|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: PROVIDENCEMarch 16, 2016Gregg MarshallRon BakerAnton GradyFred VanVleetProvidence, Rhode Island Q. Ron and Fred, talking with Kaleb earlier, he mentioned that you guys got to play together at the Pan-Am games. What can you tell us about your experiences with Kaleb and then what type of opponent he's going to be for you guys tomorrow night? RON BAKER: We got to spend about -- for me two weeks and then another week in Toronto, and Fred actually got to room with him in the Springs. Just a really good guy off the court, fun to be around, great teammate. Obviously basketball-wise he's seven-foot, 250, so he's not a fun opponent to go against by any means. But yeah, he's going to be a handful tomorrow. But we're excited for the challenge just like we were our previous game. FRED VANVLEET: I spent about a week. We actually got roomed together. I just remember being stuck in those little dorms for the USA thing, his legs hanging halfway off the bed trying to get some rest. He was a good guy. We bonded pretty well. It was fun playing with him. But tomorrow we step on the court, and that's our enemy. We'll remain friends, but when it's time to play, it's time to play. Obviously he's a tough challenge for any team, but I've got confidence in all of our guys that we'll be ready to go, and we'll try to step up to the challenge. Q. Anton, I understand you guys arrived very early this morning after your win in Dayton. What do you do tomorrow to get some rest and be ready to do for the tip against Arizona? ANTON GRADY: Well, Coach let us get a lot of rest today. We did a film session. We're going to have a shoot-around. We're going to look at some old film and then we're going to get some more rest tonight. Tomorrow we're just going to look at film and rest and just get ready for the game. Q. What do seniors bring to this tournament, specifically for you guys? Arizona has three seniors, as well, that start for them. How tough does that make that? What's the determination like for seniors versus maybe underclassmen? FRED VANVLEET: I'll take it. I think for us three right here, me and Ron, what we bring is experience in the tournament and knowing how to weather runs and knowing how to advance and knowing what it's like to lose early, too. I think for a guy like Anton, he brings the desperation and the determination. I mean, he's grateful to be on this team. He came here to play in the tournament, and he doesn't want to go home. So he can bring that sense of urgency, and we all three bring that urgency as well as Evan and Bush to the younger guys. It's going to take all of our guys to be able to advance, but right now we're just trying to lock in and focus on a very tough Arizona team. Q. Ron and Fred, is it difficult at all to block out your futures in basketball after this season, or does the NCAA Tournament take care of that and you don't give that much thought? RON BAKER: For me, it's pretty easy to block out. What happens in the future happens. I can only control what's in front of me right now, and that's the NCAA Tournament and that's my teammates. This time of year is really fun, and to be a part of it, it's very special. A lot of college athletes aren't able to play in this tournament, and I take it for granted. And for me to make the most out of this tournament is very important to me, and that's why it's so easy to block out my future. FRED VANVLEET: Yeah, same. We're locked in. The tournament is the best time that we've had in college. It's the most fun. It's the biggest stage, brightest lights. You deal with things as they come, and our future is in the future. All we can control is right now. I think as a group that's what we're trying to do is stay in the moment. Q. Fred, I know you missed some time earlier this year with an injury. The team struggled a little bit without you. Was there ever any point while you were sitting out that you were concerned that maybe you wouldn't get back here to the tournament? FRED VANVLEET: No, I never had doubt in the team. I was just more doubtful of myself. I've never had an injury like that where I've missed so many games and missed so much time in practice. It was a tough time for me just being a leader of the team and wanting to be out there with the team and with the guys. I learned a lot about myself in that time and a lot about this team. And I think that was a huge stretch for us where young guys got some experience that they may have not got otherwise. We got beat up on pretty bad, lost a couple games in a row, but I think it made us stronger in the long run. The great thing about it now is we can just erase all of that. Nothing matters. The regular season doesn't matter. We got in luckily. I think we proved that we shouldn't have been the play-in game yesterday, but it is what it is. You take it as it comes and just try to accept every challenge that comes your way. We reflect on the season to spring us forward, but at the same time, you kind of want to forget that stuff, and this is a new life for our team. Q. The history with this play-in game, at least one team that wins that seems to make a good run. What is it about this game? Some people look at it as maybe a disadvantage to have to play a game, travel, come in early like you guys did and then play again the next day. What is it about that play-in game that seems to feed teams through to the Sweet 16 and beyond? FRED VANVLEET: It puts a chip on your shoulder definitely. The way it's viewed -- typically the talk is that those teams that are in those play-in games shouldn't be in the tournament, so we just take all of that as ammunition and just keep letting that chip on our shoulder get bigger and bigger. I can't speak for the other teams that are in the play-in games. I just know for our team and our guys, we're using anything that we can as motivation and just trying to keep advancing. That's the best part of the year for college