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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: OKLAHOMAMarch 17, 2016Danuel HouseJalen JonesAlex CarusoBilly KennedyOklahoma City, Oklahoma THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Texas A&M Aggies. We have our student-athletes up here, Alex Caruso, Jalen Jones and Danuel House. Questions for the student-athletes? Q. What do you expect in the first five minutes of this game in terms of execution because this is new for you, and it's new for them? If you could all take a shot at how you anticipate inexperience in an NCAA Tournament manifesting itself early in a ball game like this? ALEX CARUSO: Of course there will probably be a little bit of jitters, but they have good players, we have good players. We've both made it to the Conference Finals. They won theirs; we lost ours. So playing in big games, important games isn't something new. So I think it will be relatively -- I don't want to say it will be perfect, but there will be a little bit of jitters, but just the energy will be a little out of control. But I think we'll both be all right. JALEN JONES: I just think it will be a lot of adrenaline running, and whichever team can hold their composure or get it together first will be the winner. So we've just got to play our game and can't worry about what they do. We know they pressure a lot and like to get up, so we've just got to stay focused and execute our game plan. DANUEL HOUSE: I'm a firm believer that the first five minutes is the most important. Like you said, we both are two inexperienced teams and whoever can control their five minutes, I feel will have an upper hand on the other team. So we have to do a good job coming out and executing our plays. Even though we don't have that much experience, like Caruso said, we've played in big games and just show our maturity. Q. Jalen, did something change or what may have changed after that LSU loss that led to the late-season run? Did something change with you guys in terms of having a meeting or something on the court that led to what you guys did? JALEN JONES: It was just getting back and practicing and getting focused. We hit a stride where we were like Top 5 in the country and then we just had a little letdown. It was just about regrouping. So Coach got us back in practice, got us back focused. We became more locked in and we had a strong run toward the end of conference play, and we got a lot of momentum going into this tournament. Q. What do you guys know of the pressure style of Green Bay and their pushing on offense? Have you seen any teams that will try and increase tempo as much as they do? ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, we've watched a little bit of film and just know that they score a lot of points, give up a lot of points and they play really hard on defense. Really active with their hands. They're pretty skilled 1 through 4, even the 5 man is pretty active with his hands too. So they cause a lot of turnovers and try to score a bunch of points. A really good, I think, comparison in our league is maybe Arkansas, somebody that likes to speed the game up, shoot threes or get lay-ups. Just kind of play faster, so that's been a good, I think, resemblance for us to try to think about. Q. Jalen, do you guys feel like you're playing your best basketball? Everybody wants to play their best basketball in March, do you feel like you are? JALEN JONES: Of course. Even though we lost in the conference tournament championship, we feel good about ourselves. Our coaches have been doing a great job of preparing us for games. And as a collective, as the veterans and the young guys, we just all feel really good about ourselves and we have a lot of confidence going into this tournament. Q. There was some talk out of Kentucky after the SEC game how they thought they should have been a higher seed than you. Do you feel that you're overlooked as a 3 seed coming into this tournament? ALEX CARUSO: I don't think overlooked is the right word. DANUEL HOUSE: Not respected. Not respected at all is the right word. But a lot of people forgot. If you go look at our schedule, our non-conference schedule, we played four Big 12 schools and we beat four Big 12 schools. And those teams did a good job of competing with one another in their league and they end up helping us. So we look at it like that, we played a tougher strength of schedule. And then we won games and they helped us out in the long run. ALEX CARUSO: I think everyone's looking at that one game against Kentucky that we played a week ago as the highlight of who is better and who is not. We played in front of 16,000 fans at Rupp, so it was basically a home at home that we played them. We won ours, they won theirs. So we're not really worried about that. They're in the tournament. We're in the tournament. You've got to play somebody eventually, and you just have to handle it on the court. JALEN JONES: You can't get caught up in the seeds, you've got to win as many games as possible. So the seed doesn't really affect us. We're just trying to win games. Q. After watching film, what were your first impressions of Carrington Love and Jordan Fouse? JALEN JONES: They're two talented players that do a lot for their team. We have a lot of respect for those guys. We have to key in on them and make sure they don't do anything to hurt us. We've been locking in and trying to read what they do on film and take it from there. ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, just echoing what he said. Two really good players, extreme talents. Might have gotten overlooked because they're in the Horizon League and not in the Power Five Conference. But Carrington Love can score the ball just as well as anybody we've seen all year, and Fouse, that's how you say his name, Fouse, yeah, he's just like Jalen. I mean, different a little bit, but he's skilled. He can do a bunch of different things. I mean, he's a really talented player. Q. I know Admon maybe gets overlooked a little bit with the success of D.J. and Tyler, but what's he meant to your success of late as a true freshman? ALEX CARUSO: I meant to tweet something and get some word out about how well he played for us in the SEC Tournament, and I think how he got overlooked a little bit by the other two making the All-Freshman team and he didn't. Because he's just as pivotal for us as any of those two guys have been, locking up people, making open shots, playing hard. Just playing his role. I think his ability to do that and just kind of find his role and play into it has been huge for us coming down the stretch. Q. What has Coach talked to you guys about not getting caught up in their style because you've got to like wanting to play that style as well? DANUEL HOUSE: No, Coach Kennedy just talks to us and tells us we've got to play at our pace. Don't get caught up in trying to run, because sometimes we can run and we can get out of hand. But we need to value the ball and make sure we get shots and run our sets and make sure we get the ball to places they need to get to and try to execute the best way that we know how. ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, what he said. Q. Green Bay calls their style of play RP40. I'm curious if you know what that stands for, and if you don't, would you please take a shot? ALEX CARUSO: No, I don't think we know what that stands for. DANUEL HOUSE: I'm pretty sure it's something similar to like fast-paced, something like Arkansas has 40 minutes of hell, so it's something like that. Q. Relentless pressure. ALEX CARUSO: Relentless pressure. I was close. You didn't give an answer. JALEN JONES: 40 minutes of hell. Q. Alex, as a four-year senior, what's it mean to you to be able to have this opportunity before your eligibility is up, and also getting to be back in the tournament in your time here? ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, it's been special. With the help of these two guys and many others, I've been able to help get A&M back to where it used to be in the spotlight, kind of making headlines across college basketball. We're all just extremely blessed to be in this position. These two guys transferred in maybe two years ago, didn't know where we'd be, and now to all be sitting up here together I think is really special. Love the guys I'm playing with, love the school, love the program, so to be able to do it is really special. Q. For all of you guys, what has Coach Kennedy's personality meant, especially during times when things weren't going so well, and how do you think that will play into this tournament atmosphere when everybody's kind of jacked up? ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, I think just him being really calm, just really, really quiet, I think, will help us whenever we get a little too excited or too wound up. I think his maturity to be able to put that poise that we'll probably need sometimes is going to be big. JALEN JONES: Just always even when we face adversity through the season, he's been calm and never gotten rattled. He's always telling us to stay the course. He just never gets out of character during pressure. DANUEL HOUSE: Like they said, poise. Q. Alex, is there anything you guys can do to -- not a lot of NCAA experience, is there anything you can do to overcome that tomorrow? ALEX CARUSO: Yeah, I think the experience some of our coaches have, our staff has a good history of playing in big games, playing in NCAA Tournament games as players or as coaches. So I think just listening and taking any advice from them and leaning on them in the opening moments of the game until we can find our flow is going to be big. Q. Danuel, what did you do differently to have such great success in the Kentucky game? Do you see that -- what is the key to making sure that carries over in the NCAA Tournament? DANUEL HOUSE: The key is playing within the offense but still being able to have a balance to my game. But I'm grateful for my teammates for finding me in open spots and open areas and setting the screen and letting me draw the basketball to have a chance to score. So really all the praise goes to my teammates. THE MODERATOR: Coach, your thoughts about tomorrow's game? COACH KENNEDY: Obviously we're excited to be here, playing a very good Wisconsin Green Bay team that plays on both ends of the floor. We've got a lot of respect for what they've accomplished in winning their tournament and having a really good season. I'm proud of our guys and their consistency, that we've been consistently good all year. I think that helped prepare us to be here and to play well. Q. Coach, Danuel just said a minute ago he felt a little bit of, I guess, disrespected about the seed maybe or maybe some of the comments that came out of Kentucky after the SEC game regarding the seeding. Are you embracing that mindset with them kind of being overlooked or the chip on the shoulder mentality? COACH KENNEDY: You know, I think our guys have kind of felt that all year, but we're definitely not -- we're happy with where we were seeded. We thought that Kentucky should have probably been seeded a little higher. That's my opinion. But I don't feel disrespected. I know all season long we've been kind of hammering away to stay the course and stay together, and we would get our due respect, and I think we've gotten that. Q. Billy, have you ever seen another team that plays defensively the way this Green Bay team does? COACH KENNEDY: Yeah, Arkansas is, I call it organized chaos at times. So we've played against that in our league. I've coached against that before. These guys have seen it before. I think what makes them special is how good they are