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

March 16, 2017

Buffalo, New York

Wisconsin - 84, Virginia Tech - 74

THE MODERATOR: Joined by Wisconsin head coach, Greg Gard, and student-athletes Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig. Congratulations, guys, on a victory that advances you on to play Villanova Saturday night. We're waiting on game times. Hope to have them to you before we're done this evening. We'll open with Coach Gard making an opening statement.

GREG GARD: Thank you. Obviously extremely happy for our guys, really proud of how they battled. Virginia Tech's -- Buzz has got a heck of a team. Knew that obviously, and not surprised watching them on film and preparing for them. We knew, obviously when you get to this time of the year, they're all good. And we were able to do just enough and make enough shots, get to the foul line enough, specifically in the second half, to be able to hold them off and get enough stops there at the end to seal it up.

Like I said, I'm happy for these two guys to my right and the other 15 guys in the locker room. A heck of a team effort.

Q. Several times they cut it to one in the second half, and you would come right back and hit a three. I was just wondering, were you looking for your shot in those moments or did it just sort of work out that way?
BRONSON KOENIG: You can definitely say I was looking for my shot. It's something I take pride in, being a senior point guard, is making plays in critical moments. And I knew when they kept cutting it to one that I was going to have to make some type of play, so I was just trying to be as aggressive as possible.

Q. Bronson, were you just feeling it today? Were there certain things you were able to take advantage of with their defense? How do you explain this is the game where you broke a school record with eight three-pointers?
BRONSON KOENIG: I was feeling it a little bit. I don't think I shot all that well, to be honest, looking at my numbers. But I knew the way they were going to play defense with the switching and everything like that, and going back to zone, and back and forth, that I was going to be able to get some open looks if I just kept moving them. My teammates did a good job of both screening and passing me the ball. Like I said before, searching for it and just trying to stay on the attack.

Q. Bronson, how big of a lift was it to stay within -- stay up by a point the entire time?
BRONSON KOENIG: I mean, we just try to battle every single possession, and their guards are really good, especially off that ball screen. So we were trying to do the best we could to keep them in front and, I mean, that's something we'll look back on and need to improve moving forward. But, yeah, being up one and our guys hitting their free throws was huge for us and just making big plays down the stretch.

Q. Nigel, how much do you feel like your just general tournament experience that -- you guys have been here all four years with Virginia Tech. How do you feel that paid off for you down the stretch.
NIGEL HAYES: I think it definitely helped a lot for us to have the older guys that we have and have been through some of the runs we've had in the tournament. I think it showed with Bronson the way he responded to each time they went on a run. Each time they hit a bit shot, he responded with a big shot and that's something that you need. Although this another game, it's in tournament, so the emotion is higher, energy is higher, guys are playing more up tight. And I think when you have that experience, you're able to relax a little more and you can go out and break school records.

THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for student-athletes?

Q. For the guy, your defense, what do you think worked for you and what was your game plan that worked for you?
NIGEL HAYES: Our defense, it wasn't good at all today. I'm sure he'll be up all night with clenched fists watching film at how poor we were. We didn't do well guarding their ball screens at all. We gave up a lot of paint touches, a lot of and-ones and finishes. We fouled three-point shooters two or three times, which is definitely a cardinal sin in any program. We didn't do well with dribble penetration, which again was one of the key things we wanted to take care of. We know they can drive and kick extremely well, so we were fortunate that -- you know, we needed a score record-breaking performance in order to beat them. They're a really good team.

THE MODERATOR: Not seeing any other questions, Bronson, Nigel, congratulations. We'll see you here tomorrow. Further questions for Coach Gard.

Q. To go on the 10-1, I think it was run, in the last two minutes there, is that more you guys and your experience in those type of games, or was it rigid attack fading a little bit you see from their offense?
GREG GARD: I thought we got the ball in some pretty high percentage areas. We wanted to make sure, we tried to touch the post when we could. We shot quite a few free throws down the stretch, too, so it's part of it. I don't know. I've only coached one team, so I can't judge in terms of what they are going through. I thought we had guys make key plays at key times, and that's what you have to have at this time of year if you want to continue to advance. Different people have to step up at different times. We're able to get enough stops at the end to be able to come back and answer and get a little separation.

