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NCAA MEN'S FIRST FOUR: DAYTON

March 14, 2016

Greg Herenda

Dayton, Ohio

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by head coach of Fairleigh Dickinson, Greg Herenda. Coach, an opening statement.

GREG HERENDA: First of all, I'd just like to tell everyone here how honored we are to be in Dayton, Ohio. I just went to, what was the name of the smoke house?

THE MODERATOR: Smoke City Barbecue.

GREG HERENDA: Smoke City Barbecue. Had a great rib sandwich. Got treated really well there. But our team is ecstatic to be here in the First Four. We're privileged and honored. Dayton University, Dayton, Ohio, is a prestigious basketball city. My basketball team is very young. We're the third youngest team in America. We were picked ninth out of ten teams in the Northeast Conference. Last year we lost 15 straight games and won our last game. So this team has come from the depths of college basketball to the elite. And we're just very proud and privileged and humbled to be here and play such an opponent as Florida Gulf Coast. Joe Dooley is a New Jersey native, as am I. So he'll know me and I'll know him. In Jersey, everybody knows everybody. And Joe's a really good coach and has a really good team.

So we're going to have to play it very well to have a chance to win tomorrow night. But we're very excited. My team is a confident young team. I'm very proud of them. Proud of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Our administration, our athletic department, all of our teams and coaches and staff. And we're just literally ecstatic to be here today.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. I was wondering if you could comment on FGCU's size. That's one of the strengths that they seem to try and bring to the game. I was wondering if you can comment on that, if that's a strength of theirs, any advantage they might have on you guys? And in any way the contrast for how they play now to some degree versus the team that everyone came to know three years ago, with the up-tempo and all that stuff?
GREG HERENDA: Sure. Obviously, to be quite honest with you, when we saw Florida Gulf Coast, it's a sexy opponent. The name is out there. They had an incredible run. And now they're a totally different team, but a very, very good team. Size doesn't bother me, but size that rebounds and blocks shots and shoots a very high percentage -- doesn't scare me but it's something that we are very aware of. Joe was an assistant coach at Kansas. So when we watched tape late into the night so we saw a lot of Kansas tendencies.

They're good. They're deep. They don't take -- they look different than us. They don't take as many 3s. They take good shots, quality shots. They guard. I mean, they do everything really, really well. So the size is one thing. But the talent and the coaching and just how hard they play is something that we're going to have to contend with.

Q. Are you guys more in style like FGCU used to be than FGCU is now?
GREG HERENDA: I hope we are. Because they did some great, great things. But we are who we are. We're from New Jersey. We're a blue-collar team that likes to run, and we shoot 3s. We try to get to the basket. I've said before, we're not the greatest rebounding team and we're not the greatest defensive team all the time, but these guys find ways to win and to compete. As I said, we were picked ninth. We lost 15 games. So we've been on that other side of college basketball. And I just give my staff and my players credit for just working their tails off to get to this spot. But just to follow up real quick, at Wagner, after all the storming of the court, we met at half court. And I told the team that: Enjoy this, but we're going to the tournament to win game or games. That's the next goal. And that's going to be very difficult to do. But when you're picked ninth and you win on the road against a great Wagner team, that was hard to do. But we're excited to be here. But we want to win a basketball game tomorrow night, and we know we have to play great to do that.

Q. What's been the key to your turnaround from last year?
GREG HERENDA: I can't really answer that question clearly, but what I can tell you is this: If you're a coach and you believe in your team, that's great. But if you're a coach and your team believes in the team, then you become a great coach. And that's -- our kids believe in themselves. They believe in what they do. We invite -- we have open practices every day. And we have people come in and just watch. Because I like to show my team off. They play -- there's no out of bounds in our practices. There's no jump balls. So if two people grab the basketball and usually it's a quick whistle and the referees get in -- there's tussles. We don't have altercations because there's complete respect. When you have your first player and your 12th player playing as hard, there can't be any conflicts, because there's mutual respect. Then when we play other people, I think that's what's happened now, when I got the job here, we weren't in a good place, our program. But now we have the respect of our conference, most of all, and in New Jersey I think people respect us. And now it's a national stage, and we need the nation to respect us. But in between that is Florida Gulf Coast. So we have to respect them. But we have to play harder and play smarter and do all the right things in order to win.

