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

March 18, 2018

Nashville, Tennessee

Nevada - 75, Cincinnati - 73

THE MODERATOR: The Nevada Wolf Pack, representing the Mountain West Conference, is with us tonight. First, they're the No. 7 seed in the south. They're going to Atlanta. They will play Loyola Chicago.

We have head coach Eric Musselman, Caleb Martin, Cody Martin, and Josh Hall with us. Coach will make an opening statement. We'll have a 12-minute session. We'll have questions for all four gentlemen of the Wolf Pack.

Eric, it's yours.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Can't say enough about our energy and effort. I mean, it looked -- we were struggling so much, and they were just dominating the back boards. We knew they were a great rebounding team.

The thing that's amazing, when you look back on this game, is just the fact that we just played 40 minutes and had two turnovers against arguably one of the most aggressive, best defensive teams in the country.

But eventually, kind of like the Texas game, eventually our pace of play won out. And we got that thing above 40 points in the second half, and I thought that was really important.

The first half, we didn't run anything. Then, obviously, we changed our whole defensive concept at halftime and went to a trapping defense that, quite frankly, we haven't been very good at this year in that trapping defense.

We were great in it in years one and two. But this year, we're struggled in it for whatever reason. We had Josh as our trapper and kind of left their point guard and we were just going to live with it.

That locker room right now, I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's the happiest I've ever seen. It's the happiest I've ever been in my life. I couldn't be more proud of a team. Every single player in there, I mean, this feeling's never going away the rest of any of our lives.

Q. Coach, you said after the Texas game, I don't know how we just won that game. How did you guys just win this game, down 22, the second largest comeback in NCAA tournament history?
ERIC MUSSELMAN: We just didn't quit, you know. Again, we made a decision to start trapping and to leave somebody, and we felt like it was just a barrage -- you know, like they just hit us so hard with 3-balls.

You know, that kind of uncharacteristic of us. We said at halftime and -- you know, like San Diego State, we got down and we didn't have enough fight in us and we lost a game that will sting us for a long time.

Again, to play Cincinnati and have two turnovers is incredible.

Q. For the student-athletes, tell us how that feeling was in the locker room. We saw Coach lose his shirt off the video. Take us to the locker room.
CALEB MARTIN: I don't know. Man, I don't know what to say. It's crazy. Coach works out every morning, so his shirt comes off a lot. So I know he's definitely going to use this as an excuse to take it off, show a little bit of his muscle.

Man, this is crazy. I forgot the question. I ain't gonna lie to you.

THE MODERATOR: What's the locker room like?

CALEB MARTIN: Oh, it's crazy. I mean, I think they started without me because I was doing the radio on the floor. I came in the locker room and the whole locker room was wet. I came in, I'm the only one dry. But it's crazy. Everybody smiling, everybody jumping, everybody loving each other, man. We just have a great energy about our team and our coaches and our staff.

We just put so much work all the time. People don't see the behind-the-scenes stuff. So whenever you accomplish stuff like this, you can't take it for granted.

CODY MARTIN: The locker room was ecstatic. It was crazy because you can see in people's facial expressions and how they're acting just how much work we put in over the summertime and how much we put into this, all the preparation our staff does for us and how much we had to focus throughout the whole season, how many times people counted us out.

For to us overcome a lot of people doubting us and then to see us overcome obstacles that we thought that were impossible, but our team is just resilient and they work hard and they stay focused, and we have a lot of chemistry.

We're like brothers and that's something that nobody can take from us, regardless, and it shows in how hard we play, no matter how much we were down. It didn't matter. We held each other's head and instilled confidence in each other throughout the whole game, no matter how much we were down.

I'm proud of these guys and wouldn't want to do it with anybody else.

JOSH HALL: We're just speechless right now. We're just really excited to move forward. A lot of people had us losing the Texas game. For us to keep winning, fighting, battling, we can't keep getting down every game.

But everybody is so excited and everyone is resilient, like Cody and Caleb said. Everybody is just excited. We're trying to continue to prove people wrong every game and keep working hard and keep taking it game by game.

Q. Coach, do you harken back to the Albuquerque game? When you wipe out a lead like you did, I mean, do you kind of -- the kids have to believe that, hey, we can do that.
ERIC MUSSELMAN: Yeah, we didn't bring up the New Mexico game, but, I mean, that was close to history, obviously, coming back from that big of a margin.

You know, I mean, we just tried to set little mini goals each time out and try to chip away and cut the thing to single digits.

You know, I felt like we played a little tight early, and then I thought that the roles were reversed as the game got underneath that six-minute mark.

