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

March 17, 2017

Sacramento, California

Cincinnati - 75, Kansas State - 61

THE MODERATOR: All right, we have the victorious Cincinnati Bearcats here, our student-athletes, Kyle Washington, Troy Caupain and head Coach, Mick Cronin. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Nice to celebrate with a win.

MICK CRONIN: And to you, too, my good friend, Mr. Kelly. Obviously, a 1-point win is enough. But today we were in control throughout. I thought Troy played his best game of the year. For a couple of years he has carried us offensively. We got him some help this year, and he sacrificed a lot for his team. But today he made the coach look good. Every time we needed a big play he put the ball in the basket. He just does a great job of taking care of the ball, played with great pace. Players win games and you can have a lot of strategy in coaching, but it doesn't work if guys don't put the ball in the basket or make the right pass.

Both these guys put it in the basket they're a combined 12 for 16 in the field. Any team coached by Bruce Weber is going to dig in in the defensive end. They're not easy to score on. Obviously, we're happy to be playing on Sunday. A lot of great effort by our team and we were able to establish our low post position early. I thought that was the key to the game. That was something we practiced all week.

Q. Mick, you said earlier in the week that you were maybe disappointed about having to come all the way west again. Getting a win makes it easier. I would think especially on St. Patty's Day when you can follow it up with a good drink?
MICK CRONIN: Exactly. To clarify that, I love the west coast. Two of my best friends are here from LA. I can't get 'em out of California. The only way I can see them is to come here. It's hard to get 'em out of Southern California. The only problem is the family travel for all of our kids. It's such a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our kids. Parent of our players, all our players, they're driving the guys around these guys to AAU Tournament. I know both of these guys' parents, a lot of long drives, bad food, fast food, sitting in the gym all day, weekend after weekend at AAU events.

To see their son get on the biggest stage, you want them to be able to be there. That's aside from our students who the only ones we have here would be our band and our cheerleaders. But Sacramento has been great, my friend, Mr. Kelly and I have bonded. Our hosts have been great and for those of us from the midwest it's good to see the sun.

Q. Troy, you guys are ranked a 6 seed, top-25 offense, top-10 defense. Yet you got a 6. Do you feel like this is a great way to validate what you guys have done over the season and more to come?
TROY CAUPAIN: I was thankful to have the opportunity to be playing in March. Seeding didn't matter. I knew we were going to have to be ready to play basketball regardless. Having the challenge as a 6 seed and play Kansas State at the 11 seed. We prepare for any challenger, even if he got a higher seed. Thankful and happy to play on Sunday.

Q. Kyle, it seems like, Mick said you guys were in control the whole game, and anytime they tried to make a run at you guys got a key basket to stop 'em. Was there a sense on your team that it's not going to happen today? We got this all the way?
KYLE WASHINGTON: We had a sense of calm. I was looking at Gary and I told Troy before the game I'm following your lead and obviously he did a great job of setting the tone and facilitating and putting the ball in the basket when we needed it. We had a sense of calm the whole time and we have guys that this is my third tournament. This is Troy's fourth, Gary's third. Kevin's fourth. So we have -- and a whole bunch of guys that are experienced and ready to play. We were ready.

Q. Coach, what did you guys do against Wesley in the first half? You got into foul trouble, but how did you frustrate him? Did you think you frustrated in the first half? He came back this the second.
MICK CRONIN: Our game plan was to make him beat us from the perimeter. At his size with his ball handling ability we didn't want to let him get to the rim too much because Kyle ends up getting in foul trouble trying to help, which is why he had two in the first half. He has played really well.

I've watched a lot of film on him the last few days. Last three weeks he's played really well. When he makes shots he has pro potential. He's 6'7" and he can really handle the ball. Late in the game, if I had to do it over again I would have told my guys to just try to pull out the nine, because they relied on his offense late in the game.

Stokes has had great year and he's been a big difference for their team and they weren't able to get him going today, and I think that was a key for us. But Wesley is a great player.

Q. If I can follow up on Kyle's comment about you guys being calm. Why was that? It was obvious throughout that you guys felt you were going to win tonight. I'm sure you go into every game feeling like that, but tonight it manifested itself on the court. Why tonight?
KYLE WASHINGTON: I think Coach kept on reasserting the message of we worked too hard to play here in one game and pack up and go home, get ready for spring break. We don't want to do that. The coaches have dedicated a lot of time and the players have dedicated a lot of time and this is a cohesive group that we want to win. We want to keep on moving forward and keep on putting Cincinnati out there. We beat Xavier. That's what I was thinking of. We haven't beat them in a long time. We want to keep doing the things we haven't done in the past few years.

