Everything Andy Enfield said after SMU beat Syracuse

SMU head coach Andy Enfield spoke with the media after SMU Basketball beat Syracuse in the ACC Tournament Wednesday night. Here’s what he had to say.

ANDY ENFIELD: Really proud of our team tonight. Defensively in the second half, they played outstanding defense and stimulated our offense. We got some deflections, some steals, some rebounds and were able to push the ball in transition, and I thought our guys played very, very hard tonight.

Q. Coach, Eddie Lampkin has really been the driving force for Syracuse over the last month. How did you emphasize to your team stopping him to stop Syracuse in total?

ANDY ENFIELD: Well, he only got two shot attempts tonight because we double-teamed every time he touched the ball. He’s had an outstanding second half of the ACC season. He’s a very good player, and we certainly respect him.

And so we try to get the ball out of his hands, make him pass. Forced him — on our double-teams, I thought we did a great job of forcing some turnovers, deflections. We got a few steals on tipped balls, and just tried to prevent him from getting a lot of shot attempts.

Q. Similar question along the same lines. What did you do in terms of trying to limit J.J. Starling in terms of his ability to just drive the ball? Was it trying to keep him out of the lane? What did you do specifically in terms of your game plan?

ANDY ENFIELD: He’s really hard to guard with one person. He’s a terrific downhill driver. He made three threes tonight, and that’s usually not the strength of his game, but he was really good. We just had to guard him for 40 minutes with our team. It’s hard to guard him one-on-one, so we just tried to get as much help as we could. Sometimes when he got in the lane, we just switched late just to challenge every shot he took.

Q. Andy, in the second half, the defense was pretty good all night long, but really in the second half, it seemed, really, you shut them down. Did you change anything at halftime?

ANDY ENFIELD: We didn’t change anything. We were disappointed we took a nine-point lead and then made two defensive mistakes that allowed them to get two threes right before halftime, and our guys were upset about that. They knew they made some mistakes. So they came out, it was on them.

You know, coaches can only try to put them in position with game planning and some play calls, but they did a tremendous job of playing together and very, very hard to start that second half and got us out to that lead.

Q. Going back to guarding Eddie, what did you see from your bigs, kind of bringing that intensity to match Eddie’s, and how important is that for your team going forward in this Tournament?

ANDY ENFIELD: Yeah, we’ve been a very good team in the paint this year. We’re not a high-volume, three-point shooting team. We’re a very good three-point shooting percentage-wise, but we score a lot of points in the paint, and that was one of our goals, to try to outscore them in the paint tonight. And to do that, you have to stop Eddie Lampkin, at least limit his touches, limit his chances around the rim. He had two shot attempts tonight, and then we had 30 points in the paint, so we did our job.

Q. Samet left the game for a little bit. I saw he came back. Any update on him? Do you expect him to be fine tomorrow?

ANDY ENFIELD: I hope so. I hope so. He sat out one game earlier this year with an injury. We’ve had a lot of injuries. Boopie was out for five games, Samet one, Matt was out for a few. This is the time of year you need to be healthy. We’re hoping for the best.

Q. Just preparing for Clemson, what do you see going into that game, and how do you keep them even-keeled going into a tough opponent like that?

ANDY ENFIELD: They’ve had an outstanding season. To be 18-2 in the league and not win the league is really amazing, too. But they deserve their ranking nationally. They’re very experienced, very physical. We didn’t have Boopie when we played them at home, so hopefully, that will make a little bit of difference with our speed and play making. But we have to come out and play outstanding defense all night for 40 minutes to have a chance to beat them.

Q. Do you feel like in the second half that the fact that Syracuse played yesterday really played a factor? How much did that play into the game, do you think?

ANDY ENFIELD: I mean, when I was in college, I could play every night. I don’t know. I thought we just played really well in the second half.

We used our whole bench, so we tried to stay fresh, and that was the goal, to try to have a great second half. But we played a lot of guys tonight and used our bench.

Q. Coach, like you said, Boopie Miller has been out for a little bit towards the end of the regular season, played a few games at the end of the regular season. What kind of expectations do you have for him going into Clemson tomorrow?

ANDY ENFIELD: Well, he needs to play well. We’re 21-6 — what’s our record, 23-9 right now? So we’re 21-6 with him and 2-3 without him. That shows you how important it is to have him on the court. He leads us in scoring and assists and he’s our point guard.

When you lose someone like that at a crucial part of the season, it really affected our team. We still battled, won a couple games. We lost some games that probably would have gone a different direction if we would have had him.