Q. You've obviously seen Bronson a lot. Where did tonight rank from what you've seen?
GREG GARD: Well, I can probably remember his two turnovers or whatever he had. Oh, he had one. Okay? You know, he's -- I've known him since he was a freshman in high school, recruited him for three years before he committed to us. So I've seen him do a lot of things. Watched him win two state championships. I watched him four years here with us. He's a heck of a player.

He did a very good job without the ball tonight. He played more without the ball than he did with the ball for the most part because of what we wanted to run against what they were doing defensively. So, he found spots. As he mentioned teammates did a good job of screening and finding him, and I don't know if it's his best shooting performance. Obviously it sets a record, but he had 17 attempts to do it, too. But he's a good player. There's no doubt about that. He's the school's all-time leader in three-point shooting. It's pretty obvious. He's been fun to coach.

Q. Greg, what do you make of what, you know, Bronson said in taking ownership as being a senior point guard and saying, you know, I needed to respond when the time came especially when they were, you know, inching within -- to respond to three-point basketball scoring?
GREG GARD: He's done that throughout the year. He's hit big shots for us. He hit a big shot -- everybody remembers the shot against Xavier last year that he hit to send us to the Sweet 16. He has a tendency to obviously have the ball in his hands, so the opportunities go up. That's usually where you put your -- at the end of the game, you want the ball in your point guard's hands, whether it's him shooting or making plays for others. And he was opportunistic, and he hit obviously timely shots when we needed it. Like I said, teammates found him, too. It wasn't always him making a play with the ball. It was some inside out, touching the post, throwing it back out and him relocating and finding open spots. So he gets the credit for knocking down shots, but other guys had hands in helping that happen.

Q. And just as a follow-up, I know the point guard, the mentality, to have that confidence and to be able to deliver it, what does it say about somebody like him?
GREG GARD: Well, he's gone through games where he's gone one for eight or one for nine, too. So the biggest thing about shooters, they have to have a short memory when things aren't going well. We've gone through -- I think he went one for ten when we were at Madison Square Garden against Rutgers this year. He came over to the bench and said what's wrong. I said keep shooting. You've got to keep shooting when you're a shooter of his level. Because eventually you going to get one to go and it start to snowball. You can't lose confidence when you're a player like that.

Q. Nigel mentioned the cardinal sin of fouling somebody while taking a three-point shot. Justin Bibbs had eight points on two four-point plays. I don't know how rare that is?
GREG GARD: In two out-of-bounds plays we went over specifically in practice for two days.

Q. Where is that on the aggravation scale?
GREG GARD: Well, here's the thing. They shoot the three so well, and maybe we made too big of a deal as a staff about taking away their threes, that we had them hyper-alert to them shooting threes specifically off out-of-bounds plays or anywhere. I'll look through the tape to see why we gave up so much dribble penetration. Some of it we weren't as compressed and compact defensively as we normally are, knowing that they had so many shooters on the floor. We were a little more spread. They do that to you, too. They did it throughout the year to teams in the league as I went through films.

So the first one Bronson runs right into Bibbs, and the second one Iverson runs right into him. They need to take a better route, but also we need to do a better job taking away the action to that. And the scout team running is one thing, when you go against a team that's done it all year, and has the timing down of that. Late we made an adjustment and jumped it from the guy taking the ball out of bounds to take it away. But we have to be smarter in terms of not -- you don't foul three-point shooters whether it's an out-of-bounds play or not.

So, we'll look at the tape, I'm sure, and see if Villanova runs any of those same type of plays.

THE MODERATOR: Not seeing any more questions, Coach, congratulate you again, see you back here again tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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