MICK CRONIN: I would say, something that's really helped us, Kyle went to a Sweet 16 at NC State, having played in the ACC he is constantly pumping up his teammates to believe that we can do something special all year! He's almost like Bundini Brown in Ali's corner. He really is. Troy will tell you. He's telling guys they can't guard you. He's in Troy's ear, Gary's ear, whomever on our team pumping them up.

So I think his past success and his big game experience has just been an added plus for our team. That and I think these guys -- I really believe this: We won 30 games so you ought to be confident. They've only lost to four teams all year. I think they should be confident. They understand that -- this team offensively if we just don't let people defend us, don't bail 'em out because we have enough weapons that if we force teams to try to take something away, whatever they give up by taking that away. We have weapons to put the ball in the basket. I think that's probably the biggest difference with these guys, but they've been doing that all year.

So they kinda know. I think sometimes it becomes a little too easy and the late season became a little bit of a grind for them. That's just human nature. Troy would tell you that they've been waiting to play many March for a while. They knew this day was coming. Not that we didn't want to win our league championship or anything like that, but let's be honest this day and age it's all about this tournament, especially for these kids. That's all they hear about.

Q. Troy, could you comment a little bit on big picture, what this win means in terms of -- and Coach, maybe yourself. Coach mentioned you've won 30 games now. Great year either way. Maybe if you hadn't won this game people might have said, oh, brother, another first-round loss.
TROY CAUPAIN: They said that yesterday.

Q. Did you answer that already?
TROY CAUPAIN: No, yesterday. I feel like to have this opportunity -- we never won on the west coast. Two in Spokane we lost first round, so to have an opportunity to come back to the west coast and win first round as a goal maybe not for the team, but individually us seniors talked about it before we left to conquer the west coast and to have an opportunity to do it on the first day is special for us.

I feel like if we didn't have this win I feel like if we lost. They would be another good team lost in the first round regardless of what we did in the regular season. This is where it really counts. We didn't put all the thing that we talked about into March and they would have stunted on us like normal.

MICK CRONIN: That's the way it is. I can comment. I could care less what anybody said. I'm happy that he played well for him. I think, you know, it's all the outside stuff. We understand it, but if that's why you're playing or that's why you're coaching you're going to have a hollow ending and I don't care how many games you win.

What makes it real is these guys love each other and they play for each other. They like playing because they want to be around each other. They're not trying to silence critics. I know I'm not. I try to get that to rub off on them. We've had a successful year. Only one team is going to win this tournament, and I'm talking about the whole tournament. We're going to try to do everything we can to win this tournament. I don't lack in competitiveness. I probably have too much, but I'm well aware there are a lot more important things out there. So what somebody else thinks about defining whether our season is a success is comical to me. Successful because I've three seniors that are going to graduate and kids learn to sacrifice for each other and all the lessons that go on in team sports.

So we're playing for us. We're happy. Obviously, I'm a Cincinnati guy and a graduate. My dad -- I practically grew up in Corryville like both my parents. I want to win for my school. Not worried about what anybody says. That will be the last thing that. I want to coach Troy for three more weeks. That's why I want to win.

Q. Coach, Wesley got two fouls, did you try to go at him to get the third one?
MICK CRONIN: We tried to get the third and then we tried to go at him to get the fourth and Gary got out of his way and Gary showed everybody that he doesn't jump that well on that did you think because Wesley -- he had to give it to him because it would have been his fourth. So no doubt those were very big plays for us, and I give our guys credit.

Jacob, I think, was the guy that put his third on him and he did it on purpose. Playing smart is a big part of this. Everybody plays hard this time of year. Otherwise you wouldn't be in this tournament, you gotta play smart and it was a smart play by Jacob Evans.

Q. Talk about your hot start you got off to?
MICK CRONIN: I like our chances with dunks and layups, Kyle and Gary inside. Our game plan was to go inside. We feel like we're bailing people out if we don't establish that because we have two of the best low post scores in this tournament. They're also very good passers, so it makes you pick your poison in defending us. We worked hard on it this week. We had a great week of practice and the guys were committed to it. They saw the fruits of trying to work harder to get that ball closer to the basket. From there you're in a tough spot what do you do because you overhelp and we got guys on this team that can make shots, and that's when Troy took over after that.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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