in turning it into offense. And they've got a lot of weapons who can score the ball and they drive the ball with all their guys who are able to get to the free-throw line. And I think that's what makes them different than maybe some of the other teams. A lot of teams play fast defensively and jack up a lot of threes, but they do a really good job of getting in the paint. Q. Billy, a few weeks ago you kept saying that y'all weren't playing your best and you didn't have your best game yet. I was wondering, in the last nine or ten games when you are playing so well, did you feel like at any point that you finally reached that -- that you were playing at a level that you would consider close to your best? Was there a game or two where you can point at and say that's how we have to play from now on? COACH KENNEDY: Well, we got better in the conference tournament. I thought we got better towards the end of the year, and we are playing well. I still think we can play a little bit better. Danuel had a great game. Jalen struggled a little bit, you know, but we had good support from some other guys. So we've been pretty good all year, but we haven't just clicked on all cylinders in one game probably since we played Baylor at home. But we're playing well right now, and I thought we played really good against Kentucky and we got better. Q. How do you use the experience that you have and guys on your staff have with the tournament to teach your team what to expect this weekend? COACH KENNEDY: Well, it's interesting you say that. My first NCAA Tournament game that I coached as a head coach was in this building against Oklahoma State. I think I was a 15 seed and they were a No. 2 seed, and they were really good. I've been through it before. I've got two coaches who have coached in the Final Four on my staff. It's all about preparing for Green Bay and getting ourselves right. Hopefully the experience helps, but ultimately it's about the players and how they handle the atmosphere and how they handle the moment and how they handle what Wisconsin Green Bay throws at us. Q. What's the key to integrating transfers and to get the production you got out of Jalen and Danuel? COACH KENNEDY: Getting them to buy into a system and then getting them to care about each other and be unselfish. It's the old adage, they transferred for a reason, something wasn't right. Well, sometimes the grass is greener on the other side. And I think, in both of their cases, it was a good fit for them and it was a good fit for us. But just buying into what our team was about, what our culture was about, and then being able to play within the system and rely on each other and not be all about them. Q. Kind of a follow-up on that, but particularly about Jalen. What's he brought this program in two years on the floor, three years in the program from a toughness element that was maybe missing before? COACH KENNEDY: That's what he brought. He brought toughness and energy. He goes hard every day. He's a true warrior from the standpoint of how hard he plays on both ends of the floor. He takes charges, he does the little things. He's become a much better scorer than we anticipated. His ability to shoot the three, which sometimes I'm not always that excited about, has really stretched his game to help us become where we're at, at this point. Q. Billy, you mentioned it's how the players handle the atmosphere. Do you have kind of a benchmark in the first maybe five minutes, six minutes, maybe it's that eight-minute timeout of a feeling out process that they're going to have to go through to handle nerves, handle the environment, handle the stage? COACH KENNEDY: Yeah, I think most teams, the first three or four minutes, you usually see both teams kind of kick it around, maybe take a quick shot. You know, sometimes a team that has the most poise in the first five minutes ends up having poise throughout the game. So the interesting thing about our team is we haven't played great the first three minutes of a game consistently all year. We've been better once we've gotten settled into the game. But tournament time you hope you don't have to have that. You hope you come out ready to play or are playing well in the beginning because every possession counts, everything's magnified. Q. Coach, all young players like to do kind of like what Green Bay's style is. What do you have to do to keep your team from getting caught up into that? COACH KENNEDY: We like to play fast. We're going to attack early. And when we get opportunities to score, we want to attack the basket. The key is knowing when to pull it back out. We've got good experience on the perimeter and I think they understand that. But that's one of the tough things to do is to play fast and know when to pull it out. We're going to attack and we're not going to hold the ball and have a bunch of long possessions and play slow. We've got some big guys, sometimes we've got to wait on them, and we'll have our opportunities to get them the ball, hopefully. But we definitely want to run. It's not that we don't want to play fast. Q. With D.J. and Tyler getting so many of the headlines and having such good freshmen years, how pivotal has Admon been to the success as a true freshman as well? COACH KENNEDY: Well, when you look at our roster, Admon probably is much needed, maybe more so, than some of those other young guys. Obviously Tyler came in at the 5 and we needed a 5 man. But him being a guard that can play point guard, he's played the 2 for us, he's played the 3. His versatility and ability to come off the bench and either be our best perimeter defender or hit a big three or get to the free-throw line and make big free throws at the end of the game is a big reason why we're here. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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