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

March 15, 2018

Mike Davis

Nashville, Tennessee

THE MODERATOR: The head coach of Texas Southern is with us, Mike Davis. He'll open up with a statement about last night's victory, the happy flight here to Nashville, and then we'll go to questions. Mike?

MIKE DAVIS: We're excited to be here. Happy to win the game last night. We thought we played a really good basketball game. We didn't shoot the ball well, but we played good enough to win the game, and my boys are really excited to be here.

Q. I'm just wondering, the schedule y'all had, the non-conference, was that something you had to do because of budget reasons? Why did you line up the schedule the way you did? How do you think it's kind of prepared you for what you're dealing with now?
MIKE DAVIS: We have a deal with our athletic department that if we go out and raise $350,000 and give it to the school, everything above 350, we keep for our basketball program.

So I wanted to give my guys a great experience traveling. We go to nice hotels. They eat in the hotels. We eat and travel like a power five, other than the charter.

As far as the schedule, all the road games we play, we haven't played a home game in three years. I like to play on the road. I want to have a schedule designed to get us better because only one team is going to the NCAA tournament, and that's the team that wins the tournament.

We just feel like the only way we can get better is to play a really tough schedule. We don't want to play Division II schools, NAIA schools. I want to challenge the best schools out there. Once we get into tournament play, we've seen it all.

Q. Mike, you said last night that you wanted to take a look at film last night. What have you picked up on Xavier from the film?
MIKE DAVIS: Like I said last night, they're the No. 1 seed. They earned that No. 1 seed. They don't give that away. They want to shoot the basketball. They have good speed. All of them are the same as far as rebounding the basketball. They all go to the glass, both offense and defense board. It's going to be a very, very big challenge for us.

Q. Mike, what's the last 18 hours been like? Just some of the guys said it was hard to sleep last night. They were still kind of amped up.
MIKE DAVIS: They never sleep. They never sleep.

Q. Has the travel and the quick turnaround and all that been a challenge to them and you?
MIKE DAVIS: It was great. It was my third time going to the first four. They tell you the winning team leaves after the game. We never won, so I've always wondered how it felt to be able to go play a game, go back to the hotel, eat and jump on the plane.

It was just like I thought it would be. It was great. The flight was 45 minutes. Everybody was excited. I think I had 150 texts on my phone and all those guys on their phone the whole time.

But it's another opportunity for us to play against a great opponent like we did in non-conference, and getting in last night about 1:30, took the guys to Steak 'n Shake to eat. They got a good meal. It was really exciting for the boys.

Q. Coming off the high from last night, getting that victory, what do you think the team's mindset is going into tomorrow's game?
MIKE DAVIS: I can never tell you what their mindset is. I can tell you what I tell them to think. I don't know if they think that or not. We have some tough guys on our team. We have guys -- see, this is the beauty in how I schedule.

In the summertime, in June and July, they know we're playing Kansas and Syracuse and Ohio State and so in the summertime, they think they can beat 'em. They think they can win.

So August, September, October, November, it's hard to convince them that we're not a very good basketball team. Once they go and play those guys, they realize that it only takes four, five minutes in a span of those games and you can be up two and now you're down 15.

So around December, January, I can really coach them because we are 1-12 or 0-13 and maybe 4-9. So now, I can coach them and prepare them for a conference season.

Q. Mike, now that you've had a chance to see Xavier on tape, you'll notice, obviously, they have kind of a three-headed monster at forward, center. How do you think Trayvon will fare in that matchup? Is there one of those players you might like to see him go against predominantly?
MIKE DAVIS: Well, they both are good. All those guys are good. Trayvon is 7'2". What we've talked about with Trayvon the whole season, stay out of foul trouble, go straight up, contest every shot. Don't swing. Go straight up.

We have a drill we do with him all the time in practice. Over the last three games, he's figured it out a little bit. He just goes straight up. And 7'2" is 7'2" and that's why we think that we'll have a chance against anyone if he's dominating the paint and blocking shots, contesting shots. Because there's always a fear factor with a 7'2" player. If he can block three or four -- like last night, I think he came in last night, he blocked some shots. They started shooting outside shots a lot and they really struggled from the outside.