We just hit a lot of big shots, and I don't even know what else to say either.

Q. Cody, can you take us through the last play, your shot and Josh's put-back; was that the play that was called?
CODY MARTIN: I wouldn't say it was drawn up that way, but the play was a double ball screen, us coming off the right, and Coach was going to give me the freedom to make a play.

I ended up doing a step-back, going towards the middle. I shot it. It felt good, ended up being short. But Josh, he came up with the ball, he came up with a huge play, and I thought he was going to spread. I thought I was getting a second chance at it, but he turned around and saw how wide open it was. He shot it. It went in.

So he just made a huge play, and that's what Josh does for us.

Q. I was going to ask Josh, obviously, you could have held for the last possession there with about ten seconds to go. What did you see just to get up there and throw it up there? And as it hit the rim, what was your emotion as you saw it fall through?
JOSH HALL: When I got the rebound, one of the defenders reset the ball and couldn't get it. I saw an opening and saw them going closer out to the shooters because it looked like I was going to spread out, like Cody said.

I saw an opening and tried to put as much touch on it as possible because of how close I was.

Q. For all the players, you guys had quite the celebration when the game ended. Can you describe the moment when you knew that you had the game? I think the first thing you guys had was the last shot.
JOSH HALL: We were just really excited for -- we knew that we had to take our time and get a good play, and we knew that we needed to, you know, crash the glass as well, but not get burned going back on defense.

So we just -- we all, in tight games, we seem to come together and seem to always know what to do and find a way to win. We found another way to win and we're just ecstatic for it to turn out like that.

Resilience. We've been resilient all year and that comes with late game preparation and being able to succeed late game.

CODY MARTIN: Getting the last play and then Caleb hit a big 3 for us, tied it up. We were able to get the rebound. It was a ten-second deficit and we wanted to try to get the best option as possible and get the best look possible.

I wouldn't say I got the best look, but I got it up on the rim, and we were just fortunate enough to have Josh follow through for us. And that just shows that he, you know, he could have just been ball watching or let the ball, somebody else get it, but he was playing hard the entire game. And he made huge plays. He was rebounding better than all of us.

That's just what he brings to our team. He's a key piece to our team. We couldn't do it without him.

Q. Caleb and Cody, you guys have said almost after every one of these games, we don't want to put ourselves in this position again. You keep doing it. Do you feel more comfortable playing from behind? What has it been over the last two weeks that has allowed you to make these comebacks that seem impossible for other teams?
CALEB MARTIN: I was telling Coach, dang, can we not start in front for once? I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's just playing against the pressure. Obviously, we don't mean to get down like that, but we just got to focus from the jump and make sure that we can't -- from this point on, like it's not going to cut it, trying to come back from 21, 22 points.

But it's just the guys we're playing for, our seniors, and all the work everybody's put in and playing with seven, playing with a limited bench, I mean, it's just the fear of going home. We're not ready to go home. So, I mean, we don't think it's impossible. That's why we play so hard.

CODY MARTIN: Yeah, I can honestly say we don't like playing, having to play down that much, by that much. But I guess our team likes to play under pressure, like my brother said. I don't know. It just shows how hard that we play. At the same time, it's like -- at the same time, like if you're struggling at the beginning, we weren't making shots, they make a matchup zone, kind of something that was tricky at first.

Once we started figuring it out, our defense got us back into the game, defense and rebounding. Yeah, we're going to have to find a way to start off on a better foot and make sure we don't get down by that much.

At the same time, we're fortunate enough to come out with a win, and that's all we can ask for.

Q. Eric, Evans seemed to be a tough matchup in the first half. He seemed to be able to get to the rack pretty much any time. Was that how he normally plays that you saw on film or is that just something he was able to do today?
ERIC MUSSELMAN: Evans is a great player. They were running pick and rolls, and they knew we were going to switch. They were taking the switch and trying to get mismatches. It really burned us in the first half bad.

Then we made an adjustment, we stopped switching the pick and roll and started going under or over, depending on where the screen was set. That really changed the game for us.

Then, at halftime, we slid Cody over to guard Evans and by not switching, Cody stayed on him, and I thought that was a big, a big key to the game because he was kind of having his way in that first half.

Q. Eric, I wanted to ask you about the technical foul that you got. You guys were down 18. You got the technical and things started to change. Was that strategic in any way?
ERIC MUSSELMAN: I mean, I didn't know that we were going to win the game when I got it. But I wanted it. So I'll leave it at that.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Congratulations. See you in the Sweet 16.

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