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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: ORLANDOMarch 15, 2017Joe DooleyDemetris MorantChristian TerrellBrandon GoodwinOrlando, Florida THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Demetris, Christian, and Brandon. Q. How are you doing, guys? Brandon, let me hit you up with two in a row really quick. One is a silly little notebook item: I think you guys practiced at UCF yesterday. BRANDON GOODWIN: Yeah, we did. Q. What was that like for you? A little weird, I guess, and kind of cool. Secondly, you guys aren't favored by Las Vegas but you're favored by a lot of talking heads. What are your thoughts on that? Does that give you any extra confidence, as though you need any? BRANDON GOODWIN: You want me to answer the first one? No, it was pretty cool. I've been there two years, and it's still a lot of love around there. Nothing crazy. Just went in there, had a great practice actually, and it was just fun to be back there. And for the second question, I don't know who we're favored by, but we don't really look at those things. People see us as the underdogs. People see it as David versus Goliath, all that type of stuff. We know where we're at. We know what we want to do coming into the Tournament. We're happy to be here. We think we belong here. Should be exciting coming in. Q. Christian, what do you expect the crowd to be like tomorrow night? I can't imagine there's going to be a lot of 14 seeds that have more people cheering for them than you will tomorrow night. What do you expect that to be life? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: We think it's going to be entertaining for us. I think there's a lot of fans hoping for us to beat FSU. We think we'll have a lot of fans on our side. It's just going to be an electrifying environment in general. Q. Brandon, back to the UCF topic, can you talk a little bit about your decision to leave there? And then also talk a little bit about what has transpired for you since you've been at Gulf Coast. Obviously, things have worked out well. BRANDON GOODWIN: It was tough to leave there, of course. It's hard to just be somewhere for a couple years and settle down and then just have to up and leave. But my ride to FGCU was great. No complaints. My teammates welcomed me in the first day, played pickup as soon as I got there. It was just fun to be around the guys. I knew it was going to be a good couple years, and I was going to be able to finish out my college career here. I knew that as soon as I got here. And Coach Fly and all the coaching staff just welcomed me and made me feel like family. That was the most important part when I got here, just being in the family atmosphere and making sure I'm comfortable and making sure these guys accept me. Q. Brandon, how do you feel going into this? You've had a longer chance to look at FSU, like you played against them at UCF as a sophomore. Like you said, it was like being amongst trees. What are you looking at now as you've broken down film the last couple of days? What is it that you really need to do against this team that's considerably taller than you guys are? BRANDON GOODWIN: I think the most important thing for us would be rebounding the ball, making sure we block out their bigs and sending everyone to the defensive glass. We have five guys that pretty much can score. So scoring isn't going to be an issue. Just playing defense and maybe getting those bigs in pick-and-roll situations. Not going to give the game plan. The most important thing is defense and blocking out and staying consistent throughout the whole game. Q. Demetris, you talk about yourself as a defensive guy. Brandon is talking about the bigs, so that's looking at you. Now that you've had a chance to really look at the film and break it down, what do you think it's going to look like? DEMETRIS MORANT: It's going to be a tough game. Like he said, we're playing against trees down there -- 7'1", 7'4". Like Brandon said earlier, it's going to be about rebounding and boxing out on the offensive side and defensive side. I feel like once the game starts and we all get comfortable, it will get easier for us as the game goes on. Q. Demetris, so much of the school's identity and your identity is Dunk City. You're leading the school this year. How important is that to your guys' game plan? And then how do you still try to maintain that against the size you're talking about? DEMETRIS MORANT: Honestly, that's not really important to our game plan. I mean, the game plan is to win and by any means necessary. If we don't get any dunks, if we get 20 dunks, it doesn't matter. I mean, as long as we come out on top, then that's all it takes. Q. Terance Mann was talking about, he thinks it's going to be a really fun game. Two teams that are going to try to get into transition as quickly as they can, as often as they can. Should be a lot of dunks and a lot of fun plays for fans and stuff. Do you kind of expect that going into this, really high energy, up-and-down-the-floor-type game that should be a lot of fun to play in, I would think? BRANDON GOODWIN: Definitely. The first couple minutes, everybody's adrenaline is going to be rushing, and it will be an up-and-down type of game. Eventually, we're going to want to string together some really good stops and, of course, keep our tempo up and keep pushing the ball and play like we normally play. Hopefully, it should be a good amount of dunks for us, not for them, but we'll see how it goes. Like I said, we've just got to box out and make sure we don't give them a lot of open transition looks. Q. You guys have been to the NCAA Tournament in recent years more than FSU. Do you think about that in terms of who has more experience in a situation like this? THE MODERATOR: Demetris, why don't you start, and we'll just go down the line. DEMETRIS MORANT: I mean, I don't think it really matters how many times we've been here in the past couple years. I don't know. THE MODERATOR: Christian? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: They play high-level basketball all the time. It's nothing new to them. Whether or not they're in the NCAA Tournament or not, they're still used to playing high-level basketball. That's what we're going to do tomorrow. We're going to play high-level basketball, both of us, and I don't think it really matters that much. THE MODERATOR: Brandon, thoughts on that? BRANDON GOODWIN: Like CT said, they play high-level basketball. They're in a high-major conference. It's much harder to get to the NCAA Tournament, I would say, than our conference. So this is kind of different levels. But you've still got to go out and compete, and the NCAA Tournament is a different atmosphere. We're both fairly new to the NCAA Tournament, so you'll just have to base it off of the guys that are there at the time or the guys that have experience that were there last year or something like that. Q. Christian, you're one of the better three-point shooters on this team. With Florida State being a long team, how important is it going to be to stretch the floor with open shots from three-point line to maybe open up cuts to cuts by Goodwin, plays to Demetris down in the paint? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: They have a lot of shot blockers on their team. Our focus is three-point shooting at this time because of their shot blocking. We just need to make open shots to stay in this game and be able to beat them. Q. So simulate their length, did you guys get the broomsticks out, or what did you guys do in practice the last couple days? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: We didn't really shoot many layups in practice because we can't simulate that. There's no way for us to do that, not with our scout team. Oh, yeah, we added an extra person on defense just so we can simulate their length. Q. No gadgets or anything to add length to the shot? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: No. Q. You didn't have Demetris on stilts or anything? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: No. Q. Brandon, you've had several days to prepare for this. How do you feel for all this? You've had a couple of practices. Have they been strong? Do you really feel you're ready for this? BRANDON GOODWIN: Yeah, we feel good. We've had some days off to recuperate. It was a long season, a long regular season. Just those days off gave us time to mentally prepare and see who we're going to get in the Tournament. Finding out we had FSU, that gave us a lot of time to -- not a lot, but it gave us enough time to game-plan while we were still fresh. Last couple of practices have been great, in my opinion. A lot of communication, guys just ready to play. Pretty much just everyone is happy to be in this situation. Q. Demetris, a lot of people, it seems like, kind of associate -- the first thought that comes to mind when they think of Florida Gulf Coast basketball is that 2013 Tournament run. How important is it for you guys to establish your own legacy with respect to the Tournament now that it's been kind of several years since that took place? DEMETRIS MORANT: It's really important. Coming in, as a young team, I can say, we don't want to be looked at as the old Dunk City. We want to be looked at as ourselves. For people who only remember FGCU by the 2013 season, it's, I don't know, kind of disrespectful to us, in a certain way. Q. For Brandon, could you explain just the culture that's been created in your program. It's very unusual at this level to get to the Tournament so quickly and then make multiple appearances. What expectations has Coach Dooley set that have allowed you to do it? BRANDON GOODWIN: It definitely starts with Coach Dooley. He's been at Kansas. He's been in a winning program. He knows what it takes. So I think the first step is having players that are bought in to his system. I think everyone from day one has been bought in, and we're starting to build something. You know, respect to 2013, Dunk City team, they started something, and now they're giving us the chance to kind of take a step up and just add some tradition to it. So, yeah, Coach Dooley, he's done a tremendous job of helping us and not even just on the court, off the court, just building us into respected men. So he's done a great job. It's definitely going to help us throughout our career and after basketball. Q. You talk about the old Dunk City. A few of them have tickets to tomorrow night's game -- Brett Comer being one of them. What do you think about their support of you years later? Anyone can answer. THE MODERATOR: Demetris? DEMETRIS MORANT: I'm going to give it to Brandon. BRANDON GOODWIN: He's a little shy. I talk to Brett all the time. I think it's all about helping one another. I asked for advice from him a lot. So it's good to have those guys on your side. I think some people might, once they get done with their school or whatever, they just leave, but those guys, they stuck around, and they talk to us. They enjoy watching us play. We enjoy watching old highlight films of them, even though we watch it kind of every day. But it's still exciting because they built something from the ground up. Now we're in a position to continue that legacy. So I think that's most important is just finishing what has been started. Q. Christian, I don't mean to be repetitive, but I noticed you shaking your head when Demetris was answering the question about establishing your own legacy rather than resting on what happened in 2013. Is that something you tend to agree with as well as far as that's concerned? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: Definitely. You always want to add to your individual legacy and your team legacy. We just want to be different than them. We don't want people to think of us as them, you know what I'm saying? Respect to them, but we want to create our own legacy and hopefully make a run of our own. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow night. We're joined by Coach Dooley. Coach, thanks for joining us. Congratulations on a great season so far. JOE DOOLEY: We're obviously excited to be here. I think our guys are fired up to play, and have a nice short trip up to Orlando and enjoying it so far. Obviously got a great opponent in FSU tomorrow. We're excited to play. Q. The guys just in here were talking about creating their own legacy, and it seems they have a little bit of an uneasy relationship with the 2013 run and Dunk City, but that's still a part of your game and what you do. You have more this year than they did. How do you manage that -- that's part of what they do, but they want to be their own team and make their own mark? JOE DOOLEY: I don't know if it's necessarily an uneasy run. All teams are different, and they want to create their own name. But I think what that Dunk City did was help catapult our program to notoriety and make recruiting easier. I think those guys -- our guys embrace the guys that played there, but I don't know that -- are we Dunk City or not Dunk City? I'm not really sure. But I think they've embraced the Brett Comers and the Bernard Thompson and Chase Fieler because they respect those guys and what they've done. Q. Just a status update, how's practices been the last couple of days? How do you feel going in? Good to go? Game's ready? All's right? JOE DOOLEY: We've had good practices. I think the guys got their energy back. Last week we were able to get the guys off a couple days. But it's all different. We're back on game routine. Once we found out who we're playing on Sunday, it gives you a little bit more of an idea and a little bit more of something to work for. Next week, you're not necessarily sure who you're playing, so they're not as fired up. Q. Bacon and Isaac are kind of the guys that make Florida State go. Now that you've had some film on them, had some practices. How do you try to simulate what their games do? JOE DOOLEY: It's hard to simulate. Their length and athleticism from top to bottom are hard to simulate. There's a lot of things you can do. You can work on zone offense, but you can't simulate 7'4" or 7 foot. But I think Bacon's offensive efficiency is very good. Isaac is a terrific talent. He's going to be a first-round pick. Bacon is an NBA level player. Rathan-Mayes has done a great job of facilitating those things. The other thing is the tremendous depth that they have, and they come at you in waves. Q. Speaking along the same lines, Joe, we were just talking to Brandon about how you guys have tried to simulate what you're going up against, and you can't simulate the height that much, but he said you've been going against six players when you're on offense. Has Ricky been kind of a big part of that trying to get more height on the practice floor to go against? JOE DOOLEY: Ricky can practice, but he can't do any contact stuff. So we really haven't been able to use Ricky. We were able to use Michael Gilmore and those other guys, and we even threw out a retired Aaron Miles out there a little bit today. So we've tried to put as many guys out there as possible and help ourselves. Q. Kind of playing off Rachel's question earlier, I know it's been -- it's a whole new group of guys since 2013, yourself included, and you've played on this stage since, but do you feel like there's any momentum or advantage to be gained just on the reputation alone that comes with it? JOE DOOLEY: No doubt. I think, when we go through recruiting, they recognize -- when we call recruits, they recognize FGCU, Dunk City. I think what that did, when you look at now the things that we're selling from a basketball standpoint, you're talking about five consecutive postseason tournaments, which that one started, and I think there's -- you look around, that's how tradition, and that's how legacies start is step by step. I think that really gave us a big jump start, huge jump start. Q. Coach, obviously, Brandon's been a big part of your squad this year. Can you talk about the importance of his transfer to FGCU, what it's meant for you guys. JOE DOOLEY: He's been an unbelievable asset this year, but he was the same thing last year. He helped save our season last year because his practice intensity, and we had two freshman point guards, and I think he taught them how to compete, how to practice at a college level, how to compete at a college level. As they got better last year, we got better. We attribute a lot of what happened to those guys last year to him because of his competitiveness. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow night. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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