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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: LOS ANGELESMarch 26, 2015Stanley JohnsonT.J. McConnellSean MillerKaleb TarczewskiLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA ARIZONA - 68 COACH MILLER: Well, I thought it was really a hard-fought game between two teams that played the game very hard. I credit Xavier a lot. I thought they had a great game plan. We knew going into the game that they were going to play their 1-3-1, and we also knew that they were excellent in getting the ball inside. They remind me a lot of Gonzaga and how they use their big guys to score and then throw the ball out. So we expected a tough game, and that's exactly what we got. I feel bad the last couple weeks playing against places and people that I've been, it's very difficult. I'm proud to say that at one point I was associated with Xavier, and I certainly wish them well. Always tough to see a season end. And when you end it sometimes it's easy to move on, but in this case for me it's a lot more difficult. On our end, very proud of these guys. I thought there were a couple trying moments in the game where if we didn't have the resolve, experience of being through what we've been through the last couple of years, we could have folded. But we hung in there, and our defensive rebounding eventually took over, and we ended up winning a hard-fought battle. Q. Stanley, I'm curious, as geeked as you must be right now, how much more special is it to do it in this building? STANLEY JOHNSON: I think it's really special to be in LA and win. It's kind of like it's weird because even though I'm home on the road, it's almost like I'm super focused on what we have to do at hand. This is not a vacation or anything like that. You only get one trip this year to do -- get to the Sweet Sixteen and get to the Elite Eight. So this time we win it. So I have it really focused on everything that we have planned as a team, and we've been pretty busy with scouting and stuff like that. It's always good to get sleep after a long flight, and how it is getting sleep like this. And actually it's in Orange County as well, so a little hour trip or maybe two. Q. T.J., there are a lot of positive things said about him before tonight, and I guess tonight just further cemented him. What do you think it is about him in these clutch moments that he seems to come up with play after play? KALEB TARCZEWSKI: Over the season T.J. has really developed into the rock on our team, the leader. He's someone that in clutch situations, everyone on our team is confident with him having the hands and the ball in his hands. He's just a great basketball player, and like I said, we're all confident in him. He always makes the right play. Q. Kaleb, by nature of your position you're always facing a lot of tough talent inside. What was 270 pounds of Stainbrook like to battle with? It seemed you guys were having some good fights? KALEB TARCZEWSKI: He's a great basketball player. His size, he does a great job of using it. His team does a great job of getting him the ball in positions where he can be successful. With him, it's tough because he's not only a good scorer, but he's also a great passer, and that was something that we knew we had a game plan for tonight. But he was a great basketball player. He did a great job today. But I think our resolve was too much for them. Q. Kaleb and T.J., do you guys have any initial thoughts on getting a chance to avenge last season's loss in the West Regional final and getting a chance to go to the Final Four? T.J. McCONNELL: Obviously, it's a big game to return to the Elite Eight and play the exact same opponent as we did last year and come up short. But we're going to take it as any game like we would be playing anyone else. It doesn't matter if we're playing Wisconsin or if we were playing North Carolina, we'd game plan the same, and it happened to be Wisconsin. So we're not making this game any bigger than it needs to be. Q. The game was going back and forth until Stainbrook actually committed three fouls within a minute and a half late in the second half. You guys had control of the game, but do you feel as if that was the big turning point to finish the game off? STANLEY JOHNSON: I think the big turning point in the game was our rebounding. We were getting out-rebounded the whole game. The first war, which is the first four minutes of the second half, we got rebounded by five. I think he's out of the game, and having a 270-pound body out of the way, we started getting rebounds and we got the advantage on the boards. The story of the season for us, when we defend and rebound, it's hard to beat us. Q. T.J., I'm going to test your memory here. You said yesterday all you wanted for your birthday was a Sweet Sixteen win. I'm curious, what are some other cool birthday presents you've gotten over the last 22 years? T.J. McCONNELL: This has to be the best one. But I honestly can't even remember the presents that I've gotten. Maybe a bike when I was like 8. That might have been it. COACH MILLER: A Steeler football helmet. He used to run around in his backyard and pretend he was Franco Harris. Q. T.J., it obviously was hairy there for a while. They were up four. Was there any thought in your mind that this could be it or were you just determined not to let your career enter into it? T.J. McCONNELL: You kind of said it there, I'm determined not to let it end and I don't want it to end. We're kind of playing with a mentality of refuse to lose and do whatever it takes. A lot of teams would have