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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DALLASMarch 14, 2018Chris BeardZhaire SmithKeenan EvansZach SmithJustin GrayDallas, Texas Q. Zhaire, and just all the Dallas guys, what's it like to come back home and be able to see some friends and family, and if all three of you could kind of speak on that real quick. ZHAIRE SMITH: It's very exciting. I'm just glad to be home, but I just came here to play basketball. ZACH SMITH: Yeah, I agree with what he said, just excited and good to be home. Don't really get to see too much friends and family. Going to be pretty busy, but excited to be here. KEENAN EVANS: That's what it's all about, playing in front of friends and family, so it's a big deal. Q. Zhaire, how do you feel your game has developed your freshman season? ZHAIRE SMITH: I feel like it developed a little bit because I've been working hard on it, and when you work hard, it translates. Q. Zach, talk about just being back and what the time away from the game was like for you this season, and how different are you and how rested maybe are you now going into this final stretch? ZACH SMITH: Being away, it was pretty tough, spent a lot of time just working hard trying to get back on the court. I'm just blessed to be back. Q. Keenan, what is it about this SFA team and the way they try to disrupt you in the half court, the way they try to trap ball screens and all that? KEENAN EVANS: They're similar to South Carolina and West Virginia type teams, and we know that they force a lot of turnovers in the half court, and whether it's full court pressure or half court, and they just try to make it really tough for teams. Q. Justin, just in terms of what y'all have to do defensively against Stephen F. Austin, what kind of stands out to you about them and what you all have to do to kind of slow them down a little bit? JUSTIN GRAY: They do their sets really well. Mainly for us just ball pressure, being a help defense, siding, a lot of stuff just being what we are, a defensive team, and just doing our tactics that we've been doing all year. But SFA is a really talented team. They execute their offense really well, a well-coached team, so it should be fun on Thursday. Q. Keenan, what was your reaction to seeing that you guys got to play in Dallas for the opening round, and what did your friends and family say when they found out the news? KEENAN EVANS: It was like a celebration. We were all happy, excited to be able to play in front of friends and family and have such a -- it's going to be a good crowd for us, and hopefully that gives us an advantage. Q. The ability to come back here to some extent, is it like a home game of sorts for you, the comforts of home being able to come back to the DFW area? ZACH SMITH: I mean, Stephen F. Austin being a Texas team, also, we expect them to have some fans here, as well, and I feel like it's homecoming, but I wouldn't consider it a home game. ZHAIRE SMITH: Same. Yeah, I feel like it should have just half and half. It should be a pretty good vibe for both teams. JUSTIN GRAY: I'm not from Texas, but I love the fans. But yeah, it should be a good turnout for both teams, and I know we have a great fan base, so I'm excited to see just the number of people Tech brings to American Airlines. Q. Keenan, obviously when Zach missed his time, you missed your time where you were not 100 percent. Talk about where the team is right now. You got through the Big 12. It's got to prepare you for the NCAA and you've got pretty much a full roster right now. Talk about that. KEENAN EVANS: I would say that helped us in a ways of coming together, people having to step up and take bigger roles, and that brings out the best in people and shows them what they can really do. And especially now that we're back and healthier, certain people can play like that still, and once we got all our pieces together, it's just we're a better team. We just look forward to people playing their best and getting back to what we do. Q. Zhaire, just obviously being a freshman, just having your first experience here, what's it like, and I guess is it not necessarily that big just because you've been on a big stage before like Madison Square Garden in previous games? ZHAIRE SMITH: I'm just learning from Madison Square Garden. I'm just living in the moment right now, enjoying it. Q. Zhaire, what would you say was the biggest challenge you faced as a freshman, and how did you overcome that? ZHAIRE SMITH: Most challenging, the speed of the game. I feel like the speed of the game is very fast, and I just have to overcome that. Q. Keenan and Zach, how important was the rest for y'all just to kind of get your minds right and just kind of get the bodies right? KEENAN EVANS: Yeah, I'd say it was big. I'd say it helped a lot, me sitting out of the game and resting, and also these breaks in between the last few games has been good, and also being on the sideline and kind of watching the