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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: PROVIDENCEMarch 16, 2016Kevin KeattsChris FlemmingsCraig ParkerDenzel IngramProvidence, Rhode Island Q. Craig, we talked about three 20-loss seasons to start your career. Now that you're actually up here, what kind of thoughts go through your mind as you're getting ready for this opportunity? CRAIG PONDER: First of all, I just can't believe that I'm actually here right now, man. Like I've always been saying, it feels surreal to be here now, especially after the way my career first started. Just trying to stay as ready as possible, trying to maintain my mental focus and everything. Q. Denzel, just talk about the experience of being able to face Duke, a team that you grew up watching. DENZEL INGRAM: Yeah, it's big back home. Obviously I know the rivalry between UNC and Duke is big, so I mean, it's very -- it's important to me. I'm excited to play them. I've always wanted to play them, and it's a great opportunity for us. Q. Chris, I understand your mom is a Duke fan; is that right? CHRIS FLEMMINGS: She is. Q. Can you tell me how that Duke fandom came about and if there are any particular Duke games that you remember her celebrating or enjoying? CHRIS FLEMMINGS: She's been a Duke fan since before I was even born. She was a long time Duke fan, even when like Grant Hill and ballplayers like that were there, so she's always been a big fan. Q. Did you watch the championship game with your mom last year, the Final Four? How did she celebrate that? CHRIS FLEMMINGS: Yeah, I watched the game with her. Of course she was excited, so it was kind of tough because I always like to go against her just in general, but it was fun. Q. Denzel, just your thoughts on Brandon Ingram and what he's been able to do in his freshman year and the challenge of facing a guy who's obviously going to go on to big things in the NBA. DENZEL INGRAM: I mean, he's a great player, take nothing from him. We're just doing a lot of scouting right now, knowing his strengths and knowing the things he struggles with. I mean, it's exciting. Any time we're on the stage and you're going against good players, you want to make the most out of it. Q. Denzel, can you talk about whether you guys would prefer having the David versus Goliath type of match-up or the style of you guys bringing a little bit more depth than Duke and not too many people being surprised that you could pull off this victory. What approach are you guys taking? DENZEL INGRAM: We're not really focused on that. We're just trying to think about it as another game, don't want to bring too much hype to it. We know what we can do and we know what they can do, so we'll just come out here and compete and try to win games. Q. Craig, what is the balance that you guys have talked about having here versus enjoying the experience versus keeping it business as usual? CRAIG PONDER: You know, you've just got to take the approach that we take to every game: Go in and do heavy scouting, do heavy practice, go into practice with the mentality that we've got to prepare for another game. Even though this one holds a little bit more importance, we try to just treat it like another one. Q. Chris, I know you started your career in Division II at Barton. When did you make the decision that you were going to try to make the jump to Division I, and what was it about maybe your game that you thought would translate to a higher level? CHRIS FLEMMINGS: It wasn't until after my sophomore season after I had taken some time after workouts and everything after that, and after seeing Coach Keatts get hired at UNCW being running, pressing. Q. This question is for any of the three players. What has Coach Keatts meant to this program as far as what he's done his three years during his tenure? CRAIG PONDER: He means a lot to the program because -- I say I can answer this because I've been here the longest. His style of play, everything that he's brought, the mentality that he's changed throughout the whole program, it's just been tremendous. You look at his success for the past two years, and you've got to take your hat off to him. DENZEL INGRAM: Just to piggyback on that, I played for him for just this year, but when I transferred in I knew he was a winner. He preached championships, and I believed him. He's delivered, so I have nothing but the most respect for him. CHRIS FLEMMINGS: Same thing these guys said. He's honest with you, tells you straight up what you need to do to be successful. Q. You guys have kind of played under the shadow of Duke and UNC and all these other North Carolina schools. Do you guys kind of see this as an opportunity to get some respect on the state level? DENZEL INGRAM: I mean, honestly, we don't really try to feed into that. I mean, whether we're the little brother or the step-cousin or anything like that, whatever is going on, we just want to come here and win games and compete. They're great programs, and UNCW is a great program, also. Q. You guys have been doing a lot of scouting. Is there anything that you see that you can exploit against Duke, or is this going to be just one of those match-ups you guys got to do what you've done all season long? CRAIG PONDER: You hit it right on the head. We're just going into the scouting doing exactly what we've done all season, playing our style of ball and hoping that it works in our favor. Q. Chris, obviously you guys don't have anybody like Brandon Ingram to run scout team. What has it been like preparing and sort of getting ready and what will it take for you to be able to slow him down a little bit? CHRIS FLEMMINGS: It's just been watching a lot of film, paying attention to his tendencies and the things that he likes to do, so game planning and trying to take those away. Q. Craig, what is it about -- is there something in the water at Hargrave that allows so many great players to come out of there and allow Coach Keatts to produce so many great players out of there? CRAIG PONDER: With Hargrave, the kids that go there, really a lot of us have a chip on our shoulders, and I think the way we play reflects on that because everybody who comes from there, we're hungry, and we're well-coached coming out of Hargrave. And that's really the recipe for all the great players. Q. Any of the players, as far as Grayson Allen, he was one of the top scorers in the ACC. What is it about his game that you guys are seeing on film that you will have to contain the most tomorrow afternoon? DENZEL INGRAM: He's a hard right driver. He likes to shoot threes in transition, quick release. We know all those things, so we just want to limit those and try to limit his touches. KEVIN KEATTS: Well, guys, good afternoon. Very excited to have the opportunity to be here. When you think about UNCW, you think about a program -- in the early 2000s to 2006, we had some NCAA runs, and it's been over a decade since we had the opportunity to play in the NCAA. I was the most excited coach in America when I saw on CBS when our name came across the TV. And I think all the players and the community was excited, and we enjoyed it. We look