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

March 14, 2018

Steve Donahue

Wichita, Kansas

COACH DONAHUE: First of all, it's great to be in Wichita. And I mean that. It's great to go to a place where you can tell the level of excitement is so genuine for the NCAA Tournament. This doesn't happen everywhere, and for our guys to experience this and the level of excitement that exists is second to none, and when I saw we were going to Wichita, I was really happy. I wasn't happy when I saw we were going to play Kansas. But I was happy to be in Wichita and really excited for our opportunity.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Steve, could you talk about Antonio Woods' role in this game, especially defensively, and also Devon Goodman, because I'm assuming that those guys are going to see Graham a lot?
COACH DONAHUE: So Antonio Woods is someone has a great story like a lot of our guys, but he misstepped academically, and instead of hanging his head where kids may want to transfer, our school asked him to take a year off, go get a job.

He worked night shift at Temple University, seen some pretty gruesome stuff, probably raised his level of understanding of how great of opportunity he had, took it, learned from it, and now I think it's an elite defender, and not just in our league. You're talking about a kid who was a Division I football player, great athlete. Can defend multiple positions. And obviously we're going to need him with all the athleticism and the quickness that they present from the perimeter, Antonio is someone for sure that we can hopefully rely on.

Dev Goodman is another great athlete, a track star in high school, someone that I think is a little different from myself, having guys with some really good athleticism, and I think that's why you see us going at the three so well. We have the ability to keep the ball in front. So we don't have to overhelp. And then we close out on shooters aggressively.

Q. Can you talk about your familiarity with Bill Self and especially your team when you were a coach at Cornell?
COACH DONAHUE: So we scheduled Kansas on that -- our third run of championships in the Ivies thinking we can challenge anybody, if anybody wants to play us. And that's part of the difficulty when you're good.

I appreciated, one, that Bill gave us the opportunity to play in Kansas, and then that experience, I thought, was the main ingredient for that team to have great success in the NCAA Tournament.

With that, Bill and I have become very friendly. That game was an incredible basketball game. And I said this story before, I thought we played well, and the first thing he said after the game is he thought his guys played well, which to me was great to hear; that it wasn't that they laid down and weren't ready for us. And I felt the same way.

And when we left the arena, the Kansas fans gave us a standing ovation. And that doesn't happen in Philadelphia or the Northeast very often. I thought the amount of respect they had, and I was kind of stunned, and our guys just kind of waved and appreciated it.

And I appreciate, as I said, Bill giving us the opportunity, knew we were good. And then just what he's accomplished over the last 14 years in the Big 12 is amazing. And now just watching the film of his team and his evolution as a coach, going from let's get our bigger, stronger guys, play double low-post offense and now their style of play, spread you out and beat you a whole different way, just tells you how great a coach he is. And the ability to adjust and evolve as a basketball coach is to me very impressive.

Q. You're allowing 29 percent from the three, which is excellent. Kansas relies on that a lot. How do you produce those defensive results against Kansas?
COACH DONAHUE: Obviously they're going to present as much problems as anybody we play, probably with the exception of Villanova. It's how we build our defense, and we like to take advantage of the three, and we don't want to give up those threes. So I think the thing that makes us a little different for this level is that we have some athleticism in our guard spots. We have good length, move laterally.

So typically you get threes three different ways. You give up penetration, and then you allow -- you gotta help. We do that pretty well. You give them up in transition. Now, we're not a great offensive rebounding team, but we have great floor bounds and we locate quickly.

And the last way, offensive rebounds when you're in a scramble situation. So we're Top 10 in the nation in defensive rebounding. So we limit you in that sense.

Kansas with Graham, Vick, anybody they do such a good job of the pace they play at, the ability to go by. And then you have the big, you're worrying about the rim protection and trying to stop that. And then to me it's their attitude. They're ready to shoot 'em, and we're going to be tested.

Can't tell you. We're going to work really hard. But I do feel good that our approach in how we play defense is built to guard what they do well, and then who does it better tomorrow.

Q. Coach, this obviously won't be the same as Allen Fieldhouse or the Palestra, which you just had an advantage there. Right? Last week or whatever. So how do you navigate this, though, with knowing it's in Kansas and it could be a pro KU crowd?
COACH DONAHUE: So we had nine true road wins, which I think is one of ten teams in the country. May have to check that on me. But very few. So we challenged ourselves on the road. Like all of our teams in our league do, really. I'm hoping -- isn't there non-Kansas fans in Wichita? Can't we get a few on our back a little bit if we get it rolling? I'm kind of hoping for that (laughs).

But our guys, I mean, as a competitor, you just love that environment, really, and I think we have a veteran team. If you think about our squad, we start a fourth-year senior, a fourth-year junior, a typical junior and two sophomores that played a lot of minutes. We have a fifth-year senior in Caleb Wood that comes off the bench.

I just think it's all part of it. It's not Fog Allen. It's not the Palestra. And I've been in this environment in the NCAA Tournament. I do sense that there's seven other schools here, and six of them are probably rooting for us.

It's just the way it is when you're the underdog. And I think our guys will actually enjoy that challenge and just the fun of silencing the crowd, if that's need be.

Q. At Cornell you took three straight teams to the NCAA Tournament, but it took you till that third year to break out. And in that respect, how does that relate to this trip and how much of this trip is building toward the future?
COACH DONAHUE: For the future? Just to answer that part of it, no. This is for now. I want this badly, and particularly for our seniors. This is something they can dream about and live this memory forever.

What I learned the first couple of years at Cornell is that I made mistakes. I probably overdid it with all this attention and worried about where my guys were, where their heads were. There was attention to detail, and I sense that we played really tight those first couple of years. I let that go that third year, and we had a loose group, if you remember, kind of silly, and I -- there was a part of me that worried at that point, but I let it go.

I want these guys to embrace everything that this NCAA Tournament is about. I want them to enjoy the attention, have fun with each other. This is what college basketball is all about. There's a lot of negativity that exists right now. I think you guys, if you take in our players and see the joy that they play with and they enjoy each other's company, I think that's what we're trying to have fun with.

When it comes to business, private practice, attention to detail, they'll be fine. They'll get it. But I want them to play loose tomorrow. I always talk about, are you willing to make mistakes? Are you willing to embarrass yourself? Because that's how you're going to make great plays and win. If we're able to do that, then that gives us our best chance.

Q. Udoka Azubuike, Coach Self said, could only be used in emergency situations. How do you prepare since they've had so few games without him? And in looking at tape, do you tend to look more at the Oklahoma State tape since they beat him? So about Azubuike and the tapes.
COACH DONAHUE: Azubuike is a monster, there's no doubt. In some ways I hope there's an emergency situation, some ways I don't. He puts so much pressure on your defense because, one, I think Graham is very comfortable with him, and there's so many that ball screen, middle of the floor, two shooters, one shooter, you make one mistake on him, come up a little too high, it's two points.

And with our guys, we show them, we talk about how we gotta play, fundamentally sound in every ball screen, and there is a difference between him and the other two bigs they play.

We talked about it. I can't overdo it, because he's one impressive player, and they are much better on the floor when he's in the game. There's no doubt. So we just kind of talk about him, can't make a mistake here, here's why, and then address everything else that we're talking about.

THE MODERATOR: If there's no other questions, best of luck tomorrow, Coach. End end.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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