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NCAA MEN'S FIRST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 16, 2015Brian DardenReginald JohnsonEdward JoynerDeron PowersDAYTON, OHIO THE MODERATOR: We'll open up the floor for questions for the student-athletes. Q. For each of you, was there a point in the season where -- I mean, you had kind of a bad start. You had a bad middle part -- was there a point in the season where you thought, hey, maybe we can actually do this, we can actually get where you are now? Was there one particular point where that hit you where -- DERON POWERS: To me I think it would have to be the first tournament when we got in the MEAC Tournament because in the last two years we lost in the first round, and we had winning records for both those years. For like this year once we got the first win that's where we set the tone for the rest of the tournament. BRIAN DARDEN: To piggyback on what he said it was after we got that first win it was like is getting over the hump, like we've been going through the last two years, and I felt like we really just turned it around mentally as a team. REGINALD JOHNSON: Start of the MEAC Tournament did it. Over the years the guys had lost the first round the last two years and getting over the hump kind of showed us we can do things we did. Q. Reggie, any odd feelings, fond feelings coming back to this area? REGINALD JOHNSON: Yes. It's fond feelings. I remember playing here when I was at Miami-Ohio. It will be good to see some of my friends. I know the area, so it's kind of coincidence coming back to this area. Q. What led to leaving Miami? REGINALD JOHNSON: I just didn't feel like it was the right place for me to finish my college career. And that's why I decided to transfer. Q. When you saw the bracket, the pairings pop up, did you kind of chuckle to yourself knowing you were coming back to this area? REGINALD JOHNSON: Me and my mom talked about it right away. It was just coincidence. Q. Reggie, no Dwight for the MEAC Tournament, did you felt you needed to step up when he didn't play and you obviously came through with the MVP? REGINALD JOHNSON: Deron Powers was actually the MVP. Q. Sorry. REGINALD JOHNSON: We had to step up as a team. We also had a lot of other guys -- Emmanuel Okoroba, Charles Wilson-Fisher and a lot of guys just stepped up as a whole as a team did their part. We came together and we played together every game and that's what got us through. Q. That iconic image from 2001 when Hampton won their first game. Anybody remember that? You were pretty young at that time. Do you remember that, for each of you, and did it have an affect on your choice to come here? DERON POWERS: I was actually -- I didn't really know about it too much until I got here. But now thinking about it now, we're here now it's going to be big for us to try to accomplish what they did back in 2001. BRIAN DARDEN: Pretty much the same, something we're looking forward to, after seeing that win and knowing about it, it's like, man, we possibly could do it, too. Just believing. REGINALD JOHNSON: Pretty much the same thing the guys said, just trying to do what they did. Q. I realize you guys have another matter to attend to tomorrow night first. But there's probably a couple hundred teams in America with guys just like you who looked all year at Kentucky and said, geez, wonder what we'd do against those guys. Now could be your chance. Have you thought at all about what it would be like to play, number one, a team that a lot of people think may not lose this year? REGINALD JOHNSON: I mean, we thought about it a little bit, but it's actually funny we was just talking about it in the back how we can't keep talking about Kentucky, we have to play through Manhattan first. So it's a little bit on the minds but mainly just focusing on Manhattan and what we have to do tomorrow night to win. BRIAN DARDEN: Just looking at it taking one game at a time. Making sure we stay focused as a team. DERON POWERS: Like he said, right now Kentucky is a side note, something in the back of our heads, but it's not the focus of us right now. We're focusing on Manhattan. Once we get past that we can think about the big game of Kentucky. Q. Deron, what do you know about Manhattan and what have you seen and look out for tomorrow? DERON POWERS: We watched a lot of film. We'll probably watch more later. What we've seen we know they have a big rebounder in No. 13. I forget his name. But him and their defense is kind of wild. We'll have to use some ball face and stuff like that. Get them out of their rhythm on defense. And we run a couple of attack points. We're going to use those tomorrow and see how that will work out. Q. Opponents haven't shot very well, do you think defense is a strong point or what do you think you need to have go your way to win tomorrow night? BRIAN DARDEN: I think