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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN DIEGO

March 15, 2018

San Diego, California

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the Auburn student-athletes, Bryce Brown and Mustapha Heron. Questions when you are ready.

Q. You guys and Coach Pearl have talked a lot about Jared and how vital he is to this team winning. Could y'all talk about what that is exactly that he brings that makes him so important?
BRYCE BROWN: You know, he's the extra threat that we have and he's one of the leaders on the team. He has been overlooked just like quite a few of us on the team and he brings that dog to the team along with me and Mustapha and other players like to shine. So he's a great asset for us. He's a little general for us and he plays big for us.

Q. Guys, you had a little injury, illness, whatever, down the stretch. Are you guys 100% ready, physically?
MUSTAPHA HERON: 100% ready to go.

BRYCE BROWN: Near.

Q. What do you think the key is for success tomorrow night for you guys?
MUSTAPHA HERON: Rebounding, playing hard, coming out with energy, can't come out slow and lackadaisical, come out with maximum energy and effort.

BRYCE BROWN: They've got good guards, so containing our match-ups, and like Mustapha said, play hard and outrebound the other team.

Q. Bruce and some of your teammates have talked about how important the Italy trip was for you guys to get this far this season. Looking back at that now that you are here in the NCAA Tournament how much did that trip lay the foundation?
BRYCE BROWN: I appreciate the administrators and everybody allowing us to go because it is a huge reason for our success right now. It's definitely helped us build chemistry and relationships with all the team with our whole team and the coaches. It definitely benefited this team. It's taken us a long way.

MUSTAPHA HERON: I think the mentality out there was us against the world, foreign country, foreign people. We didn't know anybody; it was just us. Same thing. We're in foreign territory right now, so it's us against the world.

Q. Guys, you both are the leading scorers on this team at times when you have been out the other one has had to step up or other guys have had to step up. On this stage, in this caliber of this game do you each feel a bigger onus to contribute more than what you have done offensively?
BRYCE BROWN: I feel like we're going to continue doing what we're doing, and that's providing scoring and winning our match-up. We have done that all season long. That's the reason why we help lead our team along with other players. We go out there and play hard and compete, and, you know, let our game do the talking.

MUSTAPHA HERON: Yeah.

Q. Coach talked about all season you guys have as well about your best when everybody contributes and your record when everybody scores in four or five double figures is fantastic but your losses have come when three have been in double figures. Do you feel like you have to get the role players, the other players on this team more involved in order to have better success?
MUSTAPHA HERON: Like you said, when everybody contributes we won. So that's what we've gotta do.

Q. For Bryce, you talked about it, but can you put into words when this means to be at the NCAA Tournament and did you feel like your freshman year you were anywhere close? Did it feel like so far away for you? And for Mustapha, you had an opportunity to go to a lot of schools that had NCAA Tournament histories and better winning traditions. Was this part of building something at Auburn? Why you picked where you picked?
BRYCE BROWN: Well, yeah, for me, it was definitely something that I didn't see that would be this near in the future from when I was a freshman. So, yeah, definitely from just seeing the progress that this program has made from my freshman to junior year the caliber of players we are getting and their mentalities and just how they think about the game and how we go about it as professionals. I feel like it's been a different environment because we're all trying to make it to the next level and that's how we play as well, I feel like.

MUSTAPHA HERON: I think for me it was just a matter of going somewhere where I felt like I could make my own mark. You look at the big name schools that everybody wants to go to that have a tradition, I kind of wanted to help start a tradition somewhere else and I think that's what we're doing right now.

Q. Mustapha, this team is loaded with a lot of guys who were not only good high school players but played on state Championship teams and strong teams. Do you think that carried over into the team's success this year?
MUSTAPHA HERON: Definitely. I think winning mentality travels no matter where you go. So if you put a bunch of winners together you're going to get a winning program and that's what we're starting to do.

Q. I wonder if you could talk about how challenging this season has been going back to last fall and everything that happened, you lost your teammates, you lost an assistant coach. It seemed crazy back then. How challenging has the season been since then?
BRYCE BROWN: It was challenging, but part of the things that were happening were things that were out of our control and our coach preached to us just do things that you're able to control and we can't control some of the things that were happening at the beginning of the season.

But I can tell you that we've overcome those things and we ended up having a pretty good season. We have much more to show and much more to accomplish.

Q. Do you feel the same way, Mustapha?
MUSTAPHA HERON: Definitely the same way.

Q. You guys talked about the guard match-ups in this one and it's going to be a lot of one-on-one match-ups in this game in particular. What do you see against matching up against Riller and Chealey in this particular one and Chealey's ability to get to the line?
BRYCE BROWN: It will be interesting to match-up with those great guards and it doesn't mean we won't need a big play out of a guy like Desean and Horace and Davion and Malik, we need those guys to play. It's not just about the two guards. Me and Mustapha are going to get everybody in the locker room focused in and of course those two match-ups, and worrying about their match-ups and outplaying their match-up as well as we try to outplay ours.

Q. Bruce and Jared said last week they felt the team needed a reset this week heading into practice. I know you guys had a contact practice this week and trying to get back to where you were at earlier in the season. Do you feel like you guys have done that?
MUSTAPHA HERON: I think the biggest thing was definitely after the tournament trying to find our identity again, the way we defended, the way we played. It was just -- everything was based on trying to find out who we were again and trying to get back to that and I think we've been doing a pretty good job of that.

Q. Bryce, among all the things that you have gone through injury-wise this last month it seemed like in the last on-campus practice you were going through a stomach illness. Have you been able to move past that? Do you feel like it will be an issue?
BRYCE BROWN: I'm fine. I was about the first 5, 10 minutes of that practice. I didn't get much sleep the night before, that's all that really was. But I'm feeling good, feeling great.

Q. Mustapha, you never said anything about Jared. Could you talk about him and what a guy that can facilitate like he does as well as shoot like he does?
MUSTAPHA HERON: It's pretty basic. When he plays well we win. When he doesn't we don't win. He is the general of the team. He controls the floor, he controls the balance of the team, the offense and on the defensive end. When he does what he does, we win if he doesn't we don't win, which goes for about everybody, pretty much.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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