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

March 19, 2016

Spokane, Washington

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with questions for the student-athletes.

Q. For Melo, can you talk a little bit about the mood of the team after letting South Dakota State University back into the game late. Has that upset people on the team?
MELO TRIMBLE: No, not really. We know basketball's a game of runs, and we're in the tournament now and everyone's going to give us their best shot. No one wants to lose, especially this time of the season. So, we wasn't surprised.

We knew that they were going to make a run, and we just had to respond, and we didn't really respond very well. But we won, so that's it.

JAKE LAYMAN: We weren't mad about what happened. I think some bad fouls down the stretch, some quick shots, things that we can fix going forward.

Q. Can you talk about Coach Turgeon and throughout the year what his style and demeanor is with you guys.
MELO TRIMBLE: Focus and have fun and enjoy the moment. It's been a long season. We had a lot of up-and-downs, but throughout this whole season, he just wants us to have fun, because we don't always get moments like this.

JAKE LAYMAN: Well, just to go off what Melo said. Coach Turgeon always stresses just playing free and having fun out there.

At one point this season, we got caught up in where we were and thinking that we should beat everybody by 20. But I think we realized, and coach did a great job of stressing to us, that that's not going to happen every night.

Q. Obviously, the season's not over for you guys. But looking back at every game you played this year, for both of you, what do you think is your best win so far this season?
MELO TRIMBLE: Our best win? I say against Ohio State at home. We really dominated that game. We haven't beat Ohio State -- since I've been there, we haven't beaten them. And just to go into that game and really dominate that whole game both halves, we played really good. So that was the game I would say that was our best.

JAKE LAYMAN: I would say UConn this year was probably our best game. I think that that game was our most complete game all around, defensively and offensively.

Q. What do you think has been the struggle in sort of playing up to that level that UConn or the Ohio State level since then?
MELO TRIMBLE: Just, I guess, getting caught up in ourselves and being humble, I guess. After those two games, we just lived in the hype and let everyone tell us that we were really good, instead of just focusing on what we needed to get better on, especially our defense.

Those two games we really played really good defense, and like I said, everyone was saying how good we were. And once we lost, people were down on us and so we were in between.

So just looking back on that, we just know what we have to do and just stay focused and not let people on the outside try to tell us who we are.

JAKE LAYMAN: I think that defense is what's going to win us games. I think in the games that we have lost, our defense hasn't been very good. Also, rebounding is a big focus for us.

Q. Make a couple comments about the matchup with Hawaii.
MELO TRIMBLE: We watched Hawaii before we played yesterday. We saw how active on defense they were. They just play like they want to win. They wanted it more yesterday, more than Cal wanted it. You could tell how hard they were playing on defense and the offensive side. They were executing their plays, and they were just having fun out there. And every team that has fun, they play really well.

JAKE LAYMAN: I think Hawaii, yesterday, was playing with nothing to lose. So they played harder, played with more intensity. So I think tomorrow we can't let them play harder than us. We need to play our style of game and play at our tempo.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. We'll have coach Mark Turgeon up in a moment.

(Pause.)

THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll take questions for coach.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about how you see the matchups with Hawaii shaping up for your team, where your strengths are, especially.
COACH TURGEON: Well, to me, this is the kind of team that, especially early in the year, gave us fits. Tough matchup for us, because their guard play, and they're able to stretch the floor with their big guys.

As the year's gone on we have gotten better at guarding these teams. But with great guard play and able to stretch the ball the way Hawaii does, it's going to be a tough challenge for us defensively.

I think obvious strengths for us are our inside presence, offensively and defensively. Hopefully, we can protect the rim and, hopefully, we can score around the basket. And then we have good guards too. So we have a lot of strengths, we're playing better, we're playing with more confidence. So, it should be a great game.

Q. I asked Melo and Jake the same question, but I was just curious your perspective. What do you think was your team's best win this year?
COACH TURGEON: South Dakota State. Without question. Because the magnitude of it. Advancing in the NCAA Tournament. Beat a good team.

Q. Take you back a little bit and see if you can tell me some of your memories. Your second coaching job, obviously, at Oregon a few years there with Jerry and his staff with a lot of guys who have gone on to coach. What's some of your memories from that time with the Ducks and that group that you had?
COACH TURGEON: Well, it was a great experience for me, because I left the University of Kansas, where we were winning all the time and took over a program that was a little bit down and had to really grind it. Really proud of what we did there. Coach Green and our staff. Coach Braswell, Coach Boyle. And we did some nice things. We made it to the NCAA Tournament. We made basketball relevant, I thought.

And what I do remember is we had great kids, Kenny Wilkins one of my all time favorite players to coach. But the league was really, really good back then. The point guards in that league with Jason Kidd and Brevin Knight and Damon Stoudamire. I mean, we won the National Championship with UCLA, Tyus Edny, another great point guard, it was just loaded up. We had four teams in the Sweet 16 that year. One of those years.

So I think we had two national champions in the five years that I was in the PAC-12, was it 10 or 12 then? 10, I think. So, I always loved living out there. My wife and I loved it. We still have some great friends, so it was a big part of our life. Helped me become a much better coach being at the University of Oregon.

Q. How so on that?
COACH TURGEON: I had to grind it. It made me realize how the real world worked and the things you had to do. Made some great recruiting contacts and made a lot of great friends and just learned a lot about the profession at a young age. I was pretty young when I was out there. So, it was a tremendous experience. Really happy for their success, too. I'm a big fan of Dana. Big fan.

Q. You then were one of the finalists for the job. Have you ever thought about kind of your career and how maybe that goes a different way if you get that Oregon job?
COACH TURGEON: Yeah, it was probably a blessing. I think I was 31, might have been 32. I probably looked like I was 18, because didn't have the stress of a head coach, so I didn't have the grays and the lines and all that stuff.

But I think Bill probably made a good decision with Ernie. Ernie did a great job. Allowed me to blaze a different path. I think that I wouldn't trade my path for anything. Starting at Jacksonville State and working my way up has been a great adventure.

Q. Diamond got in foul trouble and probably didn't really have the kind of debut he was looking for. Did you say anything to him after the game? And do you think he's kind of more prepared for Hawaii?
COACH TURGEON: I thought Diamond was terrific yesterday. I thought his defense was outstanding. That kid was a heck of a player. I thought Diamond competed, and they were doubling, digging down, he wasn't going to do it. But he had a couple big buckets in the second half, and I was really proud of him. He wouldn't have been able to give us that two months ago and what he gave us defensively, his presence, and he posted up hard and he wore them down. So, I thought he was terrific. I just bragged about how good his defense was, and I think he feels pretty good about himself heading into tomorrow.

Q. When you got to Maryland and followed Gary, who obviously had been there for a long time, you had been in a couple places and moved along. What was kind of the pressure on you going to there and how did kind of that program take you in after having had a coach therefore such a long time with such success?
COACH TURGEON: Well, obviously it takes some guts to follow a legend like Gary. And I've been lucky with the people I've been around and I wanted to be at a program where you have a chance to be great every year. It's been a battle to get where we are. Our last two years, we won a lot of games and we're starting to recruit at a high level. But whenever you take over a program that they really care, they accept you right away. Maryland did that. Gary had a lot to do with it. Gary was talked very positive about me. And then the former players, where there's a lot of pride, really reached out. We have done a nice job of forming relationships with our former players and really that's what it's about. So I just wanted to have a great job and that's what was important to me and I have one and hopefully we're going to do great things with it.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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

March 19, 2016

Mark Turgeon

Melo Trimble

Jake Layman