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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: LOS ANGELESMarch 25, 2015Remy AbellTrevon BluiettMyles DavisDee DavisChris MackMatt StainbrookLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement, please? COACH MACK: I don't have much of a statement. It's great weather here in Los Angeles, so I'll just take questions. Q. Chris, the last time Dee played in a Sweet Sixteen was his freshman year. When do you think he really turned the corner and became the player he is now as a point guard? I mean that first experience he was playing behind Tu Holloway. Was there a game or a year that he developed into what he is now? COACH MACK: Well, I think it's just a natural evolution. I don't necessarily think one game Dee became who he is today. I think like every good player, you have peaks and valleys. You continue to get better as your career unfolds. I think his sophomore year was one of great learning. He was with a team that wasn't as talented. He was a full-time starter. He played a lot of minutes. He saw tons of different styles of play, had a lot of challenges. Then last year as a junior, we jump leagues to the Big East which put Dee in front of a lot of bigger point guards, a lot bigger challenges, if you will. And I thought he did a tremendous job as a junior. I think he became even more comfortable a year ago. Then this year it's really been Dee's team, along with Matt. But you're arguably always going to be led by your point guard. Though Dee's maybe not the most vocal point guard, he has gotten louder as the year's gone on. He's always been extremely tough. He's been overmatched at times with size, but not with heart. Q. Are you surprised that you're the only Big East team to make it this far in a tournament given the fact that the conference had six teams in and some pretty high seeds? COACH MACK: I am extremely surprised. You know, we saw those teams on a nightly basis within conference play. I would have bet a dollar to a donut that Villanova would have been standing this week, but that's how the tournament works sometimes. In one minute, out the next. But I am surprised. Again, when you have six teams you would think that a couple of them would survive and advance, as they say, but didn't happen. It doesn't mean those teams didn't have terrific years and they weren't excellent teams, it just didn't happen for them in the tournament. We're just glad we're still standing here. Q. What is your current relationship with Sean Miller, and how often do you guys speak? COACH MACK: My current relationship is a good one, is a healthy one. I think when you're in our profession you don't have a lot of free time to chit-chat on the phone and socialize and go on vacation together, maybe if you were in a different line of work. But Sean's been instrumental in my career. He's always been a mentor, whether it was when I was working for him, with him, or now that he's a couple thousand miles away. There is not a challenge that I don't bring to him if I'm struggling with something. But, again, I don't talk to a lot of people on the phone. I talk to my coaching staff. I talk to my family. I talk to a heck of a lot of recruits. I get sick of being on the phone. So a lot of times my relationship with Sean during the season is one of text messaging, and out of the season it's more a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more open lines of communication. Q. Thinking back on your time at Xavier as a player and now as a coach, how are the expectations around the program kind of helped in terms of the success factor? With the move to the Big East, have things changed any? COACH MACK: It's a great question. I would say that ever since Bob Staak and Pete Gillen, along with some great players, guys like Byron Larkin and Tyrone Hill and Derek Strong really put Xavier on the map, the expectations for Xavier basketball have been extremely high. Guys like Skip Prosser, Thad Matta, Sean, carried the torch and simply elevated the program to new heights. Our fan base has come to expect getting to the NCAA tournament, and that not even being acceptable, but to advance. I think it's been a natural progression for our program to go from the MCC, which is now the Horizon League, to the Atlantic 10, which was a great move at the time for Xavier, now to a conference that is arguably one of the best basketball conferences in the entire country. It's a hefty bar at Xavier. Q. Could you talk about Matt Stainbrook's season? It looks like he had a little bit of a lull, at least offensively, toward the end of the year, and has rebounded somewhat. Could you talk about what was going on there? COACH MACK: Yeah, I think there was a point in time where Matt lost his confidence a little bit. I said at the time, really surprising, because Matt's done it for a long period of time. He's been such a great player at Western Michigan for two years. He sat out as a transfer and was dominant in our practices. He had a terrific year last year. He was named pre-season All Big East. So for a guy like that to really lose his confidence was surprising. Now he didn't lose it for a long stretch, and understand that he is 1A on the scouting report of every team we play. But there isn't a defense that Matt hasn't seen, teams that really crowd him from the perimeter. Teams that trap him with the other post, teams that trap him off the dribble, trap