defense is a strong point. As a collective unit I feel we play extremely tough overall defensively. Q. Guys, why has the shooting improved so much when you were playing scope in the MEAC Tournament and are you happy you're coming two days playing off the tournament when Manhattan has only had a week off can you guys keep the momentum going for scope? REGINALD JOHNSON: Yes, it was pretty much the same idea we had going into the MEAC. It was a blessing for us to play the first day, and we feel like the same thing, with us playing Tuesday with just coming off the game on Saturday, kind of stealing the rhythm, picking up and keep going and not too much time to dwell in the moment. Q. You guys have a losing record. There aren't a whole lot of teams that make it into the NCAA Tournament, even to this stage with a losing record. Is there a part of you that thinks this is an opportunity where we can kind of prove something -- that a lot of people put us down because we didn't even get to. 500 and we have an opportunity to do something about it? DERON POWERS: Definitely. I feel like we get kind of a bad rep for our record this year. It doesn't really tell -- you can't really tell from that record, a depiction of our team what it is. So I feel as far as a record we're going to find out what we're going to do in the tournament. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Opening statement from Coach. COACH JOYNER: We're happy to be here. That's about as open I can get. We're playing four games in four days. It's probably a quick turnaround for us but it's probably the best thing for us because now we don't have time to think; we just gotta go play. Just hope we have the legs for it. But I have faith in the young men I have. I think that they will, but other than that, again, as I said, we're happy to be here and we're coming to play. Q. A week or so ago what were you hoping, did you think that your team had this possibility, or was this something that you thought, hey, if we just play hard and we just get through this tournament, and you had injuries that hurt you obviously or did you think this was a possibility all along? COACH JOYNER: Honestly we thought it was a possibility. I'm not going to be arrogant in that answer. We felt like we had a lot of talent. The problem we had all year was gelling that talent because we picked up kids second semester with transfers and this. It was hard to gel a lot of that. I'm not going to lie to you and say it didn't scare the mess out of me when Dwight went down. Yeah, I probably prayed and went to church and called my wife, told her and told everybody I could, to pray for us, hopefully we can get him back. But when we were able to get through that Morgan game, the next couple of days of practice were very inspiring. I saw a different focus from the team that I had never seen before. And this year, being this particular group, because we brought a lot of them in as freshmen, they got their first tournament win, we felt comfortable that we had a chance. And then when we beat Maryland Eastern Shore we had a big lead. Probably missed six or seven straight free throws and ended up escaping. But, still, we got the win. I saw that confidence build a little more. And then the next two nights they took care of business. So to answer your question, yeah, we really thought that we could win it. We never stopped believing. But it did hurt us when Dwight went down. Q. What is Dwight's status for tomorrow? COACH JOYNER: Right now we don't know. I'm going to be honest, I don't think that he's going to be able to play. It is a high ankle sprain. He wants to play but the thing is going to be how effective. And I don't want to make it worse, if he can't go. And right now we do have a good chemistry. So if he's not, we're going to go play, but I don't think so. It doesn't look like it. He's still in the boot. And when he tries to run on it, he's still real gimpy. Q. When Reggie came in from Miami, was there an adjustment period or did he just kind of hit the ground running and just adjusting to your program right away really smooth? COACH JOYNER: It was a big adjustment period. From a team standpoint, I think everybody knew that he was going to be a big impact for us. But for him it was a big adjustment period because he had to get his legs back under him. I think the first game out he played he might have hit 12, 13 points, then he went for a stretch about six, seven games where he didn't really make many shots. And he made a couple of bad decisions. The game was moving a little too fast for him. But one thing I will give, once he settled in, he settled in. But it took him about five or six games and then he showed up big for us in the conference tournament. Deron Powers is our engine. When Deron is good we're good. But Reggie has become our calming factor. He's the guy, when it's time