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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: NEW YORKMarch 23, 2017Mike WhiteJustin LeonKevarrius HayesKasey HillNew York, New York THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions for the student-athletes. Q. Can you guys just talk about, all three of you, just about being greedy at this point. You win one and then you have another and now you get here and just being greedy to keep it going. KASEY HILL: Just got to stick to playing our defense and that's about it. I think that takes care of everything else. JUSTIN LEON: Pretty much the same thing. Just stick to the game plan, and don't let any noise creep in and everything will take care of itself. KEVARRIUS HAYES: It's about going out there and play hard. How bad do you really want it? Q. What have you seen in Ethan Happ on film over the last couple of days and what's going to be the challenge of dealing with him in the post if there's some one-on-one situations? KEVARRIUS HAYES: Basically keeping him off the block as much as possible, trying to limit his close touches to the basket and whenever I can make him score over instead of giving an angle. Q. Wisconsin is obviously a team that's exposed a lot of others who have not defended the interior as well. How much more of a challenge is it without Egbunu there and do you feel like you've got enough games under your belt now to have adjusted to that? JUSTIN LEON: I think that it's a pretty big challenge, especially with those two high level players. But I mean without Egbunu I think we have done our fair share of the job, because we got here without him, so I feel like I think we showed that we can play interior defense without him. Obviously, he would be a great help, but I think that we can do it without him, too. KEVARRIUS HAYES: Pretty much what Justin said. Having him here would be a huge help. He's definitely the more physical counter part to our defense, but we can't sell ourselves short, even out having him, we played pretty good interior defense so far and I feel like we can still come out on top tomorrow. Q. Kasey, a lot of the talk will be about guarding the inside guarding the interior with Hayes and Happ but personally for you, how important is it to get aggressive defensively and shutting down an elite scorer like Bronson Koenig. KASEY HILL: Like you said, he's a great offensive player. I don't know about shutting him down, but I definitely can limit some of his touches and try to slow him down a little bit. Q. 10 years out from the last Florida championship. Do you guys remember watching those two Florida championship teams and have any of those guys reached out to you this week? KASEY HILL: I watched it a little bit, not, I don't remember watching it exactly when it happened, but I've seen the old videos and stuff and Marreese Speights I talk to him a little bit and he just said to stay in the moment and enjoy this time. JUSTIN LEON: Like he just said, I don't really remember watching it at the exact time, but now I've seen videos about what's happened, when they were winning, so I mean, it's just the players having reached out to me, I mean no, not really, I don't really know none of them guys like that, so. KEVARRIUS HAYES: Same here. I was too young to really understand what was going on watching it exactly. But I have seen old videos, trying to replicate what they did there to achieve greatness is kind of what we have to do here today. And I haven't really reached out to many of the players, but I'm still they follow and have their prayers with us of the us. Q. Can you talk about the experience factor they have. This will be their 149 NCAA Tournament game. You guys have gotten a couple in, Kasey, of course, had his, but just do you think that's any disadvantage for you? KEVARRIUS HAYES: I wouldn't say it's more of a disadvantage, just they have more experience than we do as far as NCAA play, but I feel like we're all competitive, we're still going to come out here and play as hard. Q. The Sweet 16 but it's in New York and at Madison Square Garden. Does that add anything as opposed to if were you in one of these other regions? KASEY HILL: I definitely think it adds something. Everybody who is playing here probably grew up playing in here one day, so it's definitely fun playing in here and it's going to be exciting. JUSTIN LEON: Yeah, I think it kind of adds a little bit because like he said, a lot of people grow up thinking wanting to play here and then for us to play here then think about all of the great past players that have been here as well, so I think it's pretty good. KEVARRIUS HAYES: Yeah, kind of does add a special feeling being here after so many greats have passed through. Now we can finally be here to try to add our name to that list. Q. Justin, last game you sort of got back into your ways of you knocked down three of your six 3-pointers. Towards the end of the season you were one of the top three-point shooters in the SEC were you attacking Virginia a little bit differently and is that something you'll try and do again in facing Wisconsin? JUSTIN LEON: I think I was just playing a little bit more freely, just had some confidence, because my teammates, that's part of the things that they kind of rely on me to do, so they were encouraging me to keep shooting and I was just listening to them and then I just end up falling into, I guess knocking three of six from three, so. