The Creighton Bluejays held a press conference following their 85-55 loss to Baylor in the third round of the NCAA tournament. Below are some of the highlights of the press conference, which can be found in its entirety here.
Head coach Greg McDermott
‘I’m not sure if it was Baylor being that good or us being that bad or if it was somewhere in between. Over the course of a season, you’re going to have a few clunkers, and we had one at the wrong time. Obviously, we’re giving up a lot of size and a lot of length across the front line. We had to do something to combat that. We chose to come off some of their guards rather than the big to big double early.
‘To their credit, Chery and O’Neale really made us pay for that. So, they knocked us back on our heels, and we weren’t able to really ever recover. I thought their slides in the zone to take away Doug and Ethan were a little different than what they’ve done in the past. We got the ball to the middle of it, and at times we made plays and at times we didn’t…So I tip my hat to Baylor. They played a great basketball game tonight. The way they shot the basketball, I’m not sure our best would have even been good enough tonight.’
Doug McDermott on Baylor’s zone and length
‘You know, it’s something you can’t really practice until you see it for the first time. Those guys are really long and kind of compared them to John Henton who we saw a couple years ago in the tournament, and we definitely struggled against them too.
‘So you’ve got to give them a lot of credit. We were a little frustrated early and kind of carried over the whole game. Those two guys inside are both heck of a players and wish them the best.’
Doug McDermott on not getting open looks from deep early
‘Yeah, I mean, we really didn’t know what they were going to do. We thought we could maybe get a few easier looks from the perimeter to start the game. When we’ve done that all season, gotten off to good starts shooting threes, it’s always been a good game. But they made it tough. They forced us to get it in the middle of that zone, and it’s hard to score over those guys they’re so long and athletic where they challenge every shot in there. So to their credit, they took away what we do best and kind of controlled the tempo of the game and made it hard on us.’
Greg McDermott on taking his son out for the final time of his career
‘Well, obviously part of the problem is that I had too much darn time to think about it because we were getting our tails kicked so bad. If you get beaten on a last?second shot, those things don’t go through your head. But it’s been an incredible journey, and I really wish every parent could experience what I’ve had the opportunity to experience. I’ve had a front row street for history, and it was my son that was doing it.’