basketball. Unfortunately we got a very tough Arizona team that we're going to have to go through tomorrow in order to keep dancing. Q. When did you guys actually get to the hotel and were you able to sleep in today, or were you wired? What's it like? RON BAKER: We flew in from Dayton. We left Dayton about 2:30, and we got in our bed in our hotel around 5:00, 5:30. Coach let us sleep in until 1:00, had lunch, and then we had another meal at 4:30, film, and then we're here now. Not too bad of a turnaround. It was just kind of a long night. FRED VANVLEET: I mean, this time of year I could stay up all day. It doesn't matter. It's what we love to do. I mean, we could have walked to Providence for all I care. I'm just happy to be in the tournament. We're hungry. We're ready to play. And we're not going to let some sleep or a late travel -- we're blessed to be in this position. A late traveling schedule, whatever the case may be, we've got plenty of time to get rested up tomorrow. I mean, we could have played this morning. Not that we would have been very good, but I think our energy would have been up. ANTON GRADY: Like Fred said, we're not focused on -- we're not really worried about sleep. We're not looking for any excuses. We're just happy to be here, and we're just ready to play basketball. We're excited to play basketball. Q. Anton, I wonder if you've spoken to Trey Lewis at all, your old Cleveland State teammate, and whether or not he's given you any encouragement about going out there and finishing it off in the NCAAs like he wasn't able to with Louisville? ANTON GRADY: Well, I actually talked to Trey this morning. He's out in Miami right now. He had a good night last night. He told me congratulations on the win. I'm winning these games for both of us just because he can't get that experience. So that's something big for me to actually get this experience and appreciate it for both of us since he couldn't do it. Q. Fred, I was just wondering how that cut was, and do you plan to wear anything over it tomorrow? How is that doing now? FRED VANVLEET: I mean, it's good. After it opened up early, I got it cleaned up and patched up. Luckily, I don't need stitches, or I opted not to get stitches, so I'll be fine. You put these strips on. Whenever they fall off, they fall off, and go from there. But no pain, no swelling, so it's all good. GREGG MARSHALL: It's great to be here in Dunkin' Donuts Center. Coached here many times as an assistant coach and in the NIT against Rhode Island and Providence when I was at the College of Charleston. And then we actually came up here and played with my Winthrop teams against Tim Welsh and Providence a few years ago, Ryan Gomes and those guys. Great building, great city for basketball, and we're excited to be here for the next challenge. Q. Fred was just talking about the chip on the shoulder that those guys have from being in that playing-in game. And kind of throughout the year as your program has had sort of that mentality of a chip on their shoulder for various reasons, how much is that fueling them right now do you think? GREGG MARSHALL: First Four, First Four. Q. Sorry. GREGG MARSHALL: I think it works to our advantage. Maybe I coach the same way, and that's been why we've been a great combination, Fred, Ron and myself. None of us come from basketball royalty. None of us had a silver spoon. They weren't high-level recruits, and no one knew who the heck I was until we started winning and advancing in the NCAA Tournament. We just -- we try to make sure there's an emphasis on maybe -- we say that you can't disrespect our program. We can't make you respect us, but we can certainly not allow you to disrespect us. And that's something that we try to do each and every day in practice. And then in the games, I think it's exemplified with how hard they play and how tough they are and how they compete. Q. We talked a lot about having seniors. Arizona has a good core of seniors, as well. Is that a draw tomorrow or do you think your guys like Baker and VanVleet that have been here so often still have an edge? GREGG MARSHALL: You know, I don't even know who their seniors are. I just know who their players are. I didn't look at their class, I looked at their size. I looked at 'Czews and, of course, Anderson, the transfer from Boston College, both big guys inside. And they've got the reserve post player that played at Sunrise in Wichita. And then is York a senior? I know he really shoots it well. I've seen him play for many, many years. I know the other two guards are not seniors, Allen and Trier. They're both from the Midwest. I don't know. I don't know if we have an edge. Arizona has won a lot of games, and Sean does it the right way. His teams play the right way. I love how tough they are. I love how they execute and pound the ball inside. I love how they defend and rebound. I'm not sure we have an experience -- they've played a lot of NCAA Tournament games, as well. Q. Gregg, there's quite a contrast between the scoring and the pace of play in the Valley and the PAC-12. Is basketball different geographically? Does offense get more emphasized as you move west across the country? GREGG MARSHALL: Well, there was more offense on the East Coast when I moved to the Midwest. I thought the game was a really physical, grind-it-out game when I first moved to Wichita State, but we try to play more like teams in the East Coast that I was used to. The West Coast, you always hear about people playing with great speed and offensive games. It's more esthetically pleasing. But when you watch Arizona, even though they score 83 points a game, they're a physical, tough team. They could easily go into the Big Ten and compete for championships because of their size and their strength and their resolve. But then they get out in transition. They turn defense into offense with their athleticism and their guards just are in attack mode when they start dribbling downhill after they get