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

March 17, 2018

Nashville, Tennessee

THE MODERATOR: The Nevada Wolf Pack out of the Mountain West Conference is next. Caleb Martin, Cody Martin, and Kendall Stephens represent the student body.

We'll go right to questions.

Q. For all the players, what was it that drew you to Nevada, if I said that rightly, I hope? What was the attraction when you were looking for a place to transfer and what has made the school and the program work so well?
CALEB MARTIN: I mean, for me, I say Nevada too. But when I first got there, people said you're saying it wrong. It's supposed to be Nevada. I still say Nevada, so it's cool.

Just the attraction to the school was you could see the uprising of the program and Coach Musselman and his NBA background. And the style of play was very important for us, especially coming from NC State, which we ran a UCLA offense.

I just think the main attraction was how he wanted us to gamble on defense, how freely he wanted us to play, how fast he wanted us to play and just how he -- the player/coach relationship was a big thing for us.

CODY MARTIN: For me, it's pretty much the same thing. But another thing that kind of attracted us here was he recruits a lot of transfers and it's easy to connect with those guys because you're coming from somewhere where you kind of had the same experience and, you know, I think that's what our chemistry has a lot to do with. You get here and you connect all on the same level. Once you figure out that people have the same experience as you, it's just a lot better playing for the guy next to you. So it makes it a lot more fun.

KENDALL STEPHENS: Yeah, I think it being a winning culture and kind of what the coaching staff presented to us on our visits, really they mapped out and gave us a good blueprint of what they expected individually and as a team. Once they did that, it kind of felt like the right decision. It was a kind of a no-brainer for my part.

Q. In looking ahead to tomorrow, when you're facing Cincinnati, they are statistically one of the best defensive teams in the country. But what do you guys see on them, on film, that makes them such a good team defensively?
CODY MARTIN: After watching film and prepping for them, I think the biggest thing is they rebound like mad men and all of them go to the glass. That makes them a really hard team.

They don't initially score on their first shots, but they always get second chance rebounds. They score a lot. They draw a lot of FTAs. But because of that, there will be things we can take advantage of.

But that's what makes them really good. They're tough guys. They're gritty. We're in for a dog fight.

KENDALL STEPHENS: Exactly everything he said. They're just very physical team. They pride themselves on defense and toughness. But at the same time, they still have deficits, weaknesses that we're looking forward to taking advantage of.

Q. Cody and Caleb, you'll see a familiar face on the other bench tomorrow in Kyle Washington. Can you talk about the relationship with him and do you stay in touch during the season?
CALEB MARTIN: Yeah. Kyle's my guy. I just saw him walking over there. I talked to him for a little bit, talked to him before the game yesterday. He's rooting us on, stuff like that.

But at the end of the day, whenever the clock starts tomorrow, we can't be friends no more. We'll have to wait until afterwards. He knows that.

Gary Clark is my boy too. We get together a lot over the summer and hoop in Raleigh a lot.

But yeah, I got a couple guys. Those are my guys. But, I mean, they know, same thing goes for us too. Whenever the clock starts, we can be friends afterwards, but we're all here for the same reason. That's to advance.

CODY MARTIN: Same thing pretty much. Those are our guys. At the end of the day, it's nice to see your friends and stuff succeed. But at the end of the day, in this situation, only one person can advance. So we want it to be us. At the end of the day, it's going to be a dog fight and we know how much we put into it. And we all have the same mindset, so I'm looking forward to it.

Q. To go off that question for both you guys, Kyle said he was really impressed when you came into NC State that you held your own as freshmen, that you were able to kind of talk mess, as he said, in a way that he wasn't expecting.
What are your memories of Kyle or any good stories you might have of playing with him at NC State?

CODY MARTIN: I have a lot of memories of Kyle. He was there for me when I had some tough situations when I was there. But he's a king of trash talk when we were there and he kind of rubbed off on us. We were pretty decent at it when we got there, but he took it to another level.

It was nice, having the experience with him. Like I said, it's nice to see that he went somewhere and succeeded in doing what he wants to. Yes, we just have a lot of memories of him. Good dude.

CALEB MARTIN: Pretty much the same thing off that. He was kind of our big brother there, when we came there as freshmen, and he got us through the whole entire college experience while he was there. You know, we loved each other like brothers and we fought each other like brothers.

I remember me and Cody in practice would be on the same team and Kyle would be on the other team. Somebody would go for a rebound, somebody would get hit hard and next thing you know, we're all squaring up against each other. It's all love after practice. It's nothing changed. So everything's the same.