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll excuse the student-athletes and we'll start with an opening statement from coach. MIKE WHITE: Oh, opening thoughts. Great to be here. We just fought traffic for about 45 minutes getting back here from Saint Francis. It was kind of them to lend us out the facility. Had a good practice. Great to be back in the city. Playing in this arena. And with an opportunity against a tremendous basketball program in Wisconsin. THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach, please. Q. I think 13 of the 16 coaches in the tournament have never won it. Only Cal, Self, and Roy have won it. What does that say about how many great coaches are in this tournament that have not won it and the opportunity for guys like yourself coach Huggins, Frank Martin, Mark Few, Scott Drew, to possible break through and win a first championship. MIKE WHITE: I think it's neat you just mentioned a bunch of really, really good coaches outside of the guys that have won and of course the guys that won it, it goes unsaid that how talented those guys are and successful those guys have been. So happy for a handful of guys that get these opportunities. These opportunities are unique and they're exciting, just as these opportunities are for all of our guys. All of our players in particular. And all of our different programs. So, this is what it's all about, it's March Madness, it's the Sweet 16. It's really cool. And who knows, I think it's wide open and I think all of us probably right now are not worried about the end result, we all have our hands full. I know the Gators do with Wisconsin, of course. Q. How do you balance that you're talking about the excitement of reaching a Sweet 16, but obviously there's more basketball ahead. How do you personally balance that and then with the team especially when you come back after you have a couple days after the rush of last weekend. MIKE WHITE: This is our first time through it, so I don't claim to have all the right answers, my personal answer, our answer as a staff has just been the next one. It's not about the basketball down the road, it's not about the bracket and who we may play and where we may be next weekend. It hasn't been from the start of the tournament with us. In fact, going back to the SEC tournament, where we didn't have any success, the whole thing was 100 percent on Vanderbilt, just didn't play quite well enough, of course. Didn't make the plays down the stretch. And this tournament was simply about East Tennessee State. That's all it was. Period. It was a one game deal for us. And then all attention was turned to Virginia. And that's it's been Wisconsin all week and that is it. We're just hopeful that we can play well enough to be competitive and to have a chance at the end. And we'll take it from there. That's it. Q. Talk to Danny yesterday, he talked about how proud he is of you. I'm wondering, he's going to be here next week, UCF's in the NIT Final Four at the Garden. Can you talk about you guys growing up basketball and how satisfying this week may have been for you guys? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, it's really cool. I'm glad you brought up Danny and in fact Pops is out here as well my father. I look forward to seeing him. He stays so busy, I don't get a chance to see him enough. Just like Danny, we're an hour and a half away for those of you that don't he's the athletic director at central Florida and we just don't get to see each other very often. He hired, I thought he made a great higher in Johnny Dawkins who is a great coach and great man and they have, it was a great run for the Knights. Very rewarding, I know for Danny, I know he's going to be really excited to come up here and have these opportunities. But growing up in an athletic family, not only Danny and I, but with my other brother Brian, probably led by my mother, my father would admit that, we were basketball junkies and I watched these tournaments on the couch with mom and brothers from five years old to eight years old to high school I remember so many of them. I remember so many of the great players that had success and so many of the story lines and following the Dukes of the world. And for us to be just a small small part of it is really neat. Because you forget, but it's reality, I'm a coach in this thing, he's an AD in this thing and we're both still college basketball fans. Q. As an aside, Danny blames you for the neighbors complaining about the bouncing ball in the driveway at 2 o'clock in the morning. Coach Gard mentioned in his press conference, he was kind of playing down the experience advantage of his team in this tournament. I'm just wondering, how do you feel about that, is that a bigger concern or is it more about how you're going to guard them in the interior? MIKE WHITE: He would be better served answering that question, because I only look at it one way and that's the, we're looking at it as a first-time thing, of course. I don't know how much of a factor it is. I got to think it's a little bit of a fact to, I got to think that his guys having made runs like this, feel confident. Not saying that my guys feel unconfident. But for us, we're not sitting here complaining that we don't have a bunch of experience at all. It is, that is our biggest issue. That's our biggest concern is how we defend their interior. They have two borderline All-American bigs that are both tough, physical, skilled, can score on the interior, can draw fouls on the interior and they both can pass it. And then you've got a seven or eight guys that can really shoot it led by Koenig who is one of the best shooters in all of college basketball. So that's a pretty unique balance there. They present some issues and in trying to defend them. Q. Obviously, a lot of people didn't have you going this far after the Egbunu injury after the way things finished up. Is it kind of your message to be greedy and keep it going for your team? