, now you got Little on Big, and he's going to walk you out of the box.
04:15 And that's okay because maybe you can double it.
04:17 But then you got Big on Ace, Miss.
04:19 So it's not -- I mean, I know a lot of people --
04:22 that's what makes college basketball great, people watching, caring.
04:25 People ask those kinds of questions.
04:28 It's not like we're idiots if we're sitting there talking about it.
04:31 And, again, Millie had a lot of success.
04:34 And so we felt like we could get everybody to do that.
04:37 I thought Millie on him was really good.
04:39 Other than, you know, he doesn't kind of beat him to a spot there
04:43 and he gets the foul and he gets up the floater over the top.
04:46 But I thought he was pretty good.
04:47 And I thought the shot that he made,
04:49 the decent shot he made, his last basket, the face-up shot,
04:52 we'll live with that.
04:53 I thought Millie might have even gotten a handle on it.
04:57 So that's just how it goes sometimes.
05:00 You know, as Coach talked about how tough those ones are,
05:04 how much is this feeling going to motivate you
05:06 and how vindicating is it for the best group of people
05:09 that are some of the best teams in the conference?
05:14 It's very disappointing.
05:16 I wouldn't say we were worried at all about proving anything.
05:20 You know, we knew how good we are and we knew we belong.
05:23 But, yeah, in terms of disappointment, we have a few hours to be sad.
05:29 But we knew what we were coming into with the Big 12.
05:31 And tomorrow we've got to come back ready and prepare for Baylor.
05:36 Wes, can you talk about the energy that it takes to play a game like this?
05:39 And obviously the Big 12 games are going to be full of energy.
05:44 What's the energy it takes to play a game like this?
05:51 I mean, playing the best basketball league in America,
05:54 it's going to take an elite effort.
05:57 And you can't have possessions you take off.
06:00 So, effort, I don't think anybody that watched the team would say,
06:04 "Our guys are disappointed. Our players are effort."
06:07 But the effort plus the focus and attention to detail
06:10 is going to get better.
06:12 We've got a lot of work to do.
06:15 But, yeah, it's going to take a lot of effort in these games.
06:19 That's what it is.
06:20 It's the highest level of college basketball.
06:22 It's awesome.
06:24 There's an incredible atmosphere in there tonight.
06:28 That's what we all came here for.
06:32 It hurts like hell when you come up in the possession tree.
06:36 It seems like there's been a fair amount of layups, obviously.
06:42 We missed some.
06:44 We missed some.
06:46 I don't know how much the defense has impact on it.
06:48 We just missed one blank layup.
06:50 Sometimes if you miss it two, three feet over the top,
06:54 that gives the defense credit.
06:57 We got point blank layups at the rim all night.
07:00 We didn't convert those.
07:02 You look down, you score 73, and I don't know how many layups we missed.
07:05 It felt like a ton.
07:07 I've said it for years.
07:10 I never coached a player that wanted to miss a layup.
07:12 I never coached a kid that wanted to miss a free throw.
07:15 I don't dwell on it, but we'll just get back to work and practice.
07:19 The crowd was loud. Are you disappointed?
07:22 It wasn't a slow-moving, over-the-top play?
07:26 I thought our fans were unbelievable.
07:30 I thought that was a high, high-level environment.
07:34 You know, as you go seven to ten for the field,
07:36 you really just kind of take over, great takeover of the offense
07:39 in the final five minutes, crunch times.
07:42 That's one of the multiple times you've done that this year.
07:45 Do you feel like you can confidently take that mantle
07:47 and be that go-to guy in the final minutes,
07:49 especially in high-level atmosphere?
07:52 Yeah. Yeah, I can.
07:54 I don't know what else to say, especially when my shot's falling.
07:57 And I know I can make the right decision
07:59 if it's creating a shot for myself or a teammate.
08:02 But, again, we have a lot of guys that have that capability,
08:05 so it's not like I'm sitting here saying I'm the go-to guy
08:08 because we have more than five people who can be that.
08:13 So, yeah.
08:15 Is there a thought process or a mindset you enter in those moments
08:19 where you're like, all right, I'm feeling it,
08:21 I can feel my shot going down, if there's anything different,
08:23 you can go sub for 10 and really stay as efficient?
08:29 Not consciously.
08:31 It's not like I'm thinking about something specifically,
08:33 but I guess in those moments,
08:35 like sometimes maybe we're not running a play
08:37 or it's just you have to go get a bucket,
08:39 and that's just the bigger difference,
08:41 that you're not trying to execute a set.
08:43 You're just playing one-on-one and trying to make a play.
08:46 How many times have you practiced that ISO back down?
08:49 Not that much.
08:53 We have time for two more.
08:57 Did you get a good look at the last shot, whether or not --
09:13 As that final sequence played out,
09:15 what's the thought process for you not using timeout?
09:20 Yeah, good question.
09:24 You know, it's like when you give up a basket late in a tie game
09:28 or a one-possession game, it's a coaching strategy question.
09:33 Do you get it out quick before the defense is set,
09:36 or do you call timeout, let the defense set,
09:39 get exactly what you want?
09:42 My experience, my opinion as a coach,
09:45 if I was at a coaching clinic, I'd tell you there's no right answer.
09:49 What's the best thing for your team?
09:52 And in that situation, we work on running and getting out quick every day.
09:57 We work on getting out quick and running,
09:59 and we've worked on that situation in practice.
10:01 We've told the guys, if you get scored on late in a one-possession game,
10:04 get it out quick, and let's see if we can get something good
10:07 before the defense is set.
10:09 We didn't get it out as quick as I would like, but we practiced that,
10:13 defined that to our team.
10:16 Anybody could say you should do this.
10:18 That's BS.
10:19 There's no right answer.
10:21 The answer I'd tell you as a coach is, have you worked on it with your team?
10:26 Check.
10:27 And, you know, is it consistent with your style of play?
10:30 Check.
10:32 Listen, I didn't think we got the greatest look.
10:35 I would have liked it if they did a nice job of stopping the break
10:38 around half court, but, you know,
10:40 this guy gets a clean look at the basket to win the game.
10:43 I think given the scenario, we all would have taken that.
10:46 Have you thought to foul on third or last possession
10:50 because you had one to give?
10:52 Yeah, but, you know, that's tough.
10:54 That's tough to signal in; right?
10:57 Yeah.
10:58 That's tough to signal in, and then you're really worried about fouling
11:02 in a shooting situation or whipping a guy.
11:04 Now, we work on fouling in other situations and giving situations,
11:08 but I think that's pretty tough.
11:11 I had that timeout.
11:13 If I didn't have to burn it on the out-of-bounds play, on the side out,
11:18 we might have called timeout before the free throw
11:20 and talked through that with the team.
11:22 But I had to burn it to get it in, and you don't want to burn the last one.
11:25 So, certainly, these are -- like you guys,
11:28 I know that this is what y'all do for a living.
11:32 But I'll tell y'all, we're not always going to be right.
11:35 We think through it and we work at it.
11:37 So, we're going to have a reason for why we do everything.
11:40 We're never going to just fumble as a staff.
11:43 Thanks, guys.