forward to the opportunity. I've told everybody that I was excited for about 30 minutes, and then once everything calmed down, and I got back to my office and realized -- because when you hear your name called, you don't know who you're playing because all you do is you see your name. And then I realized we were going to play against Mike Krzyzewski and Duke, then it was a reality check. My guys are excited. We've had a tremendous year. When you talk about winning the regular season championship and then going on to Baltimore and having the opportunity to win three games in three days to be able to make it to this point, we're excited as a program. Very happy to be here. Looking forward to playing against an unbelievable well-coached Duke team that's got a lot of pieces, that in my opinion, causes us a lot of problems. But I think our guys are up for the challenge, and we're excited about the opportunity. Q. What have you told the guys about the balance between enjoying this opportunity and sort of treating business as usual? KEVIN KEATTS: Well, that's a great question. With this team all year long, we've actually stayed in the moment. Like I'm one of those coaches that we've never put up the conference standings, or this game means if you win this, you win the conference championship, or you win this, you win the regular season. I talk to these guys about obviously the difference in playing in the CAA and playing in the NCAA is that it's more media, and you're going to have mics in your face and people are going to ask you questions. I told them the biggest thing is stay focused and understand that you're task is obviously to come out and play as best you can, have as much fun as you can in this tournament, and have an opportunity to try to beat Duke. Q. Kevin, they're very shorthanded right now, obviously. Is there a way you can exploit that to your advantage? KEVIN KEATTS: Well, that's a great question, and everybody says they're short-handed, which they are. I know they play six or seven guys. But when you play six or seven guys all year long, you get used to it, and Coach K is brilliant. He understands that. He does a great job of mixing some man-to-man and playing some zone to make sure he protects the guys and make sure they don't get in foul trouble. I would say because we're a pressing team, a lot of people say that's to our advantage, and certainly I hope it is. But I would caution people with that because of the fact that we're not playing them the second and third day in the tournament, we're playing them the first day, and certainly they've had some time to rest. It's going to be tough. I hope that our press comes into play. I hope we can wear them down. But I think they're in very good shape because you learn how to play with six or seven guys throughout the year. Q. Question about Brandon Ingram. Based on your assessment, what makes him a special player? KEVIN KEATTS: Well, he's a tough guard, and I said this the other day, he's probably the closest thing that I've seen to Kevin Durant. I know a lot of people have probably compared him to that, but he's a tough match-up because if you put a guard on him and it's a smaller guard, he's able to shoot over him. If you put a power forward or put a center on him or any bigger guy, he's able to drive around those guys. He's just a tough-match up. He does so much for the team. He can score the basketball, he can rebound the basketball, he can blocks shots. He can finish. That's what makes him special. A lot of people say, well, he's 190 pounds; be physical with him. Well, I don't think you can be physical with anybody in today's game the way they call it, and he's a big-time match-up. You're looking at possibly the No. 1 or 2 pick in the draft, and it's going to be tough for us. Q. I know it's very different personnel, but is there anything that you can take from the game plan, the 2013 game, Louisville against Duke, anything that you might be able to apply here today? KEVIN KEATTS: (Laughing). No. And I say that jokingly, because the personnel is so much different. I mean, you look at us, we're probably one of the smallest teams in the whole tournament. When we were at Louisville we had big guys. At that time when we played them twice, we had Zach Price starting who was 6'10" because Gorgui Dieng didn't play in the Bahamas. And then when we beat them to go to the Final Four and Elite 8, we had Gorgui Deng, we had Chane Behanan, some big guys. We're a totally different team. None of the things I learned playing in those two games is going to help us. We're totally different, and so is Duke to be honest with you. Q. Early in the week you said you were going to have a conversation with Coach Pitino. How did those go? KEVIN KEATTS: We text a lot, and I think when I texted him he was praying for me on the other end. Listen, coach has the most respect for Coach K of anybody in the country. He told me obviously they're a great team and certainly you've got to do a good job of guarding Brandon Ingram, you've got to do a great job of guarding Grayson Allen. There wasn't much that he could give us. Coach hasn't had the opportunity to watch my team much. We don't play on TV as much, and we're a lot different than his team. And the other thing is he's played a bunch of match-up zone this year. We're really a primary man-to-man team, and so he wished me luck. Q. A lot of people are seeing the disadvantage for Duke with their lack of depth, but you brought up a good point on why they won't be a disadvantage for them in this game. What do you see as being an advantage for your team going into this tournament compared to what Duke's disadvantage is? KEVIN KEATTS: Well, it's tough for us because if you look on paper, they're probably better than us at every position. The thing we have to our advantage is I think we may have a little quickness. We're smaller. I think we may be a little bit quicker. We can spread the floor. We can make shots. We have the ability to be able to switch some ball screens and hopefully disrupt them in a little bit. We don't have much disadvantage going in. In order to have success I think we've got to have three guys play really well on the offensive end, and I think we've got to be very solid on the defensive end. Q. Could you have envisioned any scenario this year where your team would have been playing in the NCAAs and Louisville was not? KEVIN KEATTS: No, I don't -- obviously you never know what happens in a tournament situation. You never know with anything. To touch on us, it's one of those teams that when I took the job last year, we ended up winning 18 games. I felt like we were ahead of schedule. And certainly to have these guys come back, and we've got seven newcomers when you talk about four freshmen and three transfers, for us to be here and our chemistry to be very good, it was -- I think we're ahead of schedule again. I expected this as a coach in year three, not year two, and I'm ecstatic that we're here, and I'm excited about the opportunity that we have in front of us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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