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NCAA MEN'S FIRST FOUR: DAYTON

March 13, 2017

Jamion Christian

Dayton, Ohio

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the coach of Mount St. Mary's, Jamion Christian. If you would like, make an opening statement.

COACH CHRISTIAN: First of all, just can't say how enthusiastic, how happy we are to be here in Dayton. Just one of the best venues for college basketball, the way they celebrate our game each year is really special. And so we're excited to have an opportunity to be back here in Dayton with a chance to start off another great March Madness session.

And we're really excited about playing New Orleans, they're a great team that had a great year. We've also had a great year. So we're excited about having the opportunity to jump it up here tomorrow night.

Q. You guys have played on these stages before this season. How much value does that -- do you assign to that going into this game?
COACH CHRISTIAN: I think experience is really valuable. And I think when you -- I think experience is really valuable. And I really feel like when -- I really feel like when you're able to go through something before and just be able to have a foundation for it, I think it just makes your team stronger.

We've obviously played a very national schedule. We've been on TV several times this year, and our juniors and senior class have been on TV a lot of times. So I don't think the stage will bother them as much as maybe it did for us two or three years ago.

But I do think that just understanding the schedule, the time demands, when you get here, from your media obligation to your practice time, the things that you need to do, I do think that our experience here will help us.

Q. Since so much of your team wasn't here in 2014, are you treating this like a new experience?
COACH CHRISTIAN: Every experience we're going to have with this year's team is going to be a unique experience with each one of these guys. Because of that, we try to treat it as a unique experience for them.

But as coaches who have been here before, we try to set the schedule in a way that allows them time to enjoy their experience, but also understand you know what we've gotta do with different time demands.

Like, for example, today we wanted to get out here a little bit later than we did before. Maybe get our guys a little more rest between last night's selection show and the time we got here today.

And then just making sure that we spend more time in the ballroom walking through stuff and than trying to get practice in because that could be hectic for the guys. You want them to be fresh and confident and aggressive. And sometimes you can overdo it with them being on the floor as much.

Q. What makes Junior Robinson such a special player? He doesn't have a lot of size, obviously, but seems like he's had a really great year for you guys?
COACH CHRISTIAN: Junior is an inspiration to all of us, right? You look at him, he's 5'5", 165 pounds. He's worked really hard to get up to 165 pounds, really, believe it or not, really lifting and working hard at it. He's a special player because he's got enormous heart.

Usually you say that about someone who isn't as talented a player as he is. But he's the type of guy that every single day he'll be one of the hardest workers and just understands what he needs to do.

As he's continued to grow up and mature in our program, he's developed such a winning character inside of him. And you know the last year he's been so locked into winning and doing whatever our team needs him to do to help us win that he's really had a chance to show the world his heart and how much he loves playing this game, not just for himself, to showcase his ability, but to showcase to the world how much he loves his teammates.

I think you see that when he plays with Elijah Long, how much energy they play with together. It's really special. He was really the leader of that. When Elijah came in -- he's a year older than Elijah -- he worked to bring him along well. The two guys in the backcourt are really special. When you look at Junior, you see a guy with enormous heart, a tremendous talent level and a true compassion and empathy level with his teammates. When you have a guy like that that can play with that kind of talent you're going to have a really special season.

Q. What's the biggest challenge you have when facing a team like UNO?
COACH CHRISTIAN: Great question. We haven't seen a team like them this season. Anytime you get to this time of year you got the top 68 teams in the country you're dealing with elite versus elite. Every team in this tournament is an elite team.

So the things are going to separate us from New Orleans or us from whoever are going to be really small things. One of the things New Orleans did an outstanding job of, they're tremendous inside that lane line. They really can play a physical game. They're great at getting to the free-throw line.

And they really do a great job of playing with a high experience level in areas that they're really good at. They turn you over a good bit because they're really good trying to take the ball from you. So they're quite a big challenge for us. We haven't seen a team like that this season. I don't think they've seen a team like us this year either so I think this makes for a really intriguing game tomorrow night because both teams are different than what we've seen, both teams are different from league play, and both teams have gotten better from the beginning of the year until now.

So the team's that's going to be able to lock into the little things the best and execute their style of play over the other will have the best opportunity to pull out a win tomorrow.

Q. Of the teams you've played, who does New Orleans remind you of the most?
COACH CHRISTIAN: That's a great question. I was trying to explain that earlier today. I think they're a combination of Long Island and of LIU and a combination of LIU and Robert Morris.

Defensively Robert Morris is about 90 in the country. I want to say New Orleans is somewhere around 100, 104 or so. So very good defensively, great at taking the ball away from you. They don't block a lot of shots but that means they play great positional defense and really do a great job stealing the ball from you, especially on drives.

So we've gotta do a great job taking care of the basketball and making them play in the half court.

And one of the better transition offensive teams, similar to LIU in terms of they're well over one-point per possession in transition. And that's a pretty significant number. That shows that not only do they attack you when they rebound the ball, but when they steal it from you they score it.

So we've gotta do a great job of being able to play. Those opponents, we played really close games with both those opponents this year, and both those opponents are really, really good teams.

So to have a combination of those two teams shows a lot of respect for New Orleans and what they've been able to accomplish this season, being able to be a combination of two very good teams on our schedule.

Q. It's been a little bit of a wait for you guys since your last game. What's practice been like this week without knowing your opponent?
COACH CHRISTIAN: Well, practice with us is always full of enthusiasm and energy. So that's one thing they always bring.

We did give them two days off. Thought it was really important. I think general in life and of course of this, you want to take that time to enjoy big moments in your life. Every one of those guys in that locker room were looking forward to winning a conference championship, a tournament championship their entire lives. I wanted them to really have at least 48 hours to kind of take a deep breath and enjoy it.

I think they did enjoy it. And then we brought them back on Friday, just to kind of settle it in a little bit, kind of refocus ourselves on what it was going to take to prepare for whatever opponent we need to do, kind of just sharpen our craft, so to speak. I thought our guys had great focus and were ready to do that on Friday.

We had another great day on Saturday where we got up and down and played a little bit. Got up and down for about 20 minutes and executed well and on Saturday -- on Sunday we did the same thing.

Practice has been great. Guys have had great focus. I will say the last time we were coming here I think we took too many days off. We wanted to make that change, make sure we kept our guys in attack mode. I thought the guys did an outstanding job of that.

We have great leadership -- Khalid Nwandu and Will Miller and Charles Glover -- those seniors that have been here before. They really want an opportunity to play well here, and they did a great job of leading our group through the last few days.

Q. What does it take to refocus the team over the next few days?
COACH CHRISTIAN: We've got a great group of guys. These guys are really hungry. And I would say they expected to have a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. We lost a year ago in our tournament, and the guys got right to work immediately.

A week later, these guys were right back in the gym, spending a lot of time in there and trying to get better. So I think they really expected to be here. They wanted to be here. And so to refocus, it doesn't take a whole lot, because they naturally want to be good. They naturally are competitors.

And if you're a competitor you want to show what you do best works against the very best. There's no other tournament that really provides that better than the NCAA Tournament.

You're going to sit here with 68 teams, all with an opportunity to win and play at the highest level. So your ability to refocus is basically connected to your ability to survive in this tournament. And so our guys, they understand that. They have great focus towards it. They were able to refocus and head on to the next goal pretty quickly.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Good luck tomorrow night. FastScripts by ASAP Sports.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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