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, absolutely. It's just about Wisconsin. This is a group that enjoys playing with one another, it's a group that I've enjoyed coaching all year. I told you guys that even after a couple losses. These guys, conversely, after a couple wins, we weren't very happy, obviously. You remember that. But this is a good group. They play well with one another, they again they like each other, they play hard, they have sold out to the defending at the highest possible level and we feel like when we continue to do that and we're focused and locked in and we compliment that with some made shots we can compete with anybody in the country. So, we are here, there's a game to be played, and why not see if we can keep this thing going as long as we can. Q. I know you talked about this before, but how much pressure did you feel taking over for Billy Donovan with the success that he had and how does getting to the Sweet 16 validate at all the job that you're doing right now? MIKE WHITE: I'll leave that for you guys and our fans I've never worried about it much. There's pressure on every coach in the country at every level -- and some coaches deal with it differently -- some coaches probably put more pressure on themselves than other coaches. I'm probably one of those guys, to be honest with you, going back from my assistant days and from an then leading into carrying over into my first year at Louisiana Tech we weren't supposed to be very good and my, not only myself, my staff and I. We're all very competitive, of course, like every coach, pressure's talked about a lot. Today's day and age, with the rabid fan bases, of course, and with the social media and the way that you guys do a great job of covering the sport, but no one's going to put more pressure on me and my team than I am. No one. So I haven't worried about it. I just, I haven't. Billy made this a tremendous job, the University of Florida is a special place, and we're going to work at it every day as long as we are here to do the best job we possible can do. Q. Specifically with Wisconsin they ranked 332 in free throw percentage. Not saying you're not necessarily going to go about and foul them, but is Hack-a-Happ necessarily a bad strategy to assess a more physical defensive approach in the interior? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, we're not going that way. We're not. The big concern is foul trouble, because we're already thin up front, of course without John and we have got to be really physical, we have got to use physicality and legality at the same time. We have got to show our hands, we got to be very smart, those guys just really understand how to draw fouls. You mentioned Happ, he's a really good player. I don't anticipate him going 4-10 from the foul line. I do anticipate, regardless of how God of a job we do on him he's going to get to the foul line, he just understands how to do it. Q. 10 years since the second Florida title. You were at Ole Miss for those two teams. What do you remember about those two teams and especially the way they carried themselves as defending champions the second year? MIKE WHITE: The second year it seemed harder for them. It seemed like it was them against the world. It seemed like -- and the documentary that was done on those teams, what, a couple months ago, you were in it, it was really well done -- I think that that documentary spoke to the fact that it was a little bit harder the second go round. But it probably made it a little bit more rewarding, too. I remember the first year us as a staff at Ole Miss we talked about after a Gator loss, naturally, we sat there in the locker room after the game and said, my goodness, they're really starting to put it together, despite what their record is, despite what seed they're going to get, they can make a run. And I'm not going to lie and say that I picked them to win it, but I think we picked them to make a pretty significant run and, boy, it was a unbelievable two-year run for the Gators. Q. When you took over it seems like the image of you coming to Florida had the run-and-gun guy with the three-point shots coming to Florida. But it seems to me like you're maybe that was a misrepresentation, you're more of a defensive minded, tough hard nosed type of coach. Right or wrong? MIKE WHITE: Tough question there. What do you think? (Laughter.) I don't know how I was advertised. I would tell you from day one when I was first afforded the opportunity to coach at Louisiana Tech by Wisconsin's Bruce Van De Velde, my guy, love him to death, it was about defending and rebounding at the highest possible