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March 20, 2015
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
XAVIER - 75
GEORGIA STATE - 67
COACH RON HUNTER: Well, first of all, I\'m very, very proud of my guys. I thought they were terrific. I thought Xavier did a great job. We said that they would have to make some mistakes for us to beat them tonight, and they didn\'t make any mistakes. They played very well. Congratulations to Xavier. Well-coached, good basketball team. I\'m proud of how my kids played. It was just an unbelievable -- they played well. It\'s our third game this week. I was worried about us being a little tired. You play three games in a week, it\'s really tough. I told them not to be sad. What a great week, unbelievable week. There is nothing to be sad about, especially for me. I\'ll be honest with you, the greatest week of my life. The greatest time I\'ve ever had to be a father, doing this with Kevin Ware and the rest of this team, but man, I don\'t want these guys to be sad. We helped Georgia State out. Georgia State people know about Georgia State. We\'ll be back. We\'re going to get some young guys, but it\'s not even about that right now. I just -- as a coach, best time of my life, but as a father (tearing up) -- I love this kid, man. I love you.
Q. R.J., y\'all were down by six with 2:55 left, about the same time, half the margin against Baylor. What was going through your head at that time?
R.J. HUNTER: Just keep battling, man. You know, after yesterday we felt like anything was possible. We battled, man, all the way to the end. We fought and clawed. But that\'s a good team. Dee Davis willed them. They didn\'t make any mistakes. He\'s a hell of a player, a hell of a competitor. I\'m proud. That\'s how you go out, man. I thought we went out swinging, and that\'s how you do it.
Q. R.J., you guys were able to get a good handle on Matt Stainbrook. What were you expecting from Jalen Reynolds who ended up scoring a career high 21 points?
R.J. HUNTER: I thought he got good looks. I don\'t think he was doing any moves or doing anything crazy. I thought he was getting easy baskets. I thought we gave Stainbrook a lot of attention, and he made good plays and was in good spot.
Q. When you guys walked off the floor, you immediately acknowledged the Georgia State fans, and Coach, you were clapping. Could you just talk a little bit about that, instead of going out with your heads down and walking off solemnly, could you talk about how you acknowledged your fans?
R.J. HUNTER: I mean, how couldn\'t you? They were down here like we were at home. They brought so much energy and so much just support. Every time we went somewhere it seemed like they were there. They were loud and they were proud. I think they understand what we did, too. I just told our guys in the locker room, man, if you\'re crying, it\'s tears of joy because we completely just turned the culture at Georgia State.
KEVIN WARE: I mean, they\'ve been here for us all year. Honestly we just had to pay our respects. That\'s as much as I can say honestly. I\'m kind of a little upset over here, honestly.
Q. Is there one lasting memory that you have from spending the week here in Jacksonville?
R.J. HUNTER: This whole thing, man. I tried to suck it all in. My first time in the NCAA Tournament, I dreamed about this moment, and it came to me, and God blessed me with a crazy week, man, the best week of my life. There\'s been so much going on. I can\'t wait to just sit down and digest it, man, and not worry about the next game. It\'s bittersweet right now.
Q. Coach Hunter, have you ever faced a team that has gone 81 percent in the second half?
KEVIN WARE: What?
COACH RON HUNTER: No. (Laughter). But they almost had to play the perfect game. I thought our game plan was great. If they had just made a couple mistakes here and there, and they just didn\'t. They couldn\'t crack. We just kept talking about if we could just get them to crack. Kudos to them. They beat us, we didn\'t beat ourselves. We can walk away a little bit more proud because they beat us instead of us getting beat.
Q. Kevin, I know you\'re upset, so a two-part question. What bothers you the most right now, and could you sum up the whole experience of getting back to the tournament two years later?
KEVIN WARE: I mean, I was just confident that eventually they would crack, like Coach said. We were here Thursday against Baylor, and nothing went wrong. They\'re an excellent team. Like Coach said, we didn\'t beat ourselves, they beat us. We can digest that and we can take that in, but it\'s just still like, man, we were right there, and that\'s just really how I feel about it.
Q. And your experience being down here for the tournament?
KEVIN WARE: This was great. I couldn\'t ask for a better group of guys. R.J. is like a brother to me, even if we\'re not related. Coach Hunter is like a dad, and I couldn\'t ask for a better group of guys to do it with. It\'s been a long, hard season, but I\'m so thankful for these guys. I\'ve matured because of these players, and I couldn\'t ask for a better group.
Q. R.J., you talked about your next game. Fill us in on where your next game is going to be.
R.J. HUNTER: I have no idea, man, but again, I just can\'t wait to sit down and talk about this with my family and just talk about the season. Nothing else is on my mind, man. This is history, and like I said, I can\'t wait to just go to sleep and wake up without any texts about being here, being there. Just excited to just reflect on this.
Q. Coach, I saw you walking off the court with your arm around your son. You\'ve been able to coach as a father and a coach. It\'s been a unique time for you. How do you put that into words?
COACH RON HUNTER: You really can\'t. I said it yesterday, man, if you\'re a dad, just go home and hug your kid, man. This is a special thing. The one thing that I got from this is that you don\'t take these things for granted. I don\'t know if we\'ll ever get a chance to do that again. The next day isn\'t promised to you. I\'ve said it before, he\'s a really, really good player, but guys, he is a much better son, and that\'s the fun part. I just want to enjoy it, and I did. I wanted to win games here, we were able to win one and not the second one. But the second goal was, and I attained that, I wanted to be a coach this week, I wanted to coach my kid and be a dad, and I was a dad, and I accomplished that.
Q. Coach, Ryan gave you some pretty good minutes at the end of the first half. Was he just not able to go late in the game, hurting a little bit too much?
COACH RON HUNTER: Yeah, we kind of pushed it a little bit and we knew we were going to do that. He did a great job of keeping us in the game a little bit early, made some big shots. It was just so hard for him. Defensively we were worried because they just went by him, he couldn\'t even move laterally. So when we got down in the second half, we knew it was going to be hard because we had to get stops. They were playing so great offensively and we had to get stops. If you had told me he was going to play 19 minutes, we had no intention of that getting done. I\'m proud that he gave that effort today to step up and come out and play.
Q. When you see a team shoot like that, especially in the second half, talk about the adjustments that you guys made. Obviously there was a lot of time-outs taken, so in those time-outs what did you tell your team about making adjustments on defense?
COACH RON HUNTER: We the first thing we do defensively is tried to get a disconnect between point guard and coach and we\'ve been able to do that for the most part all year. Dee Davis was terrific, he was absolutely terrific, and he was able to stabilize the team. I thought he played great. Our game plan really worked to be honest with you. We took the Big Fella completely out of the game for the most part to be honest with you. We spaced and those kind of things, but Dee Davis was the key. He ran that team, and in my opinion he\'s one of the top five point guards in the country.
Q. R.J. was talking about he doesn\'t know where his next game is going to be, and that\'s tough for you. How much tougher is that conversation when he\'s your son as opposed to just another player going to the draft?
COACH RON HUNTER: I will tell you this, I will be 100 percent dad with this, and again, there are a lot of factors. I know it\'s not a foregone conclusion. There are a lot of things that will go into this. We will do this, though, and R.J. and I have agreed to this, we are going to make this decision fairly quickly for a lot of different reasons. This isn\'t going to be something where it\'s going to be long drawn out, whatever. As a family we\'re going to make this decision very quickly.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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