him on the catch. It was really good to see him rebound when his back and our team's back was against the wall at Creighton. That was, for us, a huge game. For our team to have the opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament, we needed to win at Creighton, at least that's what we thought at the time. And for Matt to go 26 points against a team that was crowding him, gave not only Matt, but the rest of his teammates the confidence to say, Hey, Matt's back. But I was surprised that he went through that little bit of a lull that you talked about. Q. What do you see as the biggest challenges in Arizona? COACH MACK: Usually when I tape or we watch tape as a staff, you can point to a few weaknesses. You can say that this team doesn't do a good job in this certain area, whether it's transition defense, whether it's communicating switches defensively, whether it's they don't guard post players very well. That's the thing that really comes across when you watch Sean's team on tape. They don't have any weaknesses. Some may say that they're not a very good three-point shooting team. I do know that when you leave Gabe York open and you leave Stanley Johnson open, they make shots. T.J. McConnell has become a much better shooter throughout his time. So I don't buy that argument that they're not a great shooting team. They may not be Villanova from the three-point line, but they're not a bad three-point shooting team. So to me, there is just not a weakness that you see on film. Their strengths are obvious. Their size, their athleticism, their ability to rebound the ball is as good as any team in the country. Q. Those of us who cover Sean Miller see a serious, intense guy typically. Could you talk about maybe the other side that we don't see? The funny side, if he has one? COACH MACK: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if Sean has a funny side (laughing). No, he does. I could share a few stories that may either get him embarrassed, maybe even arrested, but I won't do that. I'm kidding about the arrested part. He's got a dry sense of humor. He is a funny guy behind closed doors, but not very often. Not very often. He's ultra-serious, too serious. He needs to loosen up. Q. What stands out to you about McConnell, the season he's had and how important he is to their team? COACH MACK: He just doesn't beat himself. He's evolved. Obviously we played against him when he was at Duquesne for a couple of seasons. But he was young. He had some big challenges when he played our teams with Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons. But his pull-up game is tremendous. He does a great job of getting in the lane, getting his teammates shots, keeping everybody happy. But a lot of times when you play against a set-the-table-type point guard, they can't score. They just can't. They've always been a pass-first guy, and they end the game with maybe three points and 11 assists, but they can't score, and you want to force them to do that. T.J. has shown that he'll make big shots in big moments, take big shots, and that's, to me, the sign of ultra-tough point guard, is the ability to score when his team needs to do that. He's tremendous on the defensive end. He takes as much pride on that end of the floor, probably even more so than he does on the offensive side. You know, he's a stabilizing force for their team. Q. I was wondering if you guys did text at all this week and if it went back and forth with Sean? Was there a moratorium for the week? How did you guys handle that? COACH MACK: You know, I was waiting to see Sean reach out because it's just like Sean to let him reach out first in these type of situations and he did. It was more of a congratulatory text. It really wasn't a very long text. He just said he was excited to see my wife and kids and completely pushed me to the side, so that was about it. Then I saw him here about 15 minutes ago, and caught up with him. Q. Do you have a good story -- COACH MACK: You guys got a lot of news coverage in Arizona. It's amazing. We have Shannon Russell from the Cincinnati Enquirer here. Sorry. Q. Do you have a good story you can tell about the tattoo on your calf? COACH MACK: No, that's a dumb story. Yeah, that's a real dumb story. We won't go into it. I may eventually get that removed, but, no. Q. Chris, I'm sure that when the conference tournament ended in New York, you didn't think that you guys would be the only Sweet Sixteen team for the Big East. COACH MACK: No. Q. What do you think happened to the rest of the conference? COACH MACK: Well, I didn't have a chance to watch the other teams play in our conference. We played. I think, a couple teams played right around the same time. Again, a lot of times in tournament play it's all about match-ups. I was surprised. I knew N.C. State, because we had played them a year ago, has a ton of talent on the floor, and we knew that. But just seeing Villanova up close, and maybe Villanova is just a bad match-up for us because of the way they stretch the floor, and we're not the most mobile when it comes to our post players. But that to me was the most shocking final score of all of them. Obviously, Butler played a terrific team in Notre Dame. One of the best teams in the ACC. The best offensive team, if not one of the top three or four in the country. So I could see where tough match-ups, hard to advance. You're playing all really good teams. But the likelihood that