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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SALT LAKE CITYMarch 15, 2017Randy BennettJoe RahonJock LandaleCalvin HermansonSalt Lake City, Utah Q. With all the Australians that have come through Saint Mary's, how did you find out about the school? JOCK LANDALE: I was on a team in China with Emmett and Dane and I think that was the first time I heard of them, when they were recruiting Emmett. I've always known a little bit about Saint Mary's, because it's pretty significant back home in terms of college basketball, and a lot of people want to come here. It's the go-to sport for Australians. Emmett was the first person to get recruited there. And you hear about Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills and stuff like. So it's basically just through the other Australians who have come through Saint Mary's that we hear about it most. Q. You come into this tournament as the team with the No. 2 scoring defense in the country. What do you feel is the reason you're so successful? CALVIN HERMANSON: I think most things, we try to limit teams in transition. So a lot of teams that score big get a lot of transition buckets, and we make sure we get on defense and stop transition. The other thing is do a good job on the boards. And second-chance opportunities. And also pay attention to scout, and know players' tendencies and focus in on that. Q. What have you seen on tape from VCU, and what have you got to do to get through the first round? JOE RAHON: They're good. Defensively they're really good. They get after you a little bit. Mix it up, full court press, man to man, 2-2-1, they'll pressure you man in the half court or they'll play zone. So they've got a bunch of things they can throw at you. So basically for us offensively it's going to be taking care of the ball, moving it, do what we do. There's jitters every game, but against them especially it's going to be important. And then for them offensively, us defensively, they attack the paint. And their guards are good. They get in the paint and they're really good on the boards in terms of offensive rebounding. We've got to do a good job, for us guards, to limit penetration so our bigs don't have to help too much, so when the shot goes up they can box out their man. They're good about going getting second- and third-shot opportunities, if we can do that we'll feel good. It's going to be tough. There are a lot of guys they can throw at you. Q. Talk about especially Emmett Naar. JOE RAHON: We played two years with him. And play a lot of minutes together. At this point we kind of know how each other is feeling, where we're going to be, where the pass is going to go. So you talk about it a little bit off the court in terms of our styles and we'll talk about how we're trying to attack teams, what we thinks best based on the film we watch and the personnel they have. A lot of it is a feel on court you develop over time. We both like to get our teammates involved, which helps, you have two point guards playing on the court, and we're comfortable on and off the ball. There's never been a head-butting contest of who gets to bring the ball off the court or who's coming off this many pick and rolls versus that many. It's been pretty nice and an easy relationship. It's been fun to go through these two years with him, for sure. Q. Is it odd to have four losses, but three against the same team? And also on top of that, does it give you a little bit of confidence considering that one team is the No. 1 seed in this region? CALVIN HERMANSON: Yeah, it's a little odd, I think we can all say we'd like to have gotten Gonzaga at least one of those times. I think we do have confidence. We have confidence every time we step on the court. And this environment is no different. We're excited to go out and compete against different teams and see what we can do. Q. Are you surprised that you were a 7 seed? JOE RAHON: We don't really think about it. I know a lot of people talk about all the criteria for the NCAA tournaments, and people say it changes every year. As players you just go out there and play who is on your schedule. And you try to win. And going in we saw the projections for it. As a player, for me, personally, I had no idea -- I knew we were the top 25 in the country, and going into the championship game, I think we were 19 or 20. If you do the simple math, so around there, and then people were projecting us as a 6 or 7, so we expected to be in that range. We ended up with a 7. As a player, you try not to focus too much, you enjoy the moment when your name gets called, and you see your name pop up on the screen, one of the happier moments as a player. And then Monday you focus in and try to figure out how you're going to beat your opponent, and for us it's VCU. We weren't too concerned about the seed and weren't going to gripe about we wish we were a 6. We're happy to get in and excited for the challenge on Thursday. Q. You mentioned Saint Mary's is the go-to place in Australia. Is March Madness a big deal over there? JOCK LANDALE: Yeah, we basically get the same coverage you do. We had the 24-hour marathon and all that stuff, and it's a pretty big deal. Back home, my family said there are a whole bunch of people at watch parties. We get -- it's becoming a bigger part of Australian sports culture. And like NCAA March Madness and NBA is definitely thriving back there. People get into it as much as you do, too. Q. After all these years how much of an expert is your head coach on cricket, rugby, wallabies, Aussie Rules, Melbourne Cup? JOCK LANDALE: How do you guys know about any of that stuff? He tries to act like he's got the Australian culture down, but I don't think he does whatsoever. COACH RANDY BENNETT: We're just excited to be part of the NCAA tournament. It's really difficult to get in this event. And we've had a great year. So we get to play a good opponent, VCU. We're excited and looking forward to playing tomorrow. Q. Looking at just the defensive success your team has had this year. Where does this group rank for you as the head coach in terms of their strength as a defensive unit? COACH RANDY BENNETT: Yeah, it's probably -- this year -- this is probably one of our best, if not our best defensive team. These guys have done a good job, just kind of improving from week to week. I think as a group they do what they're asked every day. And I can't tell you how far that goes. They're really coachable and have great attitudes. I think that's why we're good defensively, and that's why we're good at the other end, too. Q. What was the genesis of the Australian pipeline for you? COACH RANDY BENNETT: It was lucky. We took a kid, my first year when I came in there, I got the job in April, and we still had two scholarships in August. And there was a kid from Australia that had Division II's recruiting him. And he wanted to come over here. I'd never seen him play. So we took him. His name was Adam Caporn, he ended up being good. And he told us he had a buddy back home six, ten that he thought might be able to help us. He ended up being the all-time leading scorer at Saint Mary's, his name was Daniel Kickert. And that was lucky, a stroke of luck. We were smart enough to develop that pipeline and Patty Mills showed up shortly thereafter and the floodgates opened. Q. Joe mentioned how having two point guards helps