Q. Given, you mentioned being on the national stage and given Florida Gulf Coast and their history, do you view this as a unique opportunity to kind of raise your profile or get people to notice you guys?
GREG HERENDA: I think so. And I told my players, like, we don't -- early in the year we didn't draw a lot of crowds and people didn't really get behind us. And I just told them every day, I said, I apologized, because we had a better record on the road than at home. And I said some day I'm going to get you to a building where you're playing in front of a lot of people. And sure enough we are. And now, to play in this tournament is already -- has exposed our program to just unbelievable things. But to win a game in the tournament, I think, further validates what we do at Fairleigh Dickinson every day. Last year we were the number one grade point average in men's basketball in the Northeast Conference. This past semester we were just about a 3.2 again. So we have kids going to class, going into the community, believing in what they do, and I know this sounds kind of like hokey, but it's the truth. This is my 33rd year of coaching college basketball. In my first press conference I had the Boys and Girls Club of Lodi and Hackensack, the directors there, before I ever met them, I had my assistant make sure they were there and they were introduced before I even went down there. And we've got a great relationship with those guys, and so Andy, this is -- we're from Bergen County and we're very proud of it. But I think you're right. I think playing and competing, win or lose, is people are going to look and say: Wow, that's a team that plays together, plays hard and is on a national stage and we're proud to represent Bergen County and especially our university.

Q. Can you talk about how your years at Holy Cross shaped you as a coach?
GREG HERENDA: Yes. I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for George Blaney, and George Blaney was the head coach at Holy Cross for so many years and then became the associate head coach for Jim Calhoun at University of Connecticut. And George Blaney offered me my first Division I assistant job at Worcester, and if for not that I wouldn't be here. He taught me how to be a coach, how to be a man, how to be a professional. I'm forever indebted. I say Coach Calhoun is a Hall of Fame coach, and George Blaney is a Hall of Fame person. And that's no knock on Jim Calhoun, but George Blaney is a man's man. We went to the same high school. I had the same high school coach as Coach Blaney and Bob Hurley, the head coach of St. Anthony in Jersey City. I love Holy Cross. I applied for the job twice and really wanted the job, to be quite honest with you, but never got it. And that's the business. But I have dear friends that are now doctors and lawyers and mayors of Peabody, Massachusetts. A kid I recruited, Ted Bettencourt is the mayor of Peabody. We won 99 games in five years. Went to the NCAA Tournament. Went to the NIT and recruited and coached some fine young men. So I love Holy Cross. I love Worcester. I love Shrewsbury Street, too.

Q. Are you familiar with their run to get to the NCAA Tournament, and what do you think of that?
GREG HERENDA: It's a great story. Billy Carmody was out of a job after Northwestern. And I invited him, begged him to come. He lived in Asbury, New Jersey, and he wound up coming to our practices in the summer and just watched our team. We talked basketball. And I know -- we text all the time. And I loved Billy making the run into the tournament, and I'm not surprised. It was going to take him a little while to figure out their system and the players to figure him out. He's a basketball genius. So I'm just really very -- I thought we might play Holy Cross, quite honest with you. And that would have been great. But I'm glad we're not playing each other, and hopefully Holy Cross and Billy wins. And I like to win, too.

Q. You talked about this being an atmosphere that you wanted to get the players to. And this is going to be one like they haven't played in before. How do you -- you have a young team, like you said, how do you get them ready for this make sure it's not too much to handle?
GREG HERENDA: We were just at Wright State and had practice and had one of the best one hour and 20 minutes. Hopefully we'll play well tomorrow night so that you can see, Andy. But we've got a team, a young team. And usually young good teams are cocky. They're not cocky at all. They're just very aware of where they are and not in awe of what they're doing. They're just very -- I don't know what to say. I'm just -- I think the key is our practices are so much the same every day and we started in July. We went to summer school together. So you're talking about July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March. You're talking about nine months of just we just bang the drum. And we talk about if you keep on digging hard enough, you're going to find gold. And these kids dig and dig and dig. And I just -- we might be nervous a little. I think if you're not nervous, you're not normal. But I think at the end of the day they just play basketball and they're maturing beyond their years. And I'm just a lucky, lucky guy. It starts with my staff. Bruce Hamburger, Dwayne Lee, Winston Smith, Grant Billmeier, who left us, went to Seton Hall, won a Big East championship. And Pete Lappas, who is the son of Steve Lappas, the former Villanova coach. And I'm surrounding myself with great people. I'm just the lucky guy in the middle. But I love my staff and my staff should get a lot of credit.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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