Tennessee basketball handed Montana its second loss of the young season on Wednesday night, using a big second half to coast past the Grizzlies 92-57.
Following the game, Montana coach Travis DeCuire met with the media and discussed the strong play of his sophomore guard Money Williams, what makes Igor Milicic Jr. tough to defend and more. Here’s everything DeCuire said.
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Opening statement
“Rough night for the Griz. We had a little more fun in the first half than we did in the second half, obviously. I think Coach Barnes’ halftime speech was a little better than mine, in terms of getting this team ready to go in the second half. But I thought we did a good job defensively in the first half taking away some of the rhythm, some of the shots that they were trying to get. Obviously, some some fouls. Got some of their better players out for some stretches, which allowed us to make some runs as well. Second half, they ramped up their defensive intensity and I think we lost ours. To give up 63% in a half, regardless of who we were playing, is not like us. I don’t know the last time we’ve done that. But Chaz Lanier obviously going early in the in the second half and I thought that was a difference in terms of getting that team going.”
On what Montana guard Money Williams did to have such a strong game
“Money is good at making plays, whether it’s in a ball screen or in space. I think he generates offense for us in a lot of ways. Tonight he scored the ball, he made shots. But there are times when he is creating shots for others as well. We just did not have a great shooting night. So he felt he needed to score more for us to stay in the game, which was true.”
On what adjustments Montana made on defense after Tennessee started 6-for-6 from the field
“Our biggest thing was beat screens. Coach Barnes still plays a style of basketball that I believe in. A lot of people call it a old school, where you set a lot of screens away from the ball for shooters. From watching them in film, we saw that they really set screens very well. So for us, our goal is to beat the screens, to get through them and not require a bunch of help. And I thought we did a good job at the first half. As fatigue set in, fouls set in, I think we just did not execute that as well in the second.”
On what makes Tennessee’s Igor Milicic so difficult to guard
“Well, he wasn’t difficult to scout. We we knew he made over 100 threes in his previous school, but he hadn’t been shooting threes, or at least not very many. And so they hadn’t really been catering to that. Obviously they made some adjustments. They watched us defensively saw how aggressive we are on the ball screens. So they were looking for that early in the half. And then he got open for some drop-offs and lots out of ball screen coverage. But that wasn’t necessarily him making a play. That was that was (Zakai) Zeigler making a play.”
On Montana’s defense forcing nine first half turnovers
“We wanted to be physical. We wanted to apply pressure on everyone other than Zeigler. We thought containing him was the most important thing. Not a lot of assists coming from other people. So we thought that if we could apply a little pressure on the post and the wings and force them to try to create, that maybe we could either force some turn some turnovers or low-percentage shots, which that did happen early. But eventually they got out of that.”
On Money Williams being able to attack the Tennessee defense
“We got we got a little taste of that last year. He only played 12 games last year, but his best games were Houston, Nevada. So when the lights are bright, it’s typically when he can’t show enough. Unfortunately his season ended early with an injury, so we weren’t able to see that level of consistency. But we knew he was capable of that.”
