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

March 18, 2018

Nashville, Tennessee

Nevada - 75, Cincinnati - 73

THE MODERATOR: Cincinnati Bearcats are with us. Jacob Evans III, Kyle Washington to represent the student body. Head Coach Mick Cronin will open up with a statement, and then we'll go to questions for all three gentlemen from Cincinnati. Mick, please.

MICK CRONIN: Well, we had watched, obviously scouted Nevada, and we knew they were an older team, dangerous team on offense, and I knew the game was far from over. We tried to continue to say that.

Our guys did a great job until the last ten minutes, where obviously they took the gamble and just started trapping Jacob.

We were playing 4-on-3 and got the deer in the headlights look. Ball stopped dropping for us. We got fouled a lot of times and it wasn't called around the rim. And that got in our heads. It affected our defensive execution.

But give credit to Nevada for the win. The game's never over, obviously, in the NCAA tournament especially if you turn the TV on until the clock hits zero.

Obviously, feel terrible for our guys. But it's been an honor to coach Jacob and Kyle in particular that are sitting here with me and, obviously, Gary Clark and all the guys. We've had an unbelievable season, and I appreciate their attitude and their effort.

We play really hard. We demand a lot of our players, and they're accountable. They work hard. They're good kids. And they allow us to try to bring out the best in them. I appreciate the guys. Been an unbelievable season, obviously. Wanted to win the tournament and came up short today. Unfortunate.

Q. Mick, one thing I noticed, they had -- I don't have a book, but I think they only had two turnovers. Obviously, that's not you.
MICK CRONIN: But they play five guards.

Q. Talk about that.
MICK CRONIN: They only average nine a game. Give them credit. Jordan Caroline is a small forward, playing the five. They don't play really a big man. So they're not a team that turns the ball over. They're top 5 in the nation in turnover margin.

So it's not a surprise that they didn't turn it over. Obviously, it gives them a better chance. That's why they score so many points. But that didn't beat us.

Look, we had a big lead. They gambled and just started trapping at half court, gave us a lot of wide-open shots that we didn't make. And it got real, real physical around the rim, and I'll let you take it from there on that. When we had chances around the rim, it was unbelievable what was happening.

Q. For the players, just 22-point lead goes down, down, down. What are you thinking at that point? And I guess just your post-game reaction, also.
KYLE WASHINGTON: Honestly, we thought we were still going to win, regardless. We knew they were going to try to make their run. Who wouldn't try to make their run at the end of the day? So, you know, we were confident we were going to win.

I don't think it's different from any other game. Obviously, our sense of urgency was up because this is the NCAA tournament. But, honestly, I would be lying to you if I told you we didn't play like that the whole year. Doesn't matter if we're playing Bellarmine in an exhibition game. That's how we play.

I'm proud of these two sitting next to me. I'm proud of everybody in the locker room. Obviously, we wanted to go further, but if you look at this team, we accomplished a lot. I'll never forget it.

JACOB EVANS III: Well, you know, we got a 22-point lead. Like Coach said, they was giving us some open looks, couldn't go down for us. And they made their open looks and they made some tough ones also.

You know, we don't lose too often around here. So whenever we do lose, it's a shock. Especially when we wanted to send out our seniors, Gary, Kyle and Bart out the right way. They work so hard to keep everybody in line. Make sure we're working hard and becoming better basketball players and also better people off the court. It just feels bad that we couldn't get it done for them.

Q. Obviously, you never think you have the game won with 11 minutes left. When you started to see them come back like that, what went through your mind? How did you react to that?
JACOB EVANS III: You know, the game is 40 minutes. Coach kept telling us that it's not over. We got to keep playing until the clock hits zero. And they started to make their run. Like I said, we missed some open ones, and we made open ones and tough ones.

Team like that, that can score the ball, you can't let them get it going in transition and that's what we did.

KYLE WASHINGTON: I would say the same thing. Honestly, I thought we was going to win the whole time. No matter what was going to happen, Coach said no matter what was going to happen, we're going to win. I believed it. Everybody believed it. So obviously, we're still upset about the loss. But that's how it goes.

Q. Maybe this isn't a good time for this, but could the two players reflect on what you did accomplish this year?
KYLE WASHINGTON: You know, I was proud of this group. We came together and we weren't -- we weren't worried about each other's success. We were happy for everybody. And that would ring true the whole season.

I was proud of that because in college basketball, people can get worried about all that. We weren't. If it was Gary, it was Jacob, it was anybody, you know, we celebrated that success. We said, Way to go, great job. You know, how we took care of the AAC, we got those two titles. But we wanted to go further.

Like Jacob said, we're not used to losing around here so it's a tough feeling. It's the same feeling every time.

JACOB EVANS III: We accomplished small goals, the conference tournament, regular season conference title. But this is the big goal for us. So we had a pretty good run this year. We won 30-plus games again.

But at the end of the day, there's no more victories. Come to Cincinnati, we prepare to win a championship every year and we fell short.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Best of luck.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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