game from afar, it really helps you break down stuff so when you get back, it feels like it makes the game a lot easier. ZACH SMITH: I feel like the rest was extremely important, just being in the training room, getting your body right before you go back out there. Q. Keenan, Zach, neither one of you guys came from real touted basketball powerhouses in high school, but every year your game has gotten better, every year you've gotten better. Talk about what it's been like to progress from not being all-world in high school, but it's gotten better and better every year. KEENAN EVANS: It's just, like Coach Beard says all the time, just a process, during the summers, during the year, just staying committed and stay working. It's been a process from being at the lowest point of Texas Tech basketball to now one of the highest points. It's just always going to be a process, and you can't let up. ZACH SMITH: Keenan couldn't have said it better, just sticking to the process, trying to expand the game, and do the best you can. Q. Zhaire, obviously the season began with quite a few freshmen, quite a few seniors on this team, and you guys have developed and built a continuity and chemistry. Talk about where it's kind of set the foundation for moving past. I know you guys are focused on this tournament, but talk about how it set a good foundation for this program moving forward after this year. ZHAIRE SMITH: We're just learning from the seniors, follow in their footsteps. We just always ask them questions, so we just follow in their footsteps. Q. Keenan, just one more time, I know you kind of mentioned it about the process. How long do you feel like this moment for you and Zach and all the seniors, what's it been like either at the off-season or just when you first started at Texas Tech, and what's it been like to get all these No. 3 seeds kind of play in front of your friends and family? What's that process been like? KEENAN EVANS: I would say that the ride has felt long in the moment, but then you realize like how fast it's gone by. But this last go-around has been amazing. I'm just not ready for it to end, so we've just really got to battle and keep it going. ZACH SMITH: Yeah, like he said, it's just been a long process, just feels like -- we're here now, just got to live in the moment and take advantage of the opportunity. JUSTIN GRAY: I mean, yeah, pretty much what these guys said, but feels like yesterday we were just moving into the dorms with each other and just getting our first shots up in the gym, but now we're seniors and it's the NCAA Tournament, so it's a fast turnaround, and people try to tell you that college goes by fast, but you really don't realize that until you're finally at the end of your road. Like Keenan said, we're going to try to make this last as long as possible and just play our hearts out. CHRIS BEARD: Well, just really proud to be here in the second year of building our program. I think about those guys that y'all just talked to, Zach and Keenan and Justin, and when the coaching change happened between Tubby and our group, I just promised those guys we would do everything in our power possible to get them back in the NCAA Tournament, and came up a little bit short last year, but really appreciative of those guys staying the course with us. We look forward to hopefully being a part of the fight. But the story in my mind is just how thankful and appreciative I am of our players and all the work that they've put into our program to get us back to the national tournament. Q. When you were recruiting Zhaire Smith in high school, what did you see in him, and how has he developed in his freshman season? CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, I think with Z, the obvious is the athleticism and the talent, but what we saw early on in the process was the thing to me that makes the difference and will eventually make him an NBA player one day is his character, his toughness, his unselfishness, and maybe above all, his love of the game. I think in today's world with rankings and the internet and all this stuff and kids' talent can be pretty well-documented pretty quickly. But what separates, I think, the good from the great and the great from the elite is just the old-school love of the game, and Z is a guy that loves basketball. He's always in the gym. I'd put our other freshman Jarrett Culver in the same classification and Moro, Malik, and that's one of the great things about our team is we've literally got a bunch of guys that love basketball. Q. I know you kind of mentioned it already, but just the process for these guys to get back here, especially like you said with the coaching change, just how much work has been put into this, and how gratifying is it for you to kind of watch these players kind of do that and just kind of reward themselves with this? CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, you know, I've always had a kind of problem with the coaches that talk about