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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2018Kelvin SampsonDevin DavisRob GrayOrlando, Florida Houston - 84, UCF - 56 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from Coach. KELVIN SAMPSON: You never know how these tournament games are always going to go. I applaud our guys for their focus, being ready to play. We had our senior game Sunday against Connecticut. We took Monday off, and then we kind of flushed the regular season down the toilet and we said, hey, 24-6 is nice, but if you come up here and lose your first game, nobody's going to remember some of that stuff. So we got to make sure we go in with the right attitude. One thing I've enjoyed about this group is our senior leadership, spearheaded by these two guys sitting to my left. And their ability to focus on preparation. We try to be as prepared as we can, mainly because this is such a well-coached league. Hats off to Coach Dawkins at UCF. I've never seen his son play but I heard so many great things about him, I know how good Tacko could is, losing B.J. Taylor, for him to have the kind of year they had losing those guys, hats off to Coach Dawkins. They had a great year considering all the adversity they had to face. But just happy with my team. You get this time of year, you got to win to advance, and good win. Now we'll get ready for tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Midway through the first half you guys kind of got into a rhythm and pushed things and kind of spread things out a little built. Can you talk about that stretch there? KELVIN SAMPSON: Because we played, we're familiar with the teams, there's certain matchups that we like, that we try to go at certain matchups. We talked about getting certain players in foul trouble before the game. I think that was the last thing we talked about before we went on the floor. But the key to that was getting Devin in a groove early. We specifically went to him early. He's got a sweet spot on that baseline. We tried to get him as many of those shots as we could early just to get him some confidence going. But UCF came out and hit some tough shoots, too. I think their first three makes were threes. Two of them were tough shots. One of them was a defensive breakdown. But they made two tough shots. When Galen is locked into playing with pace and we have good spacing with Armoni and Corey and Rob's attacking off middle pick-and-rolls with pace, our unselfishness really helps us. We move the ball pretty good. We have had games this year where we have had 31 assists. So we have an unselfish team and when we move the ball and don't care who scores, that's when we're at our best. Q. Obviously B.J. Taylor and Davis are the head of the offensive attack for them; they combined went 9-for-23. Talk about what you guys did to slow them down. KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, the big thing with A.J. just watching them last night, I came over last night and watched East Carolina, with him it's just loading to the ball, making him see bodies. He's got the ball, it's not the guy in front of him, it's everybody else. We want to have four guys inside the paint so he has nowhere to drive. And the thing the key for guarding Taylor is getting our bigs up to the line of scrimmage. That's our terminology for pick-and-roll defense. Our bigs have to get up and stay in a stance and string him out. And then our guard has to get back in front. Actually B.J. didn't hurt us tonight in the pick-and-roll, he hurt us from the three-point line. He made the one at the end of the first half, and made a couple more. But the other thing was keeping him off the free-throw line. He's really, really good at getting to the free-throw line. So a big part of our game plan was containing him in pick-and-roll and keeping him off the free-throw line. I thought our guys were outstanding in that, in both of those game plan points tonight. Q. For both of you: Last two years you guys came here it was one and out. Any talk this week or was there anything said in terms of maybe getting over that hump and making a run this weekend? DEVIN DAVIS: Yeah, that started with the preparation. Us talking in practice, remembering how we came last year and lost to UConn. So we just really wanted to prepare, have intense practices and make sure everybody was locked in for 40 minutes. ROB GRAY: Yeah, just all about preparation. We went 0-2 in this game the last two years, and we just wanted to make sure that we would not lose the first round game in the AAC Tournament. And we just came out and wanted to hit them in the mouth first, and not let up for 40 minutes. And that's what we tried to do and now we're on to the next round. So super proud of my guys for coming and winning the first game. KELVIN SAMPSON: Wes said the first year doesn't count? Yeah. We won the first game the first year. That doesn't count? My fault. My fault. We lost is the story, right? My fault. I mean that one counts, right? Q. It counts. KELVIN SAMPSON: But not as much as the other ones. So we're 2-2 in the first round here. Come on now. But I'll leave it on this, this was the first game all year I felt pressure. It has nothing to do with losing the last two years, it's because at the game of the century ceremony celebration Jim Nantz walked up to me and said, put his arm around me and said, "Kelvin, I've never ever had the honor of broadcasting my alma mater's game, basketball." He said, "CBS is doing the semi-finals this year, so I'm going to respectfully ask you to make sure that you guys win your first game and get to Saturday." It's all good now. Pressures off. Q. To both of you, obviously you guys still have a lot you want to accomplish this season but given that it is your senior year, how rewarding has it been to have the kind of season that you're having? ROB GRAY: Extremely rewarding. It's some of the foundations that Coach Sampson recruited us on, and to see them all coming true and to see a shift in this program, the direction that it's going all due to our senior class, it's just an amazing feeling. And I'm just looking forward to where the program is going in the next few years and the recruits to come. DEVIN DAVIS: Yeah, going off of what Rob said, it's like we're just building the ground for the next team and the next team after that coming in. So it's fun, especially with this team and having Coach Sampson, it's just a lot of fun and we're not done yet. THE MODERATOR: Houston, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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