Butler 75, Providence 69
THE MODERATOR: Let's go to questions, please.
Q. This one is for Pierre. You guys seemed to have a lot of success in the paint with those floaters off screens and stuff. Is that something that you guys had prepared for, or is that something that you adjusted to early in the game?
PIERRE BROOKS: It's something that we've been doing all season, so just getting in the paint, working on tough shots every single day at practice. But depending on the way teams play us, it depends on, like, scouting and things like that, but the way they played us tonight, we were able to get in the paint and convert on those opportunities.
Q. Pierre, if you can go into that a little bit more, just the screen and roll? You put them into ball screens quite a bit.
PIERRE BROOKS: Like I said, it just depends on scouting, but just getting everybody involved, not letting anyone off the hook, really. Just trying to keep the bigs engaged, keep the guard engaged, and coming off screens. Like I said, it depends on scouting and whoever gets in paint to convert. That's what really happens.
Q. They made runs towards the end of the first half and going into the second half, as well. How were you guys able to keep your composure?
PIERRE BROOKS: We've been going against runs all year. I've been saying that we have an older team, so I feel like we should be able to withstand those runs with teams going on. We have veterans on this team who can pull us in, pull us back together when those teams go on runs.
So today we showed that we can withstand that run and push back when we need to.
Q. Landon, you had nine points on the second half. What does it mean to kind of be that bench spark plug and be able to enter yourself in the game and have so many big moments like you did today?
LANDON MOORE: It means a lot. Every time I get in the game, I always tell myself when I leave the game, I made a positive impact. I was able to do that today, thankfully, to help the team out. Yeah, just whenever I get in, play hard, make the right plays, and just make a positive impact while I'm out there.
Q. This is for Thad and Pierre. You guys obviously played St. John's twice, played them tough twice. Just what is that challenge going to be like? What does the next 18 hours for the team look like?
PIERRE BROOKS: So, basically, it's a home game for St. John's. It's going to be pretty packed in here, so we have to come in as one and come in calm and collected and try to get a W.
We gave up a lot of offensive rebounds today, and we know St. John's crashes the glass, so tomorrow we need to make an effort. We pride ourselves on boxing out, defending at a high level. If we do that, we have a great chance of winning.
THAD MATTA: We just played them a week ago or two weeks, whatever. In the guys' minds, we'll refresh them. As a staff, we're prepared. We will get back and get into it, but the good thing is you knew who you were going to play if you won, so we're prepared for that.
As Pierre touched on, we had some breakdowns, transition offense -- or transition defense. In the first half they got us for some points and a foul. Then the rebounding, I mean, those are two things that St. John's does at a very, very high level. Obviously they're the best team in the league, so this is a great opportunity for our guys.
I'm excited to play the game. Hopefully the players are.
Q. Coach, in the first two games against Providence they put up 84 and 81 points. This game they only had 69. Was there anything you guys did differently defensively?
THAD MATTA: It's funny because in Game 1 up there they manhandled us off the one-on-one. My genius mind said, we won't let them do that in Game 2. They hit 16 threes.
So I thought tonight we did a much better job of guarding one-on-one and guarding the three, which is a credit to these guys because that was what we had. We had to do both tonight.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports