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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PORTLANDMarch 18, 2015Tyler HarveyJay HayfordVenky JoisPark KellyPORTLAND, OREGON THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Eastern Washington student-athletes. The floor is open for questions. Q. Tyler, is your dad going to be here to watch you tomorrow or does he have to be officiating a game somewhere else? TYLER HARVEY: No. Fortunately he will be here tomorrow to watch our game. He flies in tonight, so that's going to be good. Q. Tyler, what has the season been like for you with all the media attention you've gotten from day one, being the national scoring leader, now that media glare even more intense at the NCAAs? TYLER HARVEY: I look at it as a good thing for our program. I mean, coming from Eastern Washington, not too many people heard about us. So the attention is good for our team. We have a solid team. It's nice that people are starting to notice us a little bit. Q. Have you had a chance to look at film and had a chance to appreciate some of the obstacles in your way, namely Joshua, the 6'11", 340-pound center? VENKY JOIS: I think watching the film, he's not just a big body, he's actually really skilled. Kind of like the way he plays. I think he can pass down to the post. He knows how to use his body really well. He's not just big. The way that we have to combat that isn't with one guy. I think we're always going to try and keep, you know, at least one person in front of one person, hopefully steal a pass if they try and lob it. It's going to be a team effort. That's the only way we can do it. Q. Parker, the guard for Georgetown is obviously very good. Tell me about their wings. Some athletic guys, quick. What is your impression of their offense? PARK KELLY: It's obvious that Georgetown has a very solid offense. All their wings are very strong, all very big, they all play pretty hard. For us, it will all just be, you know, playing team defense, make sure we're playing inside-out defense against these guys because, you know, they're all very talented players. Main thing for us is to make sure we rebound on the defensive end, for sure. That will be a big point for us. Q. Tyler, a lot of experts have made you guys kind of the Cinderella pick for an upset. Why do you think they've done that? TYLER HARVEY: I think it's our success throughout the season. We have a solid record. We're playing great basketball right now. We're peaking at the right time. It's March Madness. The record is 0-0 now. You have to go into it with that approach. Q. Your coach made a very bold statement today. That's certainly been resonating around the building. How much pressure does that put on you guys? Do you embrace that role, the underdog chip on your shoulder sort of role going into this game? VENKY JOIS: Yeah, I think it was maybe taken out of context a little bit. I think the main focus of what he was trying to bring out of us and kind of show to the public is we're definitely not going to back down from a fight. No question, like, we are the underdog. But that certainly doesn't mean we're not confident of what we can do and hopefully display tomorrow night. So, you know, definitely the main theme I guess of what he was trying to say is we're a confident team, we're confident in our players. We feel like we do have a chance. We're an upset pick for a reason. I don't think anyone's looking at this game like, Oh, no. I think we look at it as an opportunity. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow. Joined by Eastern Washington's head coach, Jim Hayford. Opening statement from you, coach, then we'll open the floor to questions. COACH HAYFORD: Well, it's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure for our university to be part of the most prestigious athletic event in the country, March Madness. This isn't an overnight success story ^ . We brought this team together. Parker Kelly is our only four-year player. The next year we added a bunch of freshmen. Redshirted Tyler Harvey. Went through a tough 10-21 year. Last year we were a .500 club in conference that at the end of the season, we felt we were playing as good of basketball as anybody in our conference. Had a great off-season, came back and now at 26-8, we've set the school record for wins, school record for conference wins, won a regular-season co-conference championship, then on the road won our tournament. Love our guys. You got to talk to them, hear from them. We have a great brotherhood. They play with confidence. We play a wide-open style of basketball. It's a style of basketball that's fun to play, it's fun to recruit, it's fun to coach and fun to spectate. With that, I think we're the third leading team in the nation, with the leading scorer. We're proud to be here and represent the Big Sky Conference and Eastern Washington University. Q. 17 years ago you were coaching against Georgetown College in the Fab Four. Tomorrow you're coaching against Georgetown University in the NCAA tournament. When you were sitting next to Bill Odell all those years, did you ever envision yourself coaching in the NCAA tournament? COACH HAYFORD: That's a great question from one of my former students at Azusa Pacific University. Great to see you, Brandon. No, I didn't. I got into coaching because the people who had the biggest influence on me were my coaches. Whether that was going to be as a high school coach, a small college coach, really blessed to have the