all five of the six teams would be out, I just didn't see that coming because our league was much stronger this year, was much more experienced this year than it was a year ago. So, yeah, like I said before, it was shocking. To me, none greater than Villanova. I really thought that Villanova was going to be in the final game this year. That is how talented, how together, how well-coached, and how hard playing they were. It just goes to show our team and any team left here of the 16 that anything can happen on one particular night. We don't have to be better than Arizona for five months. We have to be better than Arizona tomorrow night for 40 minutes. Q. Dee, who has been the most influential person to you in your basketball career, and how has that person helped you? DEE DAVIS: Well, I'd say my dad. Ever since I was little, he pushed me to be the best I can be. And he's always told me that success is a journey, so you've got to keep pushing. Q. Can you talk a little bit more about your dad? Are you guys really close? Is he here? Has he been to every game this season? DEE DAVIS: Yeah, he make it's to everything he can. He's a busy guy. He's an athletic guy growing up. Played pro baseball out of high school, so he really pushed me to experience things that I wanted to experience playing basketball, and he knew I had to work hard to do that. So, of course we're close. Q. Matt, how tough has it been to coordinate an NBA program with playing hoops, and what specific classes are you missing by being here? MATT STAINBROOK: Yeah, it's definitely a tough balance. I think with any degree or any program to balance basketball and going to class. I have two night classes right now, one's a finance and one's economics, I'm missing. Both of those are Tuesday and Wednesday night classes. I've missed those for a while. But the teachers are really, not lenient, but good in communicating with us. I see them during their office hours and go in on Mondays and Tuesdays when we're back and stuff like that. But, I mean, it's tough when you miss class any time. Q. What specific classes are they? MATT STAINBROOK: One is finance, I think managerial finance, and the other one is econ. I think it's some sort of economics class. I don't know the title. Q. Matt, a lot of people have talked about, I guess, your hobby of driving Uber when you're not playing basketball. Could you tell me where that originated? Do people recognize you? MATT STAINBROOK: Yeah, so I started driving just because I switched my scholarship to my little brother who is a walk-on the team, just in order to pay some expenses of rent, utilities, food, stuff like that. I picked that up. I'd say about 1 out of 2 people that I drive recognize me in some way of, Hey, you're a basketball player. Hey, I know who you are, and stuff like that. Q. Has there been any funny interactions or do they wonder why you're driving a taxi? MATT STAINBROOK: Yeah, sometimes they ask me why I'm doing that, and I explain to them the whole scholarship situation. Probably the funniest story was one lady who got in and on the way to getting in, she sort of twisted her ankle, and she was on the ground for like five or ten minutes. And I had to like coach her up to get her in the car. She put her feet up on the dash and was like icing her ankle. Then the funny story was I picked her up about two weeks later and said, How's your ankle feel? And she said, Oh, you recognize me, and sort of embarrassed. But other than that, no crazy stories. Q. Myles, you've had a tough stretch from the three late in the season before doing really well in the last two games. Last year wasn't that same way where you just kind of were on a downward spiral. How were you able to pick yourself up out of that and find your groove again from long range? MYLES DAVIS: Just confidence. When you're a shooter you're going to keep shooting. I have great teammates and great, great coaches that are going to keep telling me to shoot, take good shots. The good thing about it is I can be more diverse and try to create and try to make a better shot for me. It was a learning experience for me last year. And especially coming into the tournament, I didn't want to let my team down and not contribute. But if it means I have to make five threes one game or miss zero threes, I mean, at the end of the day, I just want to win. So that was a big learning experience for me from last year to this year. Q. Trevon, what's it been like, this experience of going to your first NCAA tournament and getting here to the Sweet Sixteen? Can you talk about the best parts of it so far? TREVON BLUIETT: It's been a great experience. A lot of people didn't expect us to make it this far, so it even feels that much better to know that we were the odd team out and we're still here. To be able to go through Jacksonville with the police escorts and all of that, open practices, it's something I've been dreaming of, and to be able to live it is just great. Q. What do you like about driving a taxi? What was it like getting involved in doing that? MATT STAINBROOK: You know, it's all right. It's relaxing. It sort of gets your mind off basketball, because I tell you, the majority of the time you're thinking about basketball or school. So when we have an off day and I get to drive, that is usually the time I drive. It sort of relaxes you. You get to talk to people who don't always want to talk basketball all the time, so it's