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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: OKLAHOMAMarch 17, 2016Jordan FouseCarrington LoveLinc DarnerOklahoma City, Oklahoma THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Wisconsin Green Bay, and our two student-athletes Carrington Love and Jordan Fouse. Questions for the student-athletes. Q. For both of you guys, what stood out when you first started watching Texas A&M? CARRINGTON LOVE: When we first started watching them, their length and athleticism. They're a very tall group of guys, especially their first six. They start 6'5", 6'7", 6'10". That's a pretty tough match-up coming from the Horizon where guys are usually around the 6'6" to 6'9" range. JORDAN FOUSE: Like he said, the size is a lot bigger than we are. But I feel like we played a few teams this year that were a lot bigger, and we were able to show we can fight with them. So just going out there and playing will be a big key. Q. Carrington, with the long break you guys have had, do you feel like that's helped in terms of maybe settling your emotions a little bit and your excitement about being here? CARRINGTON LOVE: Yeah, definitely. After we won our Horizon League Championship, we were on a high note. But now after Selection Sunday, we kind of settled in and locked in and now we're ready for the game. Q. Can you talk about how Coach has carried his marked success that he had last year with another program into the success with you guys this year? Is he different around March? Has he changed at all or is he the same coach you saw pretty much in November? CARRINGTON LOVE: Coach is all about progression, so throughout the season he wants you to get better and better every day. And end of season, obviously it's March Madness and that's when he wants us to be playing our best basketball. And his philosophy on the court works out that way, and our style of play fits tournament style of play also. Q. What did you do differently the last eight or nine games to have the kind of success you ended the regular season with that maybe you weren't doing leading up to that? CARRINGTON LOVE: I feel like everybody's kind of clicked in and we've got better chemistry. Having new guys come in like Jamar Hurdle and Charles Cooper, it kind of takes a few games to get used to guys. But we're all on the same page the last ten games, I would say, and we're playing at a high level right now winning eight out of our last nine games. JORDAN FOUSE: Yeah, I feel like we just started to click towards last eight or nine games. We started to know our roles a little better and know where to pick and choose our spots where to attack or maybe not. And we just started to play defense as well. We were all on a string, just all working together trying to get stops. We started to rebound the ball as well. If we get stops and rebounds, it's pretty tough to stop us. Q. Lot of these games come down to little things. For both of you, prioritize the little things that you think will make the difference. CARRINGTON LOVE: I feel like, as underdogs, you have to be more gritty or hungry than a higher major team. So I feel like 50-50 balls are going to be key in this game for us, and limiting them to one possession. They thrive on second chance points. So I feel like diving on the floor, and boxing your man out and getting two-handed rebounds is going to be big for us. JORDAN FOUSE: Yeah, like he said, the 50-50 balls, we can't have the rebounds where they're bouncing out of bounds and they get another chance to go out and run a set or baseline play. We got to get all the loose balls and play harder and just want it more, really, because we really don't have much to lose right now. They're the ones feeling pressure. So we've got to go out there and just play our game and hope we can get to the win. Q. Jordan, you've obviously made your mark with the program with the things that you've done with the program. What would it mean to you to have the first NCAA Tournament win for Green Bay since the mid '90s? JORDAN FOUSE: Yeah, it would definitely be a great feeling to go out with a win in the NCAA Tournament just because of all the history of Green Bay and all the players that we've had come through here. It's just been a great, great experience for me. Just to go out with a win would be a very big accomplishment. Q. You've played some good teams throughout the course of the season, including in your own league. How do you think A&M compares to the kinds of teams you've already faced this year? CARRINGTON LOVE: They're a lot disciplined, like us, and some of the better teams you play, like Valparaiso in our conference. And their size matches up kind of like Georgia Tech that we played earlier in the year. But most importantly, I think our style of play helps us out around this time where you don't have much to prepare for us because it's such a short turnaround with them just playing and figuring out they're playing us on Sunday. But I feel like, most importantly, the teams you play, play all type of teams, so just all those different types of match-ups and experiences will help us going into this game. JORDAN FOUSE: Like he said, Valpo, they probably have the most size of the Horizon League this year. They probably had a 5 that could be 6'7" and above. And I feel that's kind of what Texas A&M has in the same sense, just a little bit bigger. And they're a great defensive team, just like Valpo. But as long as we can get our stops and get out and push the ball, we're going to score. Q. How do you think A&M will react to RP40? JORDAN FOUSE: Well, they've played a few teams this year, I would say, like Arkansas, they're a pretty similar team to us. They just go out there and cause havoc a lot and try to get pressure on the ball, pressure on