over half court. Q. You mentioned the size of Arizona, and in particular, Tarczewski. He's not that prototypical rim protector that going to emphatically block shots, but he's going to impact shots at the rim. He's not that guy that they game play offensively, but how do you game plan for a guy of that size and something you maybe haven't seen as much throughout the year? GREGG MARSHALL: Well, we've got to limit his touches. We've got to try to deny him the basketball, and once he gets it, he likes to dribble it. He likes to get closer to the basket. He tries to dunk everything, so we're going to have to make it congested in there, make him play in traffic. Our guards are pretty good at that, knowing when and how to double. We may have to double post-to-post if it gets to be such a problem. They do that also. They do it very well to try to turn the other team over. They don't need to do it because of their size, but they do it to try to turn the other team over. We'll have to game plan not only for him, but Anderson scores as many points as he does, as does Trier. And then obviously York can shoot it, and Allen scored 26 points a game in junior college in Kansas, so we're very familiar with how he can score, also. Q. Anton has really been shooting the ball well over the last six games or so. Did it take a while to figure out his best places for him to score from over the course of this season? How has that progressed? GREGG MARSHALL: It really has. It's a great point and great question because we got him in June or July, whenever it was, after he finished up at Cleveland State, and then he had a setback. We were just starting the season, and he's -- I don't know how many weeks, months that he missed -- but he missed at least a handful of games and practices. And we didn't know if he was going to play again because he was temporarily paralyzed. I mean, that spinal concussion was a real threat to his career. So that set us back. And then what we found is he's really good in the mid-range. He wants to stretch it out and try to shoot the three, but I think that's a few -- maybe a step or two outside of his range. But he can certainly shoot it in the mid-range. He's good with certain moves on the block, but I'm not sure how -- if he's going to be able to take those guys down tomorrow and do any work on them, on the low box. He's just got to pick his spots to try to use his quickness to counteract their size advantage. Q. Ron and Fred in particular have been in so many of these big games. Compared to other players that you've had in the past, whether it be Winthrop or Wichita State, how much coaching do those guys really require when you get to this point in the season and getting into NCAA games again? GREGG MARSHALL: It's just a scouting report at this point with them, just the nuances that this is what we want to do with this ball screen, this is what we want to do when you're defending this guy. How much can you help, how much can you not, and the subtleties of guarding their particular position. They don't require any motivation. They don't require any prodding. Like I did tell Ron Baker at the end of last -- every once in a while with these guys, I'll have like -- I'll pick my spot to coach them a little bit. Like Ron took what I thought was a poor shot with about three minutes to go last night, we're probably up 14, and he takes a left-handed running lay-up over their big guy that didn't draw iron, and I kind of yelled at him, that was a bad shot. Time and score, you've got to do better than that. Then I looked at the video, and he got hit pretty good. I thought there could have been a foul, and he was probably thinking he was going to get two free throws. He doesn't say anything, he just goes on with it. Fred last night missed a wide-open guy rolling to the basket on one of our screen-and-roll plays, and I said, man -- I'm an old point guard -- and I said, you missed that, and he goes -- he had something to tell me at the time-out that he had another option that he thought was good. So what does he do, he promptly in the same possession, instead of hitting the guy for the dunk, he drains his first three of the night. He basically told me that was enough. Q. Last night you played the two big guys together more than you have a lot. How did you like how that worked, and is that something against Arizona's size that might be helpful again? GREGG MARSHALL: I thought it was great because Rauno played so well. Shaq literally played less than a minute in his first two runs. He had two fouls in probably 40 seconds. Didn't help us too much last night, but Rauno came in and really helped us, and then we actually played a fourth post player, Bush Wamukota, in the first half. We'll have to rotate those guys through. They're all going to have to play. They're all going to have to defend. They're going to have to rebound. And another thing that we can do is try to use their energy because they're going to be fresh relative to the other guys that Arizona puts out there that have more size. Q. You mentioned Fred and Ron, and you've always had seniors on your really best teams. Is it normal not to have to coach them as much, or are these guys special in that way? GREGG MARSHALL: Oh, they're special. I mean, they came in knowing how to win. They were coached well at their high schools in Scott City and Rockford, Illinois. They were coached well in AAU. Their parents are teachers and coaches and mentors. They just knew how to win. They knew how to play. We were just the beneficiaries of putting them together. That's it. We were smart enough to put them on the same team, on the same roster, and just give them a little structure. But they know how to win. They know how to lead by example, and their toughness permeates throughout our program. The young guys see what they do and how they do it on and off the court, and it's a great example to follow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|