a change of pace. Q. Matt, it looked like maybe you had a little bit of a lull offensively in February or toward the end of the year, and then rebounded from that. I wonder if you could tell me about what was going on during that stretch? MATT STAINBROOK: I think maybe I lost a little bit of my confidence. It's tough. When you have one bad game, sometimes it rolls into two and three. It's tough where you start getting in the gym and shots aren't falling and stuff like that, and you start reading what everyone's saying about you on every sort of social media. That is something I've sort of blocked out now where I'm not really caring what other people say. So I'm just trying to play hard and give it my best. I'd say probably my lack of confidence is what got me in that sort of stretch. Q. And I heard this secondhand, maybe you can clear it up for me, but you were out with maybe a teammate and maybe took a wrong turn and ended up in an undesirable part of LA and somebody was joking that maybe you were a better Uber driver than you were a pedestrian? MATT STAINBROOK: Yeah, me and my little brother sort of walked around and we found ourselves on skid row. Yeah, maybe took a little left turn that we shouldn't have. But we made it back okay, so we're good. Q. I was wondering your interest level in Arizona? Was that before or after you were involved with UCLA, and what interested you about Arizona at the time? TREVON BLUIETT: Arizona was before UCLA, probably a couple of weeks before. When I was narrowing down my list of schools, they kind of came in late. I was kind of interested in it just to see what the school had to offer. So I'd say my interests were pretty high at the time. Q. Remy, Trevon talked about people maybe underestimating Xavier. How much do you hear that and how much does it motivate you or does it motivate you guys as you head into this game? REMY ABELL: I don't really hear it a lot. People, you watch CBS and the announcers or commentators say that you're going to lose this game or lose that game. So, I mean, as long as everybody believes in each other, that is the main thing. We've got to believe. If you ain't going to believe, then why play? So people are probably going to underestimate this game. But like I said, we have to believe. It's only us in the locker room. It's only us out on the court. Q. Matt, a year from now, do you see yourself driving a cab, playing hoops, working at a bank? And also ten years from now, what is your ultimate goal? MATT STAINBROOK: I think a year from now I probably won't be driving a taxi. I'm hoping not. I want to play basketball for as long as I can. I think that is the one thing I want to pursue right now, whether it's overseas or wherever, to try to play basketball. Then I think once my basketball career is done, I'll be okay to sit behind a desk for a couple years and find a job like that. That's where I can see myself is in the banking world. I had an internship at a bank and I really liked the corporate finance. I was involved with that. But in ten years, I'd really like to open my own restaurant. That's my ultimate goal. I enjoy cooking and my parents encouraged me to do that. That's where I got the finance background because I want to be able to handle my own finances for a restaurant. Q. Matt, it's kind of two questions. The first one is can you describe the car that you drive, what is it? What's it look like? MATT STAINBROOK: It's a 2004 gold Buick Rendezvous. And I describe it as the most typical old-person car you could have. It's big. It's boxy. It's very bland. Tan inside. But it fits me in it and it fits some passengers in it. It's been kicking for, I think, 190,000 miles now, so it's doing good. Q. You guys are the last remaining Big East team. What do you think happened to the rest of the teams that you were playing against all season? MATT STAINBROOK: I think they ran some really tough competition. Some teams didn't have their best nights when they needed to have better nights. I think we're doing a good job of sort of representing the Big East, and I think that's something that we're used to as a team and as a program. People always talk about underestimating us or thinking we're the little engine that could. But by no means are we that. We're, once again, sort of being the flagship for our conference, and that is nothing new for us, and don't plan on it changing. Q. For Remy, Dee or Myles, are any of you surprised to be the last team standing from your conference? MYLES DAVIS: No. I mean, I knew we can do this. I knew we had a good chance. We have a lot of great teams in our conference. Other people didn't believe we could do it, but I have the utmost confidence and faith in these guys at this table and the guys in the locker room that if we work hard and play hard and stick to what we need to do, that we can compete with anybody. Getting here is a great feeling, but I'm not saying I'm not surprised. But I think everybody here would be like we understand that we should have done this. DEE DAVIS: Well, I was surprised personally that Villanova didn't make it as far as they did because they're a team that I've never won against. So personally, I thought they were going to do better. But that's really the only team I was worried about. REMY ABELL: Yeah, I knew we could do this, too. God is good. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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