everybody, really, just to make you feel uncomfortable. So I'm sure they've been practicing and they're a high-major team, so I'm sure they've seen it once or twice before. CARRINGTON LOVE: Yeah, we're all basketball players at the end of the day, so we've seen all types of match-ups and game plans. So we really want to speed the game up and cause turnovers and get out and get easy buckets in the open floor. THE MODERATOR: Coach, your thoughts about tomorrow's game? COACH DARNER: Well, we're excited to be here. Our guys have made a great run here at the end of the year. We know we've got a big challenge ahead of us with Texas A&M tomorrow and how we're going to be able to keep them off the boards, keep them from pounding us inside and how are we going to be able to score over their size. But we're excited and we're ready to go. And I'll take any questions. Q. How does having the late game and the late practice today impact your preparation? COACH DARNER: I don't think anything. It's no different than what we've had all during the season. We got them up a little bit this morning and went to a high school and practiced, and then we'll get some shots up in here. I think sometimes it's nice to play that first game, but it will be good for our guys to maybe see a little bit of the first game and get their nerves down a little bit for tomorrow. Q. Coach, what jumped out on the tape when you first started watching Texas A&M? COACH DARNER: I think their size for us, how big they are, how good they are inside with Davis and Jones, and then how good they are at the guards. One thing we like to do is we like to force a lot of turnovers, and we haven't played a team that has two guards that are 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Our big question is how can we turn the ball over and then how are we going to contain them in the half court with their size compared to ours? How are we going to keep House from having a huge night? How are we going to keep them off the glass? They're a very good offensive rebounding team. How are we going to keep the guards out of the paint? They're an outstanding team. We've got a great challenge ahead of us, but I know our guys are ready for it. Q. This isn't exactly strolling into Callahan Hall. How have the guys embraced the trappings, the attention, and how has everything been handled for the team? COACH DARNER: I think they've done a decent job. We had a little meditation session the other day in practice. I thought the nerves were getting to them a little bit. To calm them down, I had them all close their eyes and take a deep breath and relax. But it's going to be a new set of nerves for them, and this is a big stage. It's to be expected. They should have butterflies tomorrow when the game starts. Both teams probably will. It's a different stage for everybody. But once they get going and settle in, it will be good to get some shots up today. We'll use our shootaround time tomorrow to get more shots. Just relax. Once the ball goes up, block everything out and let's see what happens. Q. If you had to describe RP40 in a sentence or couple sentences, how would you do that? COACH DARNER: Relentless pressure for 40 minutes is what we've talked about all year with our guys. Full-court pressure on defense. And then on offense, getting the ball out and getting out and running and trying to get easy baskets. Q. How important is it for your team to play your style of game over A&M playing their style of game? COACH DARNER: I think it's very important. If we can't create turnovers and can't get easy baskets, that's the two things we've been very good at. We're one of the top teams in the nation in steals and we're one of the top teams in the nation in scoring in transition. We've got to be able to create those things. If they can come down and set up and run their plays and pound us inside, and if they shoot and miss and get offensive rebounds, we're going to be in for a long night. The other way with us on offense is we can't let them try to slow us down with some of the different defenses that they can do to where it's a half court game on offense, to where now all of a sudden their size becomes very hard to score on. We're not used to shooting over 6'6", 6'7", 6'8" guards in our league. Now Carrington's going to be guarded by a 6'5", 6'6" guy to shoot over. If we can get it into the open floor, that plays to our advantage. Q. Between last year at Florida Southern and this year at the Horizon, you get your teams ready for March. Do you feel you coach any differently in March? COACH DARNER: No, I think the only thing we try to do is keep them relaxed. I think sometimes you can overdo it. I've been a player and now I've been a coach. The one thing we try to do is keep everything relaxed. They're in the Horizon League tournament. We didn't have one day of walk-through after our first round game. Most coaches would have found another site, go to it, do a walk-through. Our shooting time has changed for tomorrow, so I don't know if we'll go use our other time at another school to shoot. Sometimes I think you can get the guys running around a little too much. And not emphasize how important it is to win, just about how important it is to play well. But we've talked about it from day one since I got here with our guys about wanting to play at this stage, wanting to be in the NCAA Tournament, wanting them to believe that we could get there. That's pressure all year playing. This is no different. We're not going to be expected to win by many people tomorrow. The pressure's on Texas A&M. There's not pressure on us. We can just go out and play and relax and have fun, and that's what we tried to do the whole Horizon League tournament. That's what I did last year when my team at Florida Southern made their run. It