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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLEMarch 19, 2015R.J. HunterRon HunterKevin WareJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA GEORGIA STATE - 57 Q. R.J., the opposing coach from Baylor said that he felt like the three you hit with about a minute half to go kind of got you going. Were you not as assertive as you wanted to be earlier because you only had about seven shot attempts up until the last three minutes. R.J. HUNTER: Yeah, I was as assertive as possible, I just wasn't trying to force anything. I thought they did a good job of finding me and I wasn't making shots early, but this guy stepped up huge and you should be asking him the questions about the shots because he knocked down some huge shots. We just fought until the end, and that's what we wanted to do, and thank God for that 50-footer I threw in. Q. Kevin or Ryann, can you talk about the way you guys were able to hang in there and wait for R.J. to get going? KEVIN WARE: Second half we were really just trying to pick R.J. up as much as possible. A lot of the shots he usually makes weren't falling. A lot of shots that I make weren't falling, either, so we just tried to get it done defensively. Like R.J. said, Ryann really carried us this game. Him and Isaiah Dennis should really get a lot of credit. Q. So in the huddle with about a minute 40 to go, you guys were down ten. What did you tell your team in the huddle there? COACH RON HUNTER: We talked about keep believing. Don't worry about the score. Sometimes you get so consumed by the score, and I felt we had a chance because we were turning them over in the press. I said, keep pressing, press pressing, don't foul. I thought they did a great job of that and really listened. And what I thought was more important is earlier in the year when we got in those situations, then we would try to shoot threes to come back. We were driving the ball, using our timeouts, and getting to the free-throw line. We've been in that situation before, and again, it worked perfectly, and it had to for us to get the win. But these guys believed in what we were doing. Q. Drew mentioned in his press conference that they hadn't turned the ball over that much all season and didn't really scout the press that well or didn't expect to turn the ball over that much. Did you see something specifically on film this week that led you to that? COACH RON HUNTER: Well, it wasn't about them. I had to convince my guys that we could beat them. And the only way I could convince them is, I said we had to throw the first punch and the last punch, and the only way to do it was by pressing. I wanted Baylor to know we weren't afraid to play them. We weren't going to sit back in our normal match-up, that we were going to go out and throw punches against them, and we do that by pressing. In the last month of the season, our press has been unbelievable. Q. R.J., did you see your dad fall off the chair after you hit the three-pointer, and what do you remember about the 9-0 run that you had in the final two minutes? R.J. HUNTER: First question, yeah, I saw him cannonball off his chair. I told him, they've got to get him a chair with a back or something, because that wasn't going to work. What was the second question? Q. What do you remember about the 9-0 run that you had in the final two minutes? R.J. HUNTER: I was just trying to make a play, man. At that point I was just trying to do anything I possibly could. I think that first three got me going. As a shooter you've got to see -- I mean, all you've got to do is see one go in, so once I saw that, I got a little bit of confidence and that's the confidence I needed? Q. Kevin, Coach was telling us yesterday about the speech you gave the team on Sunday when you guys knew you were going into the NCAA Tournament and how you spoke to your teammates. I noticed today out on the floor, you were sort of a calming presence. You were directing your guys, you were advising people out there. When you guys were down by ten, what sorts of things were you saying to your teammates? KEVIN WARE: Just don't give up. That's what Coach Hunter kept telling us, so that's what I had to put in my head. I saw Ryann crying like a little punk over there, and I really didn't want this to be his last game. We've got some seniors that fought hard all year, and we just wanted to fight and win this game. We're just happy to be going to the Elite 32. Q. Do you guys believe in miracles? R.J. HUNTER: Yeah, now we do. KEVIN WARE: Definitely. Q. Ron, this is not a loaded question. When is the last time in your life you ever got picked up by a woman off the floor? COACH RON HUNTER: Wow. Is my wife around here? You know, I had her back there, and she's been great. Since Sunday she's been a life saver. Before the game, they had to saw off the top part of the cast because my knee started swelling up. So I couldn't move this morning and her and the doctor were great. They sawed it off and they had pliers and everything in there. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This has been unbelievable. As I told the guys, we haven't slept a whole lot, we played Sunday, we turned around, played today, and we've been traveling. I told them at the beginning, and this isn't a knock on the NCAA or any of that, I said, guys, at the end of the day, think about this, they put Baylor up in the Hyatt, the flew in here on a nice charter flight. They put us on a bus and put us in the Holiday Inn, and guess what, we get to stay another day, so we're really excited about that. Q. She's normally at the end of the bench? COACH RON HUNTER: Yeah, she never sits behind me. Yeah, she'll be there this time on Saturday. Q. Do you have a message for the people back in Atlanta who supported you this whole season? You had about 500 to 1,000 fans there. They were going ballistic. Do you have a message for them and the people of Atlanta? COACH RON HUNTER: Yeah, first of all, I have a message to the people at Georgia State. I am so happy for our alumni, faculty, students and staff. They really deserve it. We're right in downtown Atlanta. We are in the heart of Atlanta being downtown, so I'm so excited for Georgia State and what we're doing in that regard. But also we represent the city of Atlanta, and we're the only team in Atlanta playing in the NCAA Tournament. I saw Kasim's texts and those things and I appreciate that. But what we need is we need some people to drive down here, man. Come down on Saturday, drive down. You have nothing else to do. If you want a bus, I'll pay for a bus. I'll ask my president to pay for a bus -- I'm sorry. But come on down. We need that. But I love the support and what the arena gave us today. Q. You've played in the tournament, you've coached in the tournament. But today you've won in the tournament. All your life this is what basketball guys like yourself try to get to. Now you're there. How long do you figure it'll be until you digest this, when you're coming out of anæsthesia finally? COACH RON HUNTER: Yeah, off the pain pills they gave me this morning. I think what it means more importantly to me, and I think I said it yesterday, I get to do it with this guy, man. There are a lot of coaches that get to get to the Elite 32 or the Final Four, but when you get to do it with your son, you can watch your son hit a half court shot, I can't tell you how I feel inside. That's unbelievable. I wish every dad in America could have that opportunity, what I just experienced with my son. Q. Ryann, you've been sitting there quietly. You let your shooting do the talking today. What was the most memorable part of the game when it looked like Baylor, the Bears were on their heels, and it looked like you guys were finding your rhythm? Give us a sense of what that was like on the floor? RYANN GREEN: Well, it was just a matter of time. We knew if we just persevered, did our run, we knew we had another run in us, and we wasn't just going to go away easily. We knew -- I knew out of the -- when we hit R.J. on the slip and he hit the bank shot after he hit the three, I knew we was here to stay. That was it for me. Q. Ron and R.J., how gratifying is this, almost 365 days after dominating the Sun Belt, getting so close to making the NCAA Tournament and then letting that lead slip against Lafayette? How gratifying is this moment, given what had happened just one year ago when you were so close to having this moment, and having it slip away in the conference tournament final? R.J. HUNTER: Well, I think with 2:54 left, I said that. I said at this time last year, we gave up this 10-point lead, so anything can happen. And right after that, we went on that run. Just going through that and going through all types of basketball situations, you see everything, so I don't think we were rattled, and we just made plays when we had to. Q. R.J., we've heard your dad talk about what it meant to him to be able to share this moment with you, but how about you to be able to kind of share this experience in that game with your dad? What does that mean to you? R.J. HUNTER: It's unbelievable and a dream come true. Growing up in your dad's profession is trying to get to the NCAA Tournament. We've had so many downfalls trying to be in second place, and for us to be here now, I hugged my sister and said, we're going to be in One Shining Moment because we always watched that as a family. That's what we watch when your dad is a coach. It's unbelievable, man. It's a little surreal right now. It's a little hard to digest, and God looked out for me today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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