folded in our position tonight, but we showed a lot of heart and resiliency. And big players made big-time plays and I'm proud of all my teammates. Q. T.J., where did you feel your game start to change? You looked a little bit frustrated in the first half. T.J. McCONNELL: Yeah, in the first half you could have said I was practically playing for Xavier how many times I passed them the ball. I couldn't hit water if I fell out of a boat from three. But we kept fighting. In the second half I got rolling a little bit. And I've got to credit all my teammates, they were the ones that got me the ball and made the plays. Q. Kaleb and T.J., you guys are getting this rematch tomorrow. And a lot of times teams look back on the last loss of the season and it drives them. Is that a game you have spent much time thinking about between then and now? T.J. McCONNELL: Yeah, after we lost to them, it gave us a long time to think about it, and we watched them go to a Final Four and lose at the buzzer to Kentucky. We thought that should have been us. But that's driven all of us to work as hard as we did in the summer and as hard as we did this season to be as good as we are. We have great respect for Wisconsin, but we're going to come out ready and play Arizona basketball. KALEB TARCZEWSKI: Even though last year our loss to them was devastating for all of us on the team, it kind of provides a level of familiarity with how they play. They're a very similar team to the one they had last year. So our game plan might be a little bit different this year. Like I said, the level of familiarity will hopefully kind of sway it our way. But we're all looking forward to being in the Elite Eight. It's an accomplishment. We're 34-3. We're excited to just be in the Elite Eight and be able to play. Q. If you make it to the next level to get to the NBA you might have a five-, 10-, 12-year career and chance to get an NBA title for a number of years. An NCAA title very fleeting, a very short window of time to get that done. Got another chance this year. How do you keep the moment from getting too big for you and look at this as another game? STANLEY JOHNSON: I think it's always when you get an opportunity like this to get to the Final Four, you obviously want to take advantage of it. But as I said before, especially as a freshman never playing in the tournament before, our days and the way we prepare for games are regular. We've been doing this since November, since I got here from the first scrimmage that we have. And that is all on Coach Miller. He makes everything pretty much easy to learn because everything is so similar for me. So I know what is expected of me. They know what's expected of them. Everybody knows what's expected, so we've just got to go out and play. Obviously the stakes are higher and the game is a little more intense. But once we settle in the game, everything gets to be regular. As long as we defend and rebound, we should be fine. KALEB TARCZEWSKI: We're just going to take it one moment at a time. I think we do a great job as a team of kind of taking a step back and just having fun out there and playing hard. We're lucky that we have the opportunity to still be playing this late in the season. We're going to cherish that and just go out there and have fun, and that's really how you get through. T.J. McCONNELL: Yeah, kind of what Kaleb and Stanley said, we're not going to make this game bigger than it already is. We're going to go over their stuff tomorrow, watch a lot of film and prepare like we always do. We all know it's a big game. It's the Elite Eight and to go to the Final Four. But we can't over-hype it, and we just have to play our game. Q. T.J., kind of a weird game, really disjointed and right before the last media time out you wave off Brandon, he's trying to set a screen for you and take that three. It was a big shot. Was there something in that moment that you decided, I'm taking this no matter what? T.J. McCONNELL: Yeah, I saw they were playing off me and I kind of just shot it. I was hoping it went in because I was abysmal from three tonight, but I'm glad it did, and it kind of sparked us. Even if I'm shooting bad, I'm going to keep shooting. And my teammates and coach told me to keep shooting, and I did. Q. Coach, you talked about how tough these last few games were for you personally facing obviously people you're so familiar with. Will it be any relief facing someone you're not necessarily friends with? COACH MILLER: In some ways, yes. It's just hard. The tournament is difficult in and of itself to prepare and know that if you lose, you're done. But if you play against the people you've worked with for long periods of time and you've been in the trenches with, you've been in games like this with before, it's hard when they're on the other side. Same thing with some of the people that cheer for them. You're used to them cheering for you, and it feels different. But this isn't about me. Obviously, tonight was a Sweet Sixteen game, and we're here in the West Regional because we've earned it. I thought the atmosphere in the building was great, and I know it will be terrific again on Saturday. But we're very excited to continue to be playing. Q. You were talking about resilience and how your team showed it. Was Kaleb an example of that? He seemed to really sort of step up in the second half? COACH MILLER: Kaleb is the one guy on our team who doesn't get enough credit. A lot of time he's not our leading scorer, and we have a balanced group, so our leading scorer a lot of times gets the credit for playing or the reason