was just try to find a way to keep them relaxed. Q. Coach, usually your first year at a school is a little bit more of a struggle than it's been this year. I know you took over a team with a solid program. But how have you gotten them to buy in so quickly after that 0-3 start and might have had you worried a little bit? COACH DARNER: More than a little worried (smiling). We started out with a tough stretch, started out 0-3. We had talked, when I got the job, with the guys about how we handle adversity will be the key to our season. Not only did we have an 0-3 start, but we had 10 out of 12 at one time on the road. We had 17 of our first 26 on the road. How do we handle adversity? When adversity hits, what do we do? And I think our guys have done a great job. We won a 12-game stretch, we were 10 of the 12 on the road and went 6-6. Not a lot of teams can say they had 10 out of 12 on the road. We were gone for about six straight weeks traveling and going and playing, and then we finished with five at home. We told our guys all along if we can get to those last five games and get playing well, nobody will want to play us in the Horizon League. Even though we lost our last game on a shot at the buzzer to Valpo, I thought our guys played a great game that game. We just happened to get beat on a shot at the buzzer. But I give the credit to our guys, to our two seniors. I think they believed in it. I think they enjoyed playing the way we play. I think it's a lot easier to convince guys you're going to go from, and Green Bay had great success playing the way they've played defensively in a slower, keep the score lower, and then all of a sudden, here comes a guy that's going to talk about we're going to score and average 85. Carrington, you're going to go from averaging 10 to averaging 18 or 20. Jordan, you're going to be 14, 15, 10 rebounds, four, five assists, bunch of steals. I think it's a lot easier sell to them. But when we started 0-3, we were a little bit worried. Hey, we need to get a couple of games here where we win. Because they had great success, and it's always easy to say if we go back and play the way we played, we can win. But our guys stuck with it, and we found a way to get it going. We got playing really well at the right time of the year. Q. Is there a team or two, either in your league or outside the league, that you played this year that is comparable to Texas A&M? COACH DARNER: I think Valpo with their size. Valpo was a lot bigger than what we were. I think Stanford, our first game of the year. Georgia Tech, which we didn't have great success against. But I think those teams would be comparable. Q. Coach, with the exception of Bo Ryan, there seems to be a stigma on the hiring of low-division coaches at the Division 1 level. Do you agree with that or disagree? COACH DARNER: I thought and I did it for years that there were a lot of great Division II coaches. It's just whether somebody will give them a chance. I'm very fortunate my athletic director, Mary Ellen Gillespie, gave me a chance. A lot of people passed me over because of that, because I was a Division II coach. I think there are a lot of great coaches at the lower level, just I like I think there are a lot of great coaches at the Division 1 level. I think it is a stigma that, well, you're a Division II coach, you can't coach at the Division 1 level. Q. Coach, you get to the free-throw line quite a bit. Will that mean as much in this game, because when you're getting to the free-throw line you're obviously putting other teams in foul trouble? A&M has a lot of depth. Will it mean as much in this game? COACH DARNER: I think so, because that's the way we've played all year. We've attacked the basket well. We've done a great job of getting to the free-throw line. We've had our moments where we've struggled shooting it from the free-throw line, but I think it's a big advantage. The one bad thing is they do have a very deep team. I'd rather play a team that only played six or seven guys all year, not playing a team that played nine and then they'll rotate nine guys in and out. But that's been one of our strengths all year. Now the question is can we get to the free-throw line when we get inside because our 6'4" guys are going to be shooting it against 6'10" guys. And a lot of times they can stand there and block it without having to jump. We've talked a lot about getting there, shot faking, penetrating, kicking it out to the open guy. We struggled at the beginning of the year when we played Stanford and Georgia Tech. We got in there a lot, but we got it blocked a lot. I think we've gotten a lot better, but I think one of the biggest keys is how many free throws we do shoot tomorrow. Q. We spotted your parents already up in the stands and I know your family's here as well. Most of Wisconsin is coming down to watch these kids. How special is that for you and the players to be able to share this experience with people that made the trip for them? COACH DARNER: I think it's a great experience. For my parents to be here, that's a lot because my dad was a coach. He coached me in high school. For my family to be here, it's huge. It's easy to sit here and say, well, we can get back here again. It's not that easy. Green Bay's been 20 years, and I think the community has done a great job of getting behind us, and I know people are making the trip down and our players love that fact. The thing we talked with our guys about, let's cherish the moment and don't sit there and say, well, we can get back there a year from now, because it's not that easy. Let's cherish it. But, also, let's go out with the idea that, hey, we can compete and we've got a chance to win these games. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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