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NCAA MEN'S FIRST FOUR: DAYTON

March 19, 2019

Dayton, Ohio

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by student-athletes from North Dakota State, Vinnie Shahid, Tyson Ward, Jared Samuelson and Rocky Kreuser. Questions?

Q. How do you guys feel about the season?
ROCKY KREUSER: Obviously to start off, we were struggling a little bit but I thought we got hot at the right time. Obviously ended up the season in our conference tournament going pretty well.

TYSON WARD: I think we just gathered up in the right timing. You take a couple of losses you get a little hurt, a little flustered. And then you bounce back and you turn into who you really are. And you wake up and you realize that you don't want to lose anymore.

So that's what it took for us, just a gut check a couple times, then get together and come together and talk about what we want to do and how we want to do it and that's really how it rolled out.

JARED SAMUELSON: Yeah, I think we just kept grinding through the season, didn't really change much, to be honest with you. We just kept competing in practice, got after one another and started playing our best basketball at the best time that we needed to.

VINNIE SHAHID: I think this team did a really good job of growing together. You hear a lot of things about how this group is inexperienced and young. I think we did a good job of growing together as a group throughout the season and that's why we're playing our best basketball right now.

Q. Obviously it's a great honor to be here and get into the tournament. I'm sure you're focused on the game at hand. But if you guys do win, you will play the No. 1 seed, Duke. Any game plan for that or just focused on the game plan at hand?
VINNIE SHAHID: Just trying to take it one day at a time, one game at a time. Right now we're worried about North Carolina Central. They're a really good team, and we have some things we need to do in order to win that game, but we're only focusing one game at a time.

Q. So you were ninth ranked in the country for free throw percentage this year. Is that something that happened in practice, or was there some type of preparation as a team? Could you speak to that a little bit?
JARED SAMUELSON: Honestly, not really. I think we just -- I think it's just stepping up to the line, knocking it down. I think we've got some good shooters on this team. We all get in the gym on our own time. It's not really something we prioritized, I would say. I think just due to our time in the gym.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

We're joined by the head coach of North Dakota State, David Richman.

COACH RICHMAN: It's pretty evident why Dayton continues to get the First Four. This place, we've been treated very first class from the time we landed here until the time we got to the hotel, including the bagpipe welcome that we got at the Holiday Inn, too. Great basketball community.

A Gentleman that I have a lot of respect for, Scott Nagy, the head coach at Wright State, you can see why he's able to have a ton of success here and gets supported in a great way.

Certainly we're excited to be here. But make no mistake; this is a business trip for us. We're here to compete. We feel over the last, you go back to January 24th at South Dakota State we got our tails kicked in. From there our group has really responded. We won five in a row. Even the three-game slide that we had, we felt we were playing a really good brand of basketball but just weren't able to finish some things.

When Vinnie Shahid hit that shot against Fort Wayne to close it out, our last regular season game of the year, it was big. It built a lot of momentum for us, allowed us to have a terrific week of practice with a lot of spirit and joy behind it.

And they say it's important to be playing your best when your best is needed. And that's what this group is doing. What we strung together Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Sioux Falls was something special. But, again, I don't think it came to really anybody's surprise in that locker room -- maybe some people outside that locker room. But you go back to the additions we had in the fall, the additions we had last spring and the way they all came together, there was always talent. There was a love in that locker room. There's a joy in that locker room. It's been an absolute pleasure to be around and we're looking forward to continuing to embrace this journey. Take any questions.

Q. Just illustrate for everyone how your team has come together. You alluded to it, winning five in a row, playing well in Sioux Falls. But what items on the floor and the togetherness in the locker room has developed the chemistry with your basketball team where we're at today in Dayton?
COACH RICHMAN: I think the word that I keep going back to with this group is experience. And you can talk to this group about experience. You can show this group some situations. But they've always had to go through the experience, actually walk it, actually have their behavior in that moment.

And you can see that going back to that South Dakota State game at South Dakota State, that was the last experience for that group. Once we came out of there, it was, hey, there are no more excuses, there are no more experiences that you're not prepared for. And it really took off from there.

But, again, the thing that's really special is the internal leadership in the locker room. I think as a coach and a staff you always have a plan and vision. And when you have a couple of guys hurt or some failures early in the process, some guys can question some things. It would be really easy to question some things.

And because of our internal leadership they never did those things. They stayed the course. And, again, you probably heard them say it, 14 to 1, 1 to 14, they don't like each other; they love each other. And that's a huge reason why we're here.

Q. Wanted to ask you about the way you guys are able to shoot the ball from outside the arc in particular. I know you're getting contributions from 10 guys, all that played, but 1 through 10, they can all shoot from outside the arc at a pretty high clip. Did you anticipate you'd have the ability to do that here late in the season?
COACH RICHMAN: Again, I thought we did. You go back to the Western Illinois game, played 10 guys, nine of them make a 3. That's something we've talked about from a depth and versatility standpoint that we had as a great asset for us.

The thing that I'm really, really encouraged with is we've been shooting a lot of 3s. Fortunately we've been making a lot of 3s, almost 50 percent in the conference tournament. But it's the types of 3s, the product of where those passes have come from. We're scoring off the pass. We're playing inside out. We're trusting the ball reversals.

It's not a come down and 9, 10 dribble into a step-back 3. It's guys in rhythm. It's comfortable. And you've probably heard me say it, it's not what we're doing; it's how we're doing. And how we're doing it is an effective rate right now. And it's the guys understanding where those 3s are coming from and how they're coming.

Q. Can you talk about experience as a coach, and North Carolina Central, this is their third straight year being here, obviously our first here at the First Four in Dayton. When you flip on the tape and watch their team and how they play and what they do, what comes to mind? And does that experience lend itself somewhat of an advantage for their basketball team here?
COACH RICHMAN: That's certainly something that we're going to find out, 6:40 tomorrow night. But I think the thing I've stressed from an experience standpoint is, to our guys is as quickly as you can understand you're going to go out and play a game of college basketball. Something you've done for 33 times, something that you've done your entire life, that's what you need to understand.

When you look at North Carolina Central, this is a very well-coached team. They execute extremely well at the half court on both ends of the floor. Make no mistake, that's winning basketball in March. They play through the Davis kid. They've got multiple other weapons to go around him.

And then defensively they're just rock solid. I don't know if it was 13 or 15, but to hold Norfolk State to 13 or 15 points in the conference championship is remarkable. And you can see -- able to show our guys some clips. They're well-schooled. And to those kids' credit, they go out and execute how they're schooled.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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