opportunity to be a Division I head coach. I got into coaching 'cause I wanted to make a difference in the lives of guys. I think college is the most pivotal time of development in life as far as putting them on a trajectory for success. Way back when, when I was an assistant coach at Azusa Pacific, it was helping me kind of gain the understanding of why I'm a coach and what I wanted to do as a coach. Now being in the NCAA tournament is really cool. Is it a dream come true? I think every coach, when you're watching this tournament, Gosh, if I could ever be a part of that, I want a piece of it. Here we are. I will say this. Our mindset isn't that we're just happy to be here. That's a loser's mentality. We're here. We want to play well. We want to win. We're going to play with confidence and represent our school as well as we can. Q. You talked about the building block process of your program. How nice has it been to see the kind of attention that you guys are getting in the last couple of days and weeks from the national media? A lot of people think you can win this ballgame, even as a 13 seed. COACH HAYFORD: Well, the attention our school's getting is a great thing because Eastern Washington University is the fastest growing university in our state. We've got an outstanding football team. Our women's team is playing in the NIT tonight at Washington State, and here we are. Anything that brings attention to our school is a good thing. Eastern Washington's on a great path. What do I think about all these people thinking, Hey, we got a chance to do this? Hey, I like it, I like it a lot. They're feeling that way because we won 26 games. Went into Indiana and won a tough game. Snapped their non-conference winning streak. I think the style of play that we play is something that's scary, because you put a team that can go out and make 15, 16, 17 three-pointers in a game, that's really, really hard to defend. So I welcome it. But to be honest with you, all those other voices, I'm very confident that my guys, they're not really dialed in to any other voice than the ones in our locker room, from their brothers and from their coaches. That's great to have all that outside noise. It shines a great light on our university. But my guys, there are frequency is only listening to what's happening in our locker room. Q. Throughout this year you've dealt with a lot of adversity in terms of injuries. How do you feel you've overcome those and how do you feel about the health of your team right now? And also the mental health of going into this game not overconfident, but not scared of what Georgetown presents? COACH HAYFORD: Well, two questions in there. So the injuries. Throughout the middle portion of our conference season, our two top-producing players, Venky Jois and Tyler Harvey, both battled injuries and then had to play injured. What that did is gave other guys on our team opportunity to lead us to victories. Now we feel as we got into the last week of the regular season, we were healthy. Then we felt like last week at the Big Sky tournament was the closest to where we were in November and early December. We're fully healthy, we're fully here. That's what brings us the confidence, to answer the second part of your question, that we're going to play our best basketball tomorrow. Q. How do you play your best basketball defensively against Georgetown tomorrow? COACH HAYFORD: We're going to have to fight, scratch, claw. That's a very talented team. They present a really big problem in the middle with Josh Smith. We have had three great days of preparation. I'm not going to give away our defensive game plan here. They need to prepare that we can play man, we can play zone, we can press, we can mix things up. It's going to be a battle wills. Can we spread them out, have to make them play some different-size guys because of what we imposed on them? The key stat at the end of the night tomorrow we're going to talk about is rebounding, were they able to exert their size on the boards. If we can neutralize that, it's going to be a big night. The better we shoot, the less rebounds there are to be had. Q. Your comments earlier today on that radio show have been resonating around here. Certainly with the folks back in the east. Obviously you're a confident coach and you think your team should win, which makes sense. How do you know that you've got the kind of team that can sort of take that kind of pressure? What is the mental makeup of your team to make you think they can do that knowing that a statement like that will bring spotlight to them? What were you trying to impart when you were talking on the radio show today earlier? COACH HAYFORD: Well, what I said is I signed off on the Jim Rome Show. I said, Hey, Jim, I'll talk to you soon, we're going to win. It did exactly what I wanted because I knew the 15 guys on the bus were listening to that. I want my team confident. My team understands the difference between confidence and a lack of confidence. I want our guys to enjoy the moment. They've lived their whole life to play in the NCAA tournament. I want them to know that their coach believes in them, is confident in them, and is sending them out on the court to be fearless. It was great that I got to talk to several million people while I was talking to the 15 guys on my bus. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. COACH HAYFORD: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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