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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: BROOKLYNMarch 17, 2016Fran DunphyBrooklyn, New York FRAN DUNPHY: We're happy to be here, happy to be in the NCAA Tournament. We know the challenge that's in front of us by a terrific University of Iowa team, coached by a good friend. So a few story lines floating around out there, Philly story lines. But, again, happy to be here, and hopefully we represent Temple University and Philadelphia very well. Q. Can you throw us one or two Fran McCaffery stories and describe your friendship. FRAN DUNPHY: Well, we go back very, very far. He was a little bit younger than I. I remember watching him as a high school basketball player, very, very impressed with how good of a player he was. He went away to college for a year and then came back to the University of Pennsylvania. The similarities are there with a number of our guys over the years who have done that, to include two of those guys that were just up here a little bit ago. But I think he's had an unbelievable coaching career. He's done a great job at the University of Iowa. I can remember his dad being a Philly cop, and part of his chores at the end of his career were to take care of the Palestra. So I would see him all the time. His mom and his dad were very, very terrific basketball fans and great Philadelphians. So it's a terrific Philadelphia family. But we see each other often in the off-season. Q. What kind of challenges does it present in covering guys like Uthoff and Jok? FRAN DUNPHY: They are huge challenges. Uthoff is one of those guys that has a great understanding of the game. There's a reason he has as many blocks as he does. He anticipates as good as anyone we have played against. He seemingly has no weaknesses. He can make shots from the perimeter. He can drive it. He can pull up jump shot. He can drive it all the way to the rim, and he makes plays for his teammates too. So he's a multidimensional guy who's very, very difficult to guard. And Jok, he's got as good looking a jump shot as you see. He looks like he's always in rhythm. I was watching the Illinois game on tape yesterday, and just there was a stretch where he was just burying every shot that he took. And he's got the ability to get it to the rim as well. So those two guys present great challenges for us. We can't let them up for air, and yet you know they're going to get their stuff, and we're just hoping that we limit it. Q. Iowa has struggled down the stretch here. Do you focus, when you're doing scouting, more on what's going on the last three, four weeks, or what happened the previous two or three months before that? FRAN DUNPHY: Well, you don't -- I don't think too much about their struggle. They are really a good team, and I think this is a whole new world, the NCAA Tournament is a fresh start for everybody. I've watched a number of those games on tape. There were a lot of missed shots that weren't missed by much and just a bad break here or there can result in a loss to -- the life that we lead, the fragile nature of the life that we lead is sometimes the games come down to a made shot or a missed shot, and a bad pass or a nonrebound or whatever, and that's just the way it is. But they're really good. We realize that. So we're concentrating on their individual skills but also how they play as a team. For example, they're great at, if we make a shot at one end, if we relax, they're going to run it right down our throat and get a great shot at the other end. So we have to pay attention to those kinds of details. So that's what we're watching. Q. I'm curious, just sort of two parts to this. One is, when you look back at the transition that you made from Penn coming to Temple, how much the significance -- and just sort of you being essentially at the center of Philadelphia basketball in virtually every conceivable way eased that transition and made it easier for you. And then just in terms of how that relates to this weekend's festivities, you know, to be facing someone from Philly, to have Villanova in the next bracket, how familiar it all feels to you as you're experiencing it. FRAN DUNPHY: Well, first of all, my transition from Penn to Temple was made easy because of John Chaney. So he and I talked at length, and I've said this all the time, if we had a two-hour talk, I'd talk for two minutes. He instructed me as to what it was going to be like should I take advantage of this opportunity. He's a great mentor, a great friend, a great competitive rival of ours. So he made it easy. He accepted me into the Temple family and made it easy. The fact that I didn't have to move -- and not too many guys in my profession have been in it as long as I have and lived in the same house since 1984. So that made it easier. As far as this weekend is concerned, Fran obviously has some Philly ties. Uthoff and Jok don't. So they're not worried about anything Philly when they go up to try to make a shot. And then Villanova waiting on the other side, I'm sure the Villanova guys are going to be saying we've got to take care of our business against Asheville, and then whatever happens, they're going to be ready to play. We've already played Villanova. We know how good they are. But we have a tough, tough task in front of us with Iowa. Q. You've been in the tournament on and off since 1993. I want to know how the tournament has changed since then and how your preparation for it has changed over that time? FRAN DUNPHY: Well, I think you always do the same thing. You're preparing as if you were in another big game coming up. We took the necessary rest that we needed on Sunday. We started to get back into our routine on Monday, and now here we are on Thursday, we're finishing up our process of trying to prepare for a very good basketball team. It's changed a little bit, the excitement level is different, but I see the same excitement in the players. They're fired up about this opportunity, and they want to do their best, and it really is going to come down to how poised they are tomorrow. Can they make that tough shot in the lane with a lot of traffic going on? Are they going to pay attention to the defensive assignment? So as far as the Coach is concerned, it's always exciting. When your name is called and you're not sure you're going to get it called, when it is called, it's unbelievable. It's as good a feeling as you can have for your student-athletes. When it's not called, it's pretty devastating, as it was last year. We thought we had done enough, and we didn't. Every year brings a different challenge. Every team brings a different set of dynamics with it. So this particular group seems to have enjoyed living on the edge, and we'll see what we can do tomorrow. Q. Not looking ahead to Villanova potentially playing them here, but that you have played them and you mentioned that you know how good they are. The knock on Villanova has been they haven't been able to get out of the first round the last few years. What makes you think that this year's team is different? Obviously, you're so familiar