Trayvon is a weapon that we have that hopefully, tomorrow night, they need to stay out of foul trouble and play with the presence that we want him to have.

Q. You've coached at every level. I'm wondering how your experience at your previous schools, how has that kind of helped prepare you for the challenges you face here?
MIKE DAVIS: Well, I know the mindset at every level, and here is -- we get players here that wouldn't normally come and play in the SWAC, in our basketball team. My job here is to train their brains, teach them about the high level and it's hard to really teach them until they see it.

Once they see it, they begin to understand it. But then we'll go through 18 games of conference play where we hadn't seen it in a long time. And it's really difficult sometimes to get used to going against something that you had seen for 18 games.

I thought last night's game, playing in the first four, gave us an opportunity to get a win. Last year, we played North Carolina. In the Selection Sunday, when you see your name come across the screen, everybody is like excited and jumping up and down.

We played North Carolina last year. They were jumping up and down and happy. I'm like, we have no chance. These guys led the country in offensive rebounds. We gave up 31 offensive rebounds in our conference. So we have no chance to beat them.

By playing the first four, it give us a game. And so once it give us the game, you get a little nervous, you look jittery. So now we can kind of flash back to our non-conference schedule and get that feeling. And now they know why we play the non-conference schedule.

I always talk about March 7. March 7 is the most important date on your schedule. It's not Kansas. It's not Grambling. It's not Southern. It's March 7. So March 7 is when our conference tournament starts and we want to be the best basketball team we can be on March 7. Because only one team going. We have to win three games, and we won those three games. Now, last night, we won last night and now get another chance to play tomorrow night.

Q. Coach, how has Trae Jefferson been as a player and also as a teammate since he's been back the second go-round?
MIKE DAVIS: I said this last night about Trae. I think I suspended Trae three times, I think, this year. He has made the greatest -- his transformation has been amazing. And I had to do it. It cost us the conference championship regular season. But his talent is top in the country. And he's a tough, tough guy. But I had to get him to understand that his behavior has to fit the setting that he's in.

In college basketball, you want to behave like the rest of the guys in college basketball is behaving. And he has been remarkable. Now, I think he has a chance to be an NBA basketball player, because he's made that change. Sometimes it takes three, four, five years for guys to make that change. He's made that change over the last two months because -- when I suspended him the second time, I think he was fourth in the country in scoring at 23 points a game.

So he gave that up. He gave the Player of the Year up in our league. He gave All Conference, because you have to play 75 percent of the games for you to receive that kind of award and be ranked in scoring. And so his maturity right now is remarkable.

He's a tough guy. All our guys follow him. I mean, he's 5'7". He'll say he's 150, but I think he's about 125. But he think he weighs like 500 pounds. His attitude and personality right now is where it should have been four years ago, three years ago.

But like my sister coaches always say, if he'd have been that person he is now, he never would have played at Texas Southern.

Q. Mike, you mentioned he has a chance at the NBA and you mentioned his improved attitude. What about his play that you think can get him over the top?
MIKE DAVIS: He just thinks he's the best that's ever played the game. We go into a game, and the worst that you can do is start talking about another player. Trae acts like he doesn't know who he is. I asked him did he know LeBron James.

He says, I don't know LeBron James.

He has the personality and attitude that no one fazes him. Don't talk about anyone in front of him because he just feels like he's the best.

And he's won every matchup that he played this year. We didn't win the game, but he won the matchup. He says. And so I have to agree with him, because he's on my team. And you have to know Trae. If you don't agree with what he's saying and what he's doing, he kind of wavers a little bit. He wanted to win.

Last night and the last eight games, he's changed. He's a changed person. All the things people said about him, coming here, was true. But he's changed that. He's changed that, and I couldn't be as proud of a player than I am of him just because of the way he's changed his personality.

He's still fiery. He's still going to talk on the court, but he's a leader now and he needs to be that leader to lead our program.

THE MODERATOR: Mike, thank you very much. Best of luck.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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