to take a big shot, if I call a timeout, he'll be trying to make the play call. He's that guy that wants the ball in those situations. Q. There's hundreds of coaches in America that have wondered what they would do if they ever played Kentucky. I realize not to get ahead of it all, but is there even one percent of you that thinks what the heck are we going to do if we play those guys? COACH JOYNER: I'm going to give you the truthful answer and I'm going to give -- the truthful answer is, yeah, I believe everybody has thought about that. Yeah, it is one percent of me that has thought about it a little bit. And I just say -- probably have Jesus or somebody on speed dial, I hope he hot that night, if we play. Right now I have tried to just -- we have kind of stuck to thinking about Manhattan. And then when we get to that point we'll worry about that then. Q. Along the same lines, I don't know if you know Ken Pomeroy at all, came out with stats, one in 1 billion chance to win the national title. Do you have just nothing to lose tomorrow, do you go to the guys and say, we got nothing to lose, play fast and safe to win the championship, not tomorrow? COACH JOYNER: We got one shot. We got that one in that billion. Too bad we can't bet. But, no, again right now I feel good because we got a team full of juniors. And, one, I'm happy that they get this experience to play in the NCAA Tournament. When I say that, I'm not saying that we're not coming to compete thinking we have a chance to win. But, I'll take a one in a billion shot than no shot at all. Because if I've got one in a billion then I'm here. I'm happy to be here to get at least that one in a billion chance. Q. You were talking about legs at the very beginning of this. I remember the beginning of the season we had a game at Syracuse where we played the game tipping off like four hours after you landed, after travel troubles in Iowa. What can you use from that early part of the season, a team that was drained to go into this game just two days after the tournament? COACH JOYNER: Probably nothing. When I say that, not trying to be funny. I just think that their adrenalin level tomorrow is going to be a whole lot different from that night. And again I think the atmosphere, it's kind of the same. It was 20-some thousand people in there. You're in the Carrier Dome but now you're at the NCAA Tournament. If you give me legs as an excuse now we're going to have a problem. So I think they're going to come out ready. I think that they'll be ready to produce. I think the quick turnaround won't be a -- I think it will actually be a plus for us, I hope, because again we don't have time to think about that we're tired. We don't have time. We're just ready to go play in the NCAA Tournament. Q. How much has this team grown since November in your eyes? COACH JOYNER: Wow. We went from being, as a father being a two-year-old boy to a 22-year-old college graduate in three, four months. I mean, they came together better than I've ever seen as a coach. And I've been coaching for a while. I'm not 30-, 40-year, but 17, 18 years into it. I watched them kids grow up. And probably more emotionally than physically. And I think sometimes when you are at the level we're at and when you get a lot of transfers and you get a lot of kids that the teams in our conference get, a lot of the kids come with the wrong idea. Instead of being told that you gotta come work, you gotta come -- you're coming to the NBA, you should kill that conference or you're coming into the Big South, you should kill that conference. I saw some kids put -- for those four days, they put winning above themselves. And as a coach, that's a beautiful thing, because that's what you bring them in for. So I saw boys become young men over those four days. Q. What have you been able to learn about Manhattan in the short time and what are you looking at for tomorrow? COACH JOYNER: They play exactly like Louisville. They're a scrappy team. They're going to try to get you to rush the things that you do. Again, that's the hardest part about the turnaround, is because you probably have to play more on tendencies of what and the things that you can do. But the one thing that I do know is that they played in the tournament last year. So there is a psychological piece to it. So they probably got a couple of guys who have been here before. So they'll have a little bit different approach that could affect us early. But I think if we can come out and play the way that we want to play and we can protect the ball and understand what defense they're running, because the zones and things that they run, they may be trying to do two or three different things each time up the court. So if we can protect the ball, I think we'll have a chance. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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