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

March 15, 2017

Mitch Henderson

Buffalo, New York

THE MODERATOR: Okay. We're joined at this time by the head coach of Princeton, Mitch Henderson. Same rules apply. Please raise your hand if you have a question. Please give your name and affiliation and we'll go ahead and get started with questions for Coach. Let's start up front here with John.

Q. Hi, Mitch. Given your success that you had as a player at Princeton, how much can you draw upon, you know, the upsets that you were part of, and going into tomorrow's game, you know, where -- given where you're seeded?
MITCH HENDERSON: Just a little. I think, that the preparation, when going into the tournament game, is to remember that it's a game, and how you respond to each moment throughout the course of the game. You've got to do your thing. Coach Carril, I remember distinctly before we played UCLA, said, and he used to say this all of the time, I'm preparing you to win the game.

When the ball went out against UCLA, we all ran back on defense, all five of us. We're not going to do that. I understood his point. This team understands that as well. We're giving them every opportunity to win.

Q. You know, you lost two key guys to injury this year, and a lot of people didn't necessarily think you'd be sitting where you are, what did -- not just you do to kind of get everybody back together, but what did your players do?
MITCH HENDERSON: We had a meeting after we lost at home to St. Joe's. Pete Miller, one of our seniors, said, one sentence, but to the group, we're going to start guarding and we're going to win the Championship. And I've been in meetings before where those words are said, and it doesn't ring as true. But it was like -- it reverberated throughout all of us. We went up to Monmouth and played a tough game. It was a very high-scoring game, and then our pace slowed down. I think that was the key, one of the keys, for us.

We played at Bucknell, and I think a really quality road win. I know they're here. And the emergence of Myles and Devin for. Myles being a particularly great two-way player, I think anywhere. He can guard multiple different positions. That was it. Didn't see us going on a 19-game streak, but I really thought at that Monmouth game, that we're going to be just fine.

Q. Yeah, two questions. First, can you talk about sort of appreciation that you have, sort of a game caught up to Coach Carril's -- co-opted a lot of Coach Carril's principles how to play the game, first. And secondly, I heard you quoted your experience of going against Butler teams, how that influenced you to maybe -- my sense is, be more flowing, a little less rigid on run this play, and that play?
MITCH HENDERSON: Yeah.

Q. Go ahead?
MITCH HENDERSON: I'll answer the second one first. We played Butler at Butler. When they went to the final game with Gordon Hayward as a sophomore and those guy, and then we played in the second year -- I'm sorry. He was a freshman and then we played them the second year, the first time we went to the final game, and we got rolled both times at Northwestern, I mean I thought we did.

I remember they were on everything we were doing. This had happened a couple times. In fact, it happened to us in the second round of the NCAA Tournament when we played Michigan State and I felt like -- and this was just me -- if we were going to prepare to beat the very best teams on our schedule, that we needed to be a little less guardable, less predictable, more flowing. And that started really with recruiting. And it -- this wasn't like an overnight decision. It happened with the players that were arriving.

And I think that Myles Stephens is kind of an example of that, a very versatile two-way player that's made a major impact. When you see them, you're not going to say he looks just like every single Princeton basketball player I've ever seen. Locally and within the league, we fought the stigma of Princeton offense. It's gone for us. Nationally people are going to find out that we don't play like that.

The principles -- which answers the first part of the question -- good spacing, good players, and take good shots. We don't have an aversion to the three-point line. We're taking them. A lot of people like to point out we take a lot of them. I guess we do, and we want to see it go in. It's a valuable shot in this game especially when you can go inside and out. I think it stretches the defense. And when you put five guys on the floor that make a shot, everybody is playing with a pick-and-pop five or a four, including Notre Dame, and it's very hard to guard. We've been playing like that for ever.

Q. Mitch every student-athlete is dealing with some academic pressures, challenges right now. What about the fact that some of your players are going through mid-terms right now and what are the challenges that they face, and also, how much added workload was put on your players, given the fact that you have to play in the Ivy League inaugural tournament?
MITCH HENDERSON: It was another extra -- it was an extra week where normally you could be relaxing, potentially, and balancing your week. But we play Fridays, Saturdays, in our league. And we talked right in the spring, really, with the returning players, and then in the fall we meet, and the seniors and the juniors walk through their schedule and how they balance it. In fact, Steve Cook is one of the best guys at balancing his schedule and he goes through his planner on Sunday nights and he says this is how I do it. The freshmen sit there and their jaws drops down. I can't believe this -- you've got a minute schedule, instead of taking a 45-minute lunch it's a half-hour lunch. I don't think you can to that until you we walk through it yourself.