how hard they work. They all do. Or this player has this extreme work ethic. He makes 500 shots -- everybody does that at this level. But I would say is this: I don't think we work harder than anyone else. I'm not saying we're better, but there's no one in all of athletics that works any harder than us. We take a lot of pride in our day-to-day process, whether it be nutrition, fueling the body, weight room, getting your body to play in the Big 12, training room, making sure you're sharp. The academic piece of being a student-athlete is everything to us, individual work, but we just have a day-to-day process that we believe in, and we've got guys that want to buy in and be coached like that. Great players want to be coached. They want to be pushed. And that's what we inherited first year with Tubby Smith's class. I can't thank Coach Smith enough for the foundation that he laid that we're benefiting from, and for the players that he added to the team. But I think at the core is a bunch of guys that want to get better, and I believe in our day-to-day process. We don't have a lot of McDonald's All-Americans. We don't have a lot of players that national scene has heard of. I think our season speaks for itself. And at the core of all that is just guys that love basketball, coaches that love basketball, and a process that we believe in and that we try to execute every day. Q. SFA, those guys force 20 turnovers a game, the most out of anybody in the country. What is it about their disruptive style of half-court defense that makes them so effective at that? CHRIS BEARD: Well, Stephen F. Austin is one of the best teams in college basketball. Ask LSU, ask Missouri. They passed the eye test with their non-conference schedule, and they just got really good players. They've got guys that have played on NCAA Tournament teams. This is a team that's beat West Virginia in the tournament just a couple years ago as well as another first-round game. They've got all-conference players. They've got guys that are going to play after college. And then they've got a really good coach. Kyle Keller is a guy that all of us in basketball know Kyle. We know of his success in the Big 12, an assistant for Coach Sutton and Sean. We know he was at Texas A&M and built the program quickly. I know he was a great junior college coach back at Tyler. Kyle and I after recruiting events, we'd go to McDonald's. Neither one of us could afford the regular meals, so we'd order two things off the dollar meal and then we'd get the water cups, and I'm not proud of this, but when they weren't looking, we'd put Sprite in the water cup. Nobody respects Coach Keller more than I do. I make sure that our players understand you're playing against a really good team. You're playing against a team that's good enough to beat anybody in this tournament in a 40-minute game, and you're playing against a team with a coach that knows what he's doing. Q. Along those lines, when you're in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the ABA and McMurry, do you think that you're on your way to something like this, or is that even on your mind? CHRIS BEARD: Well, I have a lot of confidence in myself. It's not arrogance. I would hope the people that know me, including my three daughters that are here, they keep me humble pretty quick. But I have a lot of confidence in myself, and my confidence comes from the people I surround myself with. I think we have the best coaching staff in college basketball with Coach Adams and Coach Ogden and Al Pinkins and our support staff with Coach Sutton and Brian Burg and Max, and I just surround myself with winners, people that have been there and done it. Our coaching staff, everybody on our staff has won a an NCAA Tournament game. Two have played in the Final Fours. Then I have a lot of confidence in our players. I recruit guys that I know I can coach, guys that love basketball and want to get better, and then ultimately that's where great opportunities come from is when you have good players. So I am a confident person, so back in those Myrtle Beach days, I was just trying to win the next game on the schedule. As I sit here today, I'm having a lot of fun. We're eating in nice restaurants, staying in nice hotels, walking through carpet here. Four years ago, I used to stay at the Days Inn. The continental breakfast is what we ate for pregame meals. I never forget where I come from. I wouldn't change my journey for anything, but today's story is these Texas Tech players and this team and everything they've done to get us here, and I'm just enjoying the ride. I don't want it to end. I want to coach these guys all the way to Monday night me where it is me and one other guy coaching and everybody else is just watching the game in a sports bar. Q. You mentioned it there, your three daughters are here. Emotions running high as you enter the big game. What's it like to have them here, and you also mentioned they humble you. How do you do that? CHRIS