with Jay and the Philly hoops scene. So why do you think this year's team can make a deeper run? FRAN DUNPHY: Just because they're really good. They're really well coached. I think Jay does as good a job coaching basketball as anybody that I watch all year long. His guys play hard. They play competitively. Defensively, they dig in. They've got a bunch of really good basketball skilled guys. They have the requisite toughness that they need. So I don't think there's any limit on what Villanova can do. It's just the luck of the draw, the luck of the jump shot, the luck of getting the rebound at the right time. I don't think it's anything other than that. Again, going back to the fragile nature of the lives that we all lead. Q. Fran, you obviously made a big deal about getting into the tournament. You said you showed the banner to the kids. Where do you see the state of the program right now after missing two years, being back in the tournament? And do you feel like you guys can get back to the place where John had the program at one time? FRAN DUNPHY: Well, getting to five Elite Eights in the time that he did, that's an interesting task, no question about it. We need really good players to do that. I like where we are. We don't think we're that far away. We're in the tournament this year. We felt like we had done enough last year. The year before was sort of an aberration. We just got -- we didn't play very well, and we didn't do what we needed to do. But I like our incoming freshmen. I like the guys that are coming back for us. So we're going to be as competitive as we possibly can. We'd like to think we can get back to the big stage again next year, but that's going to be a tough task too. Our league is outstanding. That's a new adjustment that we've made as well. We're going from the Atlantic 10 to the American. It's an adjustment. Just the travel alone is an adjustment. Life is about making those adjustments, and hopefully we can continue to put a very, very representative basketball program out there. Q. How often do you think about your personal NCAA Tournament record, and do you think it is indicative of your body of work as a coach? FRAN DUNPHY: Well, we haven't had great success, no question about it. We haven't been wearing white shirts too many of those years either, but that's the way life goes. So would I like to have more wins as a basketball coach in the NCAA? Sure. When I think about it, when I used to walk my dog, I would think about it all the time. I'd like to reverse the number, but that's not what life has presented to me. But I do think that we've put -- we've done a good job of whatever our staff has been of putting the kids in the right situation to try to graduate, to play the best basketball we can, and I'm proud of what we have accomplished. Q. Quenton's role with the team, can you put into words how truly valuable he is with your program? FRAN DUNPHY: Well, he's critically important to any success that we would have, whether that is making shots at the right time, making plays at the right time for his teammates, because he can do both of those things. I think he's got that capability. So he's critical. Where he can make the most strides for his game is the defensive end, the rebounding end, really just being as good a teammate as he can be. He's been terrific for us. There have been many, many guys where it's come down to a last shot opportunity, last minute, last second of a possession. We've given him the ball and said, let's go win it for us or go make a play for us, and he's pretty much done his job. He's had a great career. He's got a lot of points to his credit. And his team, over the last couple of years, has won a lot of games. So he's done what we've asked him to do. Q. Following up on Marcus' question, do you think coaches are judged too much by what they do at this time of year? I mean, Jay's under a little bit of heat now because they haven't gotten out of the first round the last couple of years. You've had your struggles. Do you think sometimes people from the outside look at the coaches and judge this weekend maybe more than they should? FRAN DUNPHY: Not necessarily. I think, when we sign the papers to be head coaches in this world, we know what the pressures are. I think Jay handles it spectacularly. He's, again, in my mind, as good a basketball coach as there is out there. And I hope that we've done a formidable job as a staff whenever we put our stuff out there. You're judged how people are going to judge you. Do we think about it? Sure. Sure, we do. We'd love to win every game. But I think overall, the bigger picture we're looking at is have we done our best? And hopefully we have. Q. I had a couple questions. First about this season. You seemingly made a decision early this year to sit Devontae, to play a little smaller, maybe to sacrifice some defense for a better offensive team. Is that accurate, and could you just describe sort of the process of coming to the decision with the lineup that you generally go with? FRAN DUNPHY: I think you do a lot as a coach. There's so many dynamics that go into putting a lineup out there. Devontae lent some good things to us defensively. Offensively, he's not as polished as we are when we have Jaylen Bond and Obi in the game, or Mark Williams for that matter, or Dan Dingle, when we went a little bit smaller. A lot of it depends on matchups. A lot of it depends on what we think we need. I can only tell you that there's a lot of thought that goes into what's best for your team. But Devontae's been a valuable member of our team, and he's sacrificed a lot over his years. I would tell you that he -- the best part of what he has lent this year is how he's accepted it in his attitude, and he's always there for you. Q. Second question about looking at past, recent NCAA Tournament history, you've had a couple of kids -- Scootie, Semaj Inge -- who quite lately in their last game in the NCAA Tournament had the worst game of their life. You've had a few guys like that. Is that something that you look at how that came about and what to address with respect to Devin or Quenton and the pressure and so forth? FRAN DUNPHY: You know, the pressure is there. As I talk about it all the time, the pressure is such a privilege to be in those situations. Scootie had a difficult shooting game. Semaj Inge had a difficult game. But the kids have worked hard to put themselves in that situation. It's a balancing act. Sometimes you make a decision to take a guy out of the game, and sometimes you say to yourself the odds are he's going to make the next one. But I don't think it's something you reflect on greatly during the course of your preparation. You're just hoping that somebody like those guys that you mentioned are going to step up and make a shot. Or somebody else is going to step in, like Khalif Wyatt dominated games for us, and you hope he continues to do that. But we need to give those guys the opportunity to perform in those settings. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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