we won. But he does his job, is how I would describe him. There aren't many front-court players that can play Stainbrook one-on-one like he did. Now, Stainbrook had his moments, and if you look 17-10 is a great night. But he had one offensive rebound, and one of the strategies for us is we didn't want him to provide 10 to 20 points for his teammates. Because they do a great job of throwing it into him, and he's such a terrific passer that all of a sudden, the flood gate open from three or they get the ball moving and the reason it started to move was because you had to help on Stainbrook. And now it's both, he's not only scoring inside, but their perimeter attack is thriving because of him. I believe we gave up one three-point shot because of our help on him, and we tried our best to let Kaleb play one-on-one. Once Kaleb got four fouls, we mixed in a trap. I thought we had one really good trap, maybe one or two terrible traps. But they're a difficult team to defend. The reason we won in my opinion is Kaleb's double-double, and his very good defense. He did what we asked him to do. And I thought that was as big of a reason as we've advanced as any. Q. Coach, I'm curious the familiarity of the Badgers and how that will affect your preparation into this one, also from a psychological standpoint with the guys being as psyched as I'm sure they will be? Are you going to wear a different color red? There is going to be a lot of red in here. COACH MILLER: Yeah, well, we've had all year to think about Wisconsin. A lot like us, they're on a two-year run that is really unprecedented. I think you look at what we were last year, I think we lost five, so we're 69-8 over two years. I think if you put their record up over that same two-year period, they're right there. So we've got a group of guys, both in their program and in ours, who have really gotten the job done. Last year's game could have gone either way. I think they know that. But the one advantage that I do think we have is Wisconsin's style is so unique, the way they move the ball, the way they play their man-to-man defense, Kaminsky is a unique player. The fact that we've prepared for them, we've played against them, I think that we at least know what to expect. So in some ways maybe that is to our advantage. Now, Stanley wasn't here last year, and they have some new faces, et cetera. But I do think that familiarity in some way has to help us. Q. In this last year from that loss, have you used that as a motivational tool? Have you talked about that Wisconsin loss a lot? Have you stayed away from it totally? How much has that been talked about? COACH MILLER: Of course it's motivation to see if you can get back to this level. Very seldom are you right there in an Elite Eight game that you lose in overtime and then the next year you're back, let alone playing the same team. So there is some uniqueness to that. But I think a lot of our players were motivated this off-season to come back and make a run at this. And here we are, and that's really to our credit. As you know, especially in this tournament that is not an easy thing to accomplish. So we have to take advantage of it over the next couple of days and do the things that make us a good team. I know Wisconsin's going to do the same, and we'll see how it goes. Q. What did you think of that shot that T.J. took? Such a weird game. And how big was it for you guys in that moment? COACH MILLER: He's done that a number of times over the last two years where he doesn't have a very good night shooting the ball, but when he takes the big one, it seems to go in. I think that reveals a lot of his character. But tonight he let some of his early misses affect him. And in the first half, he was not himself. I think that coupled with Rondae going down and then getting two fouls, two of our key players really weren't themselves. Obviously, we're playing against a very good team. In the second half, Rondae emerged more, but T.J. was much more himself in the second half. But he has the ability to take the big shot and make it. I think that's one of the reasons that we're here today. Q. So were you nervous? COACH MILLER: Was I nervous when he shot it? Q. Were you nervous? COACH MILLER: No, as long as he takes a good shot, that's a good shot for us. A wide-open shot for him, he's one of our best shooters when his feet are set. Q. I'm not sure how much of the first game you watched, but it seemed like both games were very similar. The favorite struggles for about 30 minutes and then pulls away late, and both teams kind of point to their experience and their resolve. What is going to happen Saturday when both teams are equally experienced, and equally tough? COACH MILLER: It's going to be a great game, it is. Like I said, we respect Wisconsin, not just because we lost to them in last year's Elite Eight, but we followed them. We've watched them all year. They've had a tremendous year. They have a terrific team, and we know they play their brand of basketball. I hope it comes down on our end to a couple plays at the end, and this time maybe we'll make them. Q. How is Rondae's knee? Is he all good? COACH MILLER: I think he's okay, yeah. I think he was scared. He has maybe a low-grade sprain. But he was able to obviously play in the second half. He had some great rebounds that helped us win the game in the second half. But as you know, he's a very tough kid. We'll take tomorrow, be smart with him, and I think he should be fine by Saturday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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