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

March 16, 2017

Buffalo, New York

West Virginia - 86, Bucknell - 80

THE MODERATOR: Okay. Joined now by Bucknell head coach, Nathan Davis, as well as Stephen Brown, Kimbal Mackenzie, and Zach Thomas.

THE MODERATOR: We're going to have an opening statement from Coach Davis before we take questions for our student-athletes only. Coach?

NATHAN DAVIS: First off, let me congratulate Coach Huggins and his team. They had an outstanding season. They have an outstanding team. We knew it was going to be very difficult to win the game. We felt like if we played well, we'd have a chance and we certainly did. I thought our guys showed tremendous character falling behind, 27-15 or maybe 27-12. To find a way to not get down on each other, to fight back, to get it to a three-point game there in the second half. They showed the heart of a champion. Unfortunately I don't get to coach this same group again, but I'm looking forward to getting back at it with the guys coming back next year.

It's going to hurt for a little while, as it should, because we're competitive guys, these are competitive guys. But we'll move on and hopefully we'll get better from this.

Q. For any of you the players, you can all answer this. Offensive rebounding for West Virginia, they're getting three-point shots, but got it back on offensive rebound again. Did you know that was going to be an issue coming in and how difficult was it coming into the game?
STEPHEN BROWN: We knew coming in that offensive rebounding was part of their game plan. Our goal was limit them to one shot only, to get the rebound, and get out from beating the press, but down the stretch, you saw that they got a lot of second-chance opportunities after their misses, and then that kind of hurt us. Going in we knew that that was going to be part of the game plan, too.

Q. For any of you guys, I saw Jay Wright just came into the locker room. If you wouldn't mind sharing what he had to say and what that means coming in and talking to you guys.
KIMBAL MACKENZIE: He just told us to keep our heads up. Part of being a warrior is losing sometimes and we've got to learn how to lose just as we learn how to win. We're very fortunate to have him in the locker room, giving us a couple words. He told us to keep our heads up and keep fighting.

Q. When you have the coach who is the defending National Champ, what does that mean for him to say those things to you guys?
ZACH THOMAS: It's an honor. He definitely sees we're a talented ball club. It's his alma mater. He's proud of us. It means a lot.

Q. Just, you know, you practiced against it, you watched tape of it, you scouted it. What did you think of the fierceness of their pressure?
STEPHEN BROWN: I mean, came in and came in with what we expected. It was our first time facing the press. Once we saw we could get the ball in and get it up the court, it was nothing new to us. Coach said going into the game, we've faced press before, but the biggest thing for us was second-chance opportunities. Once we got the rebound and got it out in transition, it was easy to beat the press. But out of bounds, under, on the sidelines, it was tough for us at times. But we were able to fight back, as you saw, and broke it a lot of times.

Q. And two follow-ups to that. It seemed you really did a good job of not being tentative, really going after it. Can you talk about how important that was or what you thought about doing that?
STEPHEN BROWN: Coach kept telling us after beating the press, we're going to keep attacking. Kimbal hitting threes in the corner and Nana catching it on the post. Once you broke the press, our goal was get a shot off it, any opportunity, whether it was a jump shot or something inside. So I think we did a good job of breaking the press and looking for the open guy and just taking what was given to us.

Q. How unusual, when you get it out of the back court, they got Adrian at the pad up there, 1-3-1 and then they got two 6'8" guys on the wings trying to push you out. It's obviously not something you're going to see too often. How good do you think that is, and how did you manage it?
STEPHEN BROWN: Yeah. We decided to use what we had to our advantage. I mean, they're big, long, athletic, but I mean, we have speed. So, I mean, just looking at the outlets or if we can beat them coming out to just go around and then beat the press. I mean, other guys did a good job of getting open and providing outlets for the guys in the back court. Despite their length and stuff, we just looked for the right reads and just kept attacking it.

Q. When it was 27-12 in the first half, what were you guys saying to yourselves to frankly just stay in the ball game?
KIMBAL MACKENZIE: You know, this year, we've been down a couple times. We've been down big, and we know we're a mentally tough team who is able to fight back. We have a lot of weapons and we didn't panic. We just, you know, tried to win every possession, one possession at a time. And we looked up a couple minutes later, and we were back in the game.

So, we were in that situation before. As I said, we're a pretty mentally tough group, so we were able to fight back.

Q. For Stephen. The vast majority of you will be back next year. What do you think might help you guys as a program moving toward?
ZACH THOMAS: I feel like we know -- if we do get back here next year, we know what to expect. Everything was new to us, nearly everything. We know what to expect and we know the caliber of the teams we're going to play, especially West Virginia today. So, I think we are more well-prepared, and we just have to, you know, do some of the same things to get us ready.

STEPHEN BROWN: Yeah. I mean it was a great experience for a group such as us. Just using this as fuel to come back next year and, from beginning to end to just fight every single game and every single practice. Now that we have a goal to come back, and get a win in the first round, I think we can use this and it's much of a confidence boost for all of the guys returning back next year.