Q. Kendall, kind of like Texas, they like to play at a slower pace. What's going to be the key to getting your rhythm early rather than having to take kind of the first half like you did against the Longhorns?
KENDALL STEPHENS: We feel like we have a better offense than them. At the same time, slowing them down, transitioning on defense is going to be key for us. They get a lot of points off of transition points and fast breaks and off of turnovers.

So I think if we take care of the ball like we've been doing this season, as well as stopping them in transition, it's going to work for our favor.

Q. They say a brother is born for adversity. What's the earliest memory that you guys have of you guys really competing and going at each other and not wanting to stop until one of you guys won?
CALEB MARTIN: I'll go first. I mean, ever since I honestly can remember, honestly, like we used to fight over -- it wasn't even only about sports. It would be just about anything.

But one memory I have, just playing outside, and I think we got mad at each other for some reason and somebody, I think Cody had grabbed -- we went to a carnival or something like that. He had one of the balls I won from a contest and he kicked the ball in the woods for some reason, because I beat him or something. He didn't know his was laying three feet next to me so I grabbed his, kicked it in the woods.

Next thing you know, we were rolling around in the grass fighting each other until the next door neighbor had to go get my mom, tell her to come out there and grab us, because she knew we wasn't going to stop.

I mean, there's so many of that -- certain situations like that, we used to just fight over anything. Doesn't matter if it was cards, basketball, whatever, a video game. It doesn't matter.

CODY MARTIN: Pretty much. I mean, there's a lot of them, but another thing is whenever we're playing Madden and stuff, it's like at the end of the game, he gets a pick six to win the game, I get mad.

Next thing you know, we're fighting on the couch, put a hole in the wall. It is what it is.

Q. Follow-up question to that, have you guys ever said let's take it to the court to sort of iron out the differences, like have those late night sessions on campus or whatever, where you say look, meet me in the gym and let's go at it?
CODY MARTIN: We do that regardless, but it always ends up in a fistfight anyway.

CALEB MARTIN: We can never finish the game. That's why a lot of times when we play pickup, we can't guard each other because we can't finish the game, because me and Cody will be over there fighting, and it will be football. It won't be basketball anymore.

Q. Cody, how would you describe Nevada's offensive system and what is your guys' mentality on that side of the ball?
CODY MARTIN: For our offense, I think a lot of it is Coach Muss has an NBA mentality in terms of spacing and position-less basketball. I think that's what really helps us out, playing five guards. And we can really spread the floor. It's something that you don't really have to worry about getting the ball to necessarily a 1 guy when you get the rebound and go.

I think that has a lot to do with our team and how versatile our team is all across the board. Being able to switch 1 through 5 makes life a lot easier. I know for our offense, for our offense, we can drive and kick. If people try to take away the 3-ball, we can get to the lane and finish. I think we just have a lot of things that we can go to in terms of, like, tough situations and things like that. There's nothing that we primarily rely on.

Q. A light question for Cody and Caleb. Since you guys are so identical with your beards and hair styles, has there been any point in your career where you've tried to fool an official during the game?
CALEB MARTIN: Fool an official? I mean, I'm sure there's been a couple times, like, during halftime where somebody's playing bad or maybe one of us has got too many fouls. If somebody's playing good, they want to switch. Say if I'm playing well and he's not, and I got like four fouls and he's got like two, I'm sure we've been tempted a couple times to switch jerseys. But I don't want him playing my minutes and he don't want me playing his minutes. I'm definitely not going to let him take mine.

CODY MARTIN: I mean, pretty much the same thing. I feel like sometimes they do a pretty good job at that, messing up themselves. I don't blame them. So it is.

Q. Your competitive nature, does it have anything to do with the fact that your mom had to take three jobs to make sure you guys had everything that you had and you didn't have to worry about anything? And the sacrifice that she made, it's like just the fact that you're paying her back by living your dreams out?
CALEB MARTIN: I mean, for sure. Just like you said, like the way we grew up and stuff, like nothing was ever given so I think that plays a big role in how we went through our college career and how we play on the court.

She's instilled that kind of, you got to earn everything, mentality. Just the way she got it. So that's just the way we try to instill our play into our games and make sure that we show everybody that our game isn't just, for my own example, just shooting 3s. I want to go get a rebound.

At the end of the day, we want to be the last people standing. I think that just plays a big role in the way we play too.

CODY MARTIN: I think that has a lot to do with it too. I think the biggest thing for us is seeing her go through that and her sacrificing what she had to sacrifice for us to allow us to do what we want to do.

We have that kind of mentality that we're going to fight for everything we have and nobody is going to take it away from us at least without us giving 100 percent. I think that has a lot to do with it. I know that she's proud of us. Every time we step on the court, every time we practice, everything like that, it's bigger than just us.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, very good job. Congratulations. Good luck tomorrow.

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