This is normal for us. I think we have close to 20 mid-terms this week between the team. This morning, I got down -- we have two rooms in the hotel and one room is for studying. Half the team was in there at 8:00 a.m. This is what we do. And when they get out here, we always talk to them about be where you are. So, when we walk out there, we're going to be flying around. And then when we go back to the hotel, we study.

Q. Mitch, how difficult is Bonzie Colson as a match up, not just for you but to for anyone out there?
MITCH HENDERSON: Yeah. He's a very underrated player. I worked with Craig Robinson a long time at Northwestern. Craig was a terrific player at Princeton. I always teased Craig, he had, from the feet to the hips, he was, like, 7 feet tall, and then he had sort of a -- he was -- that's how Bonzie is. He's proportioned in a way that makes him very difficult to guard and if you've played, you can kind of understand that. He presents a lot of problems for everyone that guards him because he's shifty. People say it's an old-man game. We have a player and Spencer Weisz, people describe as playing older. I think it's just great basketball. He's terrific at kind of every part of the game, great rebounder, he picks-and-pops. We're going to have to guard him with multiple different guys.

We've had success in our league, there's multiple teams that played with a very skilled five. With that said, we haven't seen anybody like him. We know it's a challenge. We're ready for it.

Q. Coach, obviously you have a lot of mature players and I'm sure Devin Cannady fits right into that category. What's your level of concern with the emotions he might be facing playing against his home town team that he knows those players, Demetrius Jackson used to be a teammate and I don't believe Notre Dame offered him a scholarship?
MITCH HENDERSON: Yeah. That -- I think a year ago, I would have been -- had maybe a high level of concern, but Devin's grown so much with the loss of the two seniors in a leadership position, and he's going to have to maintain a level head. You know, there's always a game within the game and Devin has -- he's a light bulb of a kid. He comes into the gym and I always tell everybody, right before he takes the floor, he says Mishawaka, as loud as he can, which is where he went to high school and it's right next to Notre Dame.

I think whatever you need to use to get motivated, I think you should use it. Devin, he doesn't need much.

Q. It's actually Mishawaka Marian?
MITCH HENDERSON: Mishawaka Marian. Yeah.

Q. Coach, I was wondering if you can talk about who, which teams both past and present, starting probably with the Princeton teams of Pete Carril, but not ending there, inspire you guys' offense which tends to be more free-flowing which frankly remind me of some NBA teams than college teams?
MITCH HENDERSON: Good. I'll go with an NBA comparison. You were going to say the Warriors?

Q. Whatever you say?
MITCH HENDERSON: I'm sort of repeating myself, probably, but we start off with round three, and three guys playing together, one guy being kind of a post. So, we've played that this way for a long time, but Coach Kittles who is on staff, called it the modern game. This is the modern game. When he was playing in the NBA in the 2000s, they were running some of the Princeton stuff, we've modernized it, and we've just moved it away from the basket a little bit more. We've had great centers, true five centers.

And with this team, we're a little bit more on the perimeter, but we're playing through posts. Spencer is a post, Myles is a post. Pete Miller. Will Gladson comes in as a bigger post. And I think we've found ways to highlight the strengths of the group. Draymond Green, I coached against Draymond when I was an assistant when he was at Michigan State. He didn't take a lot of threes, but he's developed and become a great passer. A lot of guys at Princeton will say, I didn't know I was a great passer, and then you graduate with a ton of assists.

We ask them all of the time, what do you see, what do you see? Don't you see that? You got to work on that part of your brain. I think that's as much as what it is as anything else, is learning how to adjust your thinking.

That's a rhetorical question, usually, I don't want them to answer it. What do you see? I know you thought you saw it. This is what you're supposed to see.

THE MODERATOR: Other questions for Coach? Okay, Princeton tips off at 12:15 against Notre Dame. A reminder that Andrew Boarders right here in front is the sports information director at Princeton and he can help you with any other questions that you might have. Coach, good luck tomorrow.

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