THE MODERATOR: Great, Stephen, Kimbal, Nana. Thanks for your time.

Q. Nathan, what do you make of the perseverance that your team showed today out there given the fact that you overcame several double-digit deficits?
NATHAN DAVIS: Well, I think that's been the story of our season. We've played a really challenging nonconference schedule. Our league is always a challenge. You're in those situations throughout the year, and you don't get to play in this tournament unless you're a champion, and you can't be a champion without buying able to persevere through bad times. They're going to happen in every game, happen in every season, and the team -- the teams that usually handle the situation the best are the ones that end up being most successful.

I think all year long our guys have done an unbelievable job supporting each other and picking each other up when they're down, not giving up on things and fighting through to grow from it. That's a big difference from a year with us. In a lot of respects, we've really grown in that respect.

Q. Coach, obviously a press gets a lot of note. You handled that fairly well. Was there offensive rebounding when you went into the game as big of a concern. Do you think you did what you could against it?
NATHAN DAVIS: We didn't win, so, we could have done better. Going into the game, whenever you play them, first off, Coach Huggins is really good. There's a reason he's a Hall of Fame level guy. They're very disciplined. They play with purpose. They are extremely tough. They are physical. They don't let you take possessions off, and that's a credit to him and his staff and the kids, the way they play.

Going in we knew the first you need to handle with them is you need to be able to get quality shots. That starts by handling the press. The second part is offensively, they're going to be significantly bigger than we are. They're going to be more athletic, and we have to do a better job of keeping them off the boards.

I thought for the most part with rebounding was, when you're 6'3" or 6'4" and you're going against a guy who's 6'8", and they run in the lane and jump, that matters. We weren't going to make enough contact away from the basket to negate their size some. We were trying. I thought we were fighting, but we weren't doing as well as we could have. Give them credit for being relentless at that end and not quitting on plays. In a lot of ways, that was the difference in the game.

Q. So they average 20.4 turnovers forced a game which led the nation. And you made 14 or 15. Did you have a number in mind that you said, well, hopefully we live with this?
NATHAN DAVIS: We look at every game. I don't typically go by a total number of turnovers. Just more we look at turnover percentage per possession. I haven't actually seen the number of possessions we had in the game, but we like to be around 15 or 16 percent, which is really low. If you're really getting in at 18, 19 percent you're doing a pretty good job.

Our big thing was, look, we are going to turn it over some. Everybody turns it over some on them. It's as much about us, when we have an opportunity to make a play being able to make it. Whether it's to get a lay-up, get a good shot. We didn't want to end up in a situation where we did break it, and then part of what it is, is it gets you rushed, and all of a sudden you end up throwing some balls out of bounds when guys are open, fumbling a ball out of bounds, rushing a lay-up, those type of things. As much as not turning it over, I think what gave us a chance is our guys did a really good job of taking advantage when they did break it and not getting to the point where they're playing too fast and we couldn't finish plays.

Q. Then 27-12, what did you say to your team and what were you thinking at that point?
NATHAN DAVIS: They're not watching. What I said was probably a little different than what I was thinking. I mean, like I said, we've been in that situation before. You're going to have games where you fall behind. You just got to keep playing. We're talking about how any game, but especially an NCAA game, with the length of the time-outs, the intensity and all of that, it's a long game. And 15 points looks like a lot, but it's really five possessions, five or six possessions. So if we can put together a string where we're winning a couple more possessions every time down or every few minutes that we're losing, next thing you know we're back in the game.

I was thinking I hope we can stop giving them easy baskets and turning it over and give ourselves a chance. It was early. There was still over ten minutes left in the first half, there was 30 minutes left to be played. We had a lot of time left to make it up and again, give our guys credit for having the mental toughness to do that.

Q. Coach, similar question to what I asked the players. You know you have the vast majority of this rotation back next year. What do you hope the guys that were here this year took away from this experience?
NATHAN DAVIS: I think that first thing is you can never take for granted what you've accomplished. I don't think having everyone back next year means a whole lot if we don't continue to improve. Now, saying that, I would like to think what we'll understand, even more so than having not been before, is how hard it is to get here and the amount of time you've got to put in and the dedication you got to have to your teammates, yourself, and the rest of the guys; to be the best you can be and to give everything you have for the team.

You're not going to win a conference championship, you're not going to get a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. You're not going to be a good enough team to advance if you have any other thing on your mind when you're in the team setting of doing the best you can for everyone else around you. And understanding that it's really hard, and there's going to be ups and downs. And as much as you can handle, as well as you deal with the good times, you have to be able to respond to the bad times. That's one of the great things about our players and Bucknell kids in general is they mature and learn to handle those things.

We've got a lot of work cut out for us if we want to get back here and hopefully do better next year. But I think they'll understand that it's about understanding how hard it is and embracing it and being able to go after it again.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, congrats on a great season.

NATHAN DAVIS: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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