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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: RALEIGH

March 16, 2016

Ed Cooley

Raleigh, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We are now ready to begin Coach Cooley's segment of the press conference. Coach, could you please give us an introductory statement.

ED COOLEY: First of all, I want everyone to know how excited we are as a school, a college, to be participating in this great tournament. I think the greatest sporting event in America. Everybody can't wait for March. I'm excited to represent the Big East, and our players are excited to be here, our administrators. There's no greater feeling than being on this podium as a head coach, to be -- have an opportunity to advance. We're excited. We're delighted, and, man, I can't wait to play.

Q. Talk about the development of Ricky Council II?
ED COOLEY: Well, Ricky's very young and he is growing. Getting used to the speed, the strength of the game. You know, I think he's a year away from really helping us, hasn't played much. But we like him in our organization and we're looking forward to his development.

Q. Coach, can you just talk about today, obviously a very busy day for you guys. Can you talk about the players today.
ED COOLEY: Players did great today. It is a busy day, it's a busy day for all of us coaches. I'd rather be super busy than at home. We all want to be busy at this time. I hope we're super busy Friday as well.

Our guys did a good job in our practice session. Film session, study hall. Got to have study hall. Got to be compliant and make sure our babies graduate. It's a busy day. We're going have have another film session tonight. Got a game tomorrow, and I told you from the excitement in my voice we want just want to play.

Q. Third straight year in the Tournament for the first time in 40 years I guess it is. What is the significance of actually getting to advance this time potentially and how much do you feel like you guys can take from the last couple trips to the Tournament to kind of move forward this time?
ED COOLEY: Fair question. I anticipated a question like that. Being here three years in a row, some familiarity right now. We have some guys that played on the floor last year. Kris, Ben, Kyron, Jalen, Junior have all played in this game. From a programatic development standpoint, this is our fifth year here running this organization and to continue to move our program forward, we need to try to advance in this tournament to continue to build our brand and build our program. So all the pressure is on me, not so much the players to try to get our program to continue to be one of the elite schools in the country.

Q. Coach, you guys obviously lean on Ben and Kris a lot. I think something like 60% of your possessions end with the ball in their hands. How important against a team like USC that's so balanced, does the rest of the rotation really contribute?
ED COOLEY: You know our last game that we played was against a very tough Villanova team. They combined for 12 points, and it was a two-point game with four minutes to play. Do we rely heavily on them? Yes. That's our program. They are our two headline guys. At the same time our other players are growing and developing. Kyron Cartwright has played as well as anybody. Jalen Lindsay has played well coming down the stretch, Rodney Bullock. It takes time for guys that haven't been in that role to grow. And Ben and Kris will have another 60 or 70% of the touches again. That's not going to change. Those other guys just got to continue to grow.

Q. Coach, you just mentioned about development and branding yourself as well. How important is having success here to you and to the program, and to the Big East as well overall having success?
ED COOLEY: Well, it's important in two ways: We want to continue to get better as a school, as a basketball program. You know, it's an honor to be invited to this tournament, but at the same time, I want to make sure Providence College continues to grow as a college as well and a university.

For the Big East, we want to continue to advance in here, you know, many of you writers have beaten up the Big East because we haven't advanced the way some of you feel we should. This is a really, really tough tournament. There's a lot of schools that will be going home after day one of this tournament or day two, if you want to put that after the opening-round games yesterday.

We're just trying to advance, and hopefully we can do that.

Q. It's my understanding you advised Kris to turn pro after last year. On looking back on it, did he make a good decision in coming back and has it played out the way you thought it would?
ED COOLEY: I told Kris if I was his dad, I told him he should leave last year, you know. Given the circumstance of his injury, I do not want that young man to be hurt under my watch. I don't know if I would have been able to live with myself. But at the same time, give Kris a lot of credit where he didn't feel like -- Kris told me, I don't want to just be drafted. I want to be a professional player and I'm just not there yet. Individually, skill level. I think in the end it will work out for him in a great way.

First and foremost, he'll graduate from school and as his coach, I couldn't be more proud of that. Kris is not trying to chase money. I always told him if you chase it, you'll never catch it. But if you let it catch you, you'll surpass what you think you could earn. So that was my advice to him and I'm really proud of him for coming back to Providence College.

Q. You talked about fast tempo, is controlling the tempo the biggest thing? And do you think you can run with them?
ED COOLEY: I think we can play with anybody in the country. We're in this because we got an at-large win and have some really good wins on our resume. We want to be opportunistic offensively. We don't want to go crazy and take the first good shot. We want to take the first great shot. In Tournament play, you have to be super efficient. You can't turn the ball over. Guys have to know their roles. Guys have to be comfortable in their roles. Again, we played at our pace. I think we played a great pace in tempo all year. We just have to make sure we're not playing the way somebody else wants us to play.

Q. All season long, there's been talk about, you know, the other guys outside of Ben and Kris. You addressed it earlier that they played so well against Villanova. Have you ever addressed the other guys collectively and said, hey, guys, there's a certain, you know, thing that you have to fulfill as well?
ED COOLEY: You know, I always tell our guys to do their job. What is your role on their team. Like what do you do to help Providence College win? Whether it's Kyron dictating pace and tempo in finding guys, whether it's Jalen and Ryan making shots, Rodney being on the glass, Junior being that defensive stopper. I think as you build a team, you have to build their roles, and if they buy into their roles, I think the more roles that can be identified early, you have later success.

So I think our guys have done that. And right now, hopefully we have saved our best for last and hopefully it really comes out tomorrow.

THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? All right.

ED COOLEY: You don't have any questions? You don't have any questions? My son out there. Get some good grades.

Q. Are we going win tomorrow?
ED COOLEY: Are we going to win tomorrow? That's a great question. Have a great day.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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