BEARD: Anyone who has three daughters understands where I'm coming from. Margo woke up this morning and asked what we were going to do today. There's an American Girl Store in the Galleria. I said, well, we've got a basketball tournament. And then Avery is smarter than anybody in our program combined, so when she says something, we all just kind of pay attention. And then I wish Ella can play some minute sports. My middle daughter is very competitive and a good player. No. It's special. And again, I just want to thank our players. I've thanked those guys four or five times this week. They're the guys that have worked so hard and played good basketball and overcome adversity to get us into this tournament, where all of us, including myself and my daughters can benefit. Q. When you beat Kansas up in Lawrence this year, someone asked you what you had, and Kansas didn't have. You famously said, we've got Whataburger in Lubbock. Have you given directions to any Whataburgers here or passed any dining advice to these non-Texans? CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, I grew up in Irving, Texas, right down the road, so I know where they all are. We are staying at the Hilton, and over there is a Whataburger right on feeder road. I might have or might not have walked over there about 3:00 in the morning. I'll leave that up to you. But no, I just kind of speak from the hip. I'm not a guy that really prepares. I just speak from the heart. I think that's where coaching is. Guys know, you tell them the truth, and that's everything in recruiting and coaching. With that comment, I just -- it's actually worked out pretty good for me, though, the people that own the Whataburgers in Texas, they sent me like a Yeti cooler, I got a couple coupons. It's worked out really good for me. It was one of my better decisions. Q. Tommy Hamilton, how would you describe his role and the way he's developed for you? CHRIS BEARD: Tommy has been great for us. Tommy jumped on board with Texas Tech when we were kind of unproven. As a transfer coming from DePaul, he could have gone a lot of different places. But he believed in us before we had a body of work to show him, what we are going to do and going to try to do, and he believed it. I'll never forget Tommy visited his mother. Him and me were sitting there talking about the process, the nutrition, to working out and stuff like that. And we also are two guys that say let's not talk about the past. Let's just talk about the future. I have a lot of respect for Tommy. He transformed his body during his sit-out year last year. He lost 50 pounds. That is hard to do. I have been trying to lose 4 pounds for the last 2 years. Tommy dropped 50 in 6 months. He's one of the better players. I think he'll be even a better pro than he was a college player for different reasons, but Tommy is skilled. When Tommy plays well, we play at our best. But I have a lot of respect and appreciation for Tommy Hamilton, and it's been a great ride coaching him, and again, I hope I can coach him well into this month. Q. Chris, what did you guys learn about yourself in the time that you either didn't have Keenan or had him really limited there late in the year? CHRIS BEARD: Well, I think we all learned about the character of our team and the things that we hold our hat on that came through. I tell the guys all the time that in life, and just like in college basketball, it's not a matter of if adversity is coming, it's a matter of when. That's just the life that we all live. Basketball is no different. So we talk a lot about things like mental toughness in our program, and to have to overcome some of these injuries, whether it be Keenan, whether it be Justin, the first play of the Kansas game or Zach all season long. Just the fact that these guys have had the kind of season that we've had overcoming some adversity is a direct reflection of their character. All teams have adversity. All teams have injuries. But I think we've had our share this year, and our guys have just overcome it. We've had a steadiness to our team, a professionalism, a maturity. I tell the guys all the time, it's like, prince today, frog tomorrow. You win a game, your cell phone is blowing up. Everybody is your best friend. Text messages are random and you drop a couple, and it gets pretty quiet pretty quick. And I think our guys understand that. We don't get too high, and we don't get too low. And I think that steadiness is a necessity to play in the Big 12. And I think it could actually help us in this tournament, too. We expect a great game against Stephen F. Austin. We know they're going to have runs. They're a really good team. And I think we've got to be steady. The NCAA Tournament games are long games. They're a game of runs, and I've always thought the team that can kind of stay the course gives themselves a chance late in the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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