you out a lot. How much does that help you in terms of your offense? COACH RANDY BENNETT: Two smart point guards. They're coaches on the floor. It helps a lot. I don't really have to discuss much with them during the game. They're pretty much running out there. So we played that way before. We had McConnel and Dellavedova, it's very similar to that, the same kind of guys, high IQ guys. They just take care of the ball and get us in things offensively. They're making calls on their own out there. So, I think it's probably the biggest key to why we're successful offensively. Q. What are your impressions of VCU and what do you need to do well against them? COACH RANDY BENNETT: My impressions of them are they're -- we know their program as far as just national tradition. They're good, year in, year out. I think every school in the country knows VCU basketball is a high level. So it has been for a long time. We have a lot of respect for them. I've never studied the program up close, we've never played them. It's fun to finally get to see a team like that, study them, watch film on them, find out what makes them special. A lot of things, it's never one thing. But they force 14 turnovers a game. They're quick. They get after you. Their opportunistic defensively, so I think that and they're a load on the boards. They can get the game up tempo and they're very good rebounders. A lot of teams have good athletes, these guys are good rebounders. They go after the ball. They do a great job rebounding, because it just doesn't happen, you don't have guys that go and get the ball, you have to coach it. They get after you defensively and they get steals. They make it hard. There's no easy passes. And then when the ball goes up on the rim they're pretty tough. Q. What makes Jock so unique and special and led to his success this year? COACH RANDY BENNETT: What led to his success is he worked hard. And he has a great attitude. And I would say that across the board on our team, as good as I've been around as a coach. But he wanted to be good, so he worked at it, whatever it took. It wasn't like we were pulling teeth to get him to work hard. He's very willing to be coached. He's very willing to make the sacrifices to be good. He dropped about ten pounds, I'm not sure if the pounds made the difference as much as the getting in shape. He became more athletic. So he's 6-11. When we got him he was 275, maybe a tad more. But he's about 253, 254 now. So he just became a better athlete. He uses his body that way to get better athletically. And that helped him defensively, which enabled us to put him on court more. If he's on the court he's going to do good things offensively. He has always known how to score. He's improved and my assistant coach Marty Clarke is very good at developing bigs, and he's spent a lot of time with Jock and the other bigs. But Jock has improved. He's improved because he's worked. He's become a better passer. He's unselfish. He's improved as a defender. There's a lot of things that he's done, but most of it is just his attitude towards -- he's the guy that comes to you and says, Coach, what do you have to do to be better? What do I have to do to go to the next step? And I'm not talking about NBA, I'm talking about the next step as a player to help you win conference championship or get to the NCAA, and he did. Q. VCU has done pretty well in some close games. They had a couple of games they pulled out. Does a team take something from success in close games throughout the season like that? COACH RANDY BENNETT: That's funny you asked me, because we haven't had any close games this year. You can get confidence when you play in those games. You've been there. You're not nervous, you know you can win them. And they are. I've seen it, they've been down 16 or 17 recently and they come back and get that game down to a two-point game and have a shot to win it. That's one thing we commented on as a coaching staff, these guys are hard to get rid of. They keep coming. And some is the style they play. They're going to keep coming at you defensively and on the boards and in transition. And obviously they have some guys that are stud leaders that have high belief. And I would imagine -- I don't know their team like their coach does, but I imagine their point guard, Lewis, is one of those guys. You win those games gives you confidence in case you play in another one. Q. What's the process of proper film study for a game with this quick of turnaround? COACH RANDY BENNETT: This first game? Actually for this first game we have a lot of time. We found out who we played Sunday. I don't know, you need two or three days to get a pretty good prep on them. So we feel like we have enough time. I think -- we went to work on them on Monday. And we watched film Monday, Tuesday and today. And for us probably 48 hours before we start -- we start sharing that with our players. First the coaches have to figure out what the heck we're going against. And then we try and get our players gradually to have a feel for the team they're about to play. Today we watched film for the first time of them with our players. We pretty much kept it the same way we do every game in the season. That's the one thing I don't want to do, I don't want to rattle my team and watch film with them for three days. We never do that. I don't know the right way. I know what we do. And I know what works for this team. The tough turnaround is if you win and you play Saturday, because you don't have much time -- you're just going to do the best you can with that one. Q. Are there any positives that you took from the fact that three of the four losses came against the No. 1 seed in the region? COACH RANDY BENNETT: We only lost to two teams all year. That's the positive. That's about it. We would like to get one of those -- at least one of those games off them, but we didn't. They controlled all three games. They're good. We didn't play well against them the third game in the first half. The other two games we played decent against them. So that would be it. They're good. We'll see what happens, see if we can -- see how we can do Thursday. I think our guys, even though we lost our last game to them, I think our guys understand they're playing against a good team when they're playing Gonzaga. I think our confidence is fine. I don't think it damaged us that way. Q. This group of players is the first time in the tournament. Do you address that as a coach or let the moment take care of itself? COACH RANDY BENNETT: It's a concern, because playing in an NCAA tournament is unique. There's nothing like it. I can try and tell them this is what it's like, and I have, just this thing, media sessions, whatever, your 40 minutes on the court. All those things are different. Nothing like it. Excitement, you're hearing about it every day at school, the brackets. It's one of the biggest sporting events in the country. So how do you prepare guys -- some guys that have never been in it and seven of them who aren't from this country for this event? We just try and keep things as normal as we can. But I have talked to them about it and I've talked to them, we have to be ready to compete. You can't go to the NCAA tournament just to play, if you do, you'll be going home after the first day. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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