level. Period. Now we played at a faster pace. It was more who we are, who we were, our roster makeup was that of the pressing nature. We had tremendous team speed at every position. And then with the success we were having with it we started recruiting to it. I would love to press and run and shoot a million threes and I feel like we have shot a bunch of threes in the last couple years, of course. Our offensive tempo has been really fast of the we slowed it down in the last month or so a little bit and we're making somewhat better decisions. Year to year I think it's going to change. I'm not, I'm convicted, but I don't want to be stubborn about a certain style, I like to think that we could win at Florida a few different ways and year to year we'll evaluate it in the fall. Right now, I think we're playing the best way for this particular team. Q. Obviously, Greg's followed a legendary coach in his own right there. But he also had the benefit of 23 years with the previous coach. 15 at Wisconsin. Do you think that path to following a legend is easier than yours or just different? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, totally different. I wouldn't go there. I'm sure Greg's had a ton of obstacles that he's had to overcome. And we go back to pressure. I'm sure Greg feels heat every day. But I'm also sure I would bet on the fact because of the amount of success that he's had and the job that he's done the way that his kids play, that he's more focused on Greg Gard and just more focused on his current job and not the external pressures. He's done a tremendous job. Love watching his teams play. Haven't had a lot of fun preparing for them. But to know of respect for him and their program. Q. How do you balance guarding the interior and dealing with Bronson Koenig, who can get on a roll from the perimeter? MIKE WHITE: And that's the key to the whole game. They put you in a quandary. They really do. And I don't even know what that word means, but it's funny, I wish my managers were in here, because they would get a kick out of me saying that. Every day at noon ball, which never takes place at noon, I always say -- we took an L yesterday to the managers, so they have been talking trash the whole time we have been up here in New York -- but every time we score on them we say, "We got you in a quandary, you don't know how to guard us." It's just constant bad trash talking. But they really do put you in a quandary, again, if that is the right word. If you, if you're too extended on Wisconsin, Happ and Hayes have going to have a field day. And if you, if you're too condensed, if you put too much emphasis on defending the interior and they get 20 threes off and Koenig gets nine threes off, you just, you, it's lose-lose. And so do you go into the game saying, that we're just going to do whatever, we're going to double the post, triple the post, those guys aren't going to get touches we're not going to foul them? You're going to give up a million threes and they shoot the heck out of it. And Koenig is not the only guy. The guards they bring off the bench shoot it and all of their guards shoot it. If you're too extended, those front court guys are going to foul out our whole team. So, we're going to try our best as everyone that they have played has tried to do, we're going to try to do a pretty good job doing both and see where it leads. Who knows, with the, with in game adjustments if we sell out to one or the other. But we have got to limit amount of threes taken, obviously Koenig can't get anything easy. He's too good of a player. He's had an unbelievable run here as of late. And those other guys Happ and Hayes, again, we have got to limit their touches, nothing can be easy for them. They can't live at the foul line. We have got to be physical, but we have got to be smart, we have got to be sound we have got to understand their actions. They're tremendous defensively and we're sitting here we just spent five minutes on their offense, they're just very difficult to defend as well. Q. Could you talk about what Barry has meant to the team the addition of him. MIKE WHITE: Oh, Canyon's been terrific for us, he's had a great year. We have considered him a starter all year, even though he's been the, he was the SEC Sixth Man of the Year, very well deserved. He's got great leadership qualities, he's a great kid. Through the year he's become more and more vocal. I think he's become more and more comfortable, because you forget, he was a newcomer and he didn't just come in and I don't think feel overly comfortable saying, hey, this is my show and this is what we're going to do. He's eased his way in. He's very smart, very empathetic, he's become a much better defensive player throughout the year, better rebounder. And he's a guy that, he's a very dangerous offensive player as well. I think that the under-appreciated value that we all, that we all are more familiar with now is his ability to draw fouls and then, of course, he converts at the foul line at a really high rate. Really glad that he chose to choose Florida. I think he's also a great example of the student-athlete. He's a really neat story. He's the national guy. He wins the national award. He's a nuclear engineer major that's amazing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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