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

March 20, 2019

Randy Bennett

Hartford, Connecticut

RANDY BENNETT: Yeah, we're just excited to be playing in this tournament coming out here and playing in Hartford and playing against the defending National Champion. So I think that's where we're at. We've had a heck of a run to get here, and pumped and playing and determined again.

Q. I was wondering, what do you need to do? You just came off a big win against Gonzaga in the WCC finals. What do you need to do to keep that momentum going against Villanova?
RANDY BENNETT: You know, for lack of a lot of time, we have to play well. And when you go in the NCAA Tournament, anybody you come up against is pretty good and pretty confident, and been on a run of some sort. So you have to get your team to kind of relax. They're obviously going to be nervous. But you can't be nervous long. You have to perform.

So that's what we've been trying to work on. And that's -- going to try and get used to the court today and go our 40 minutes out there. But we need to play well early in that game.

Q. You guys really made a turn with the defense after that loss to Gonzaga. Can you explain how that came about? You guys really have clamped down on teams as of late.
RANDY BENNETT: I honestly can't tell you why it turned then. We knew we were working on it. We knew we were deficient defensively. We knew our numbers had to be better. And for whatever reason, that game which we weren't good offensively in at Gonzaga. We turned around after that. Maybe we needed to see that. Maybe that woke us up a little bit. I don't know. But we've Ben working on it for a while. You're right. We've put up good defense in numbers. We totally changed as a defensive team. We went on the road and won three out of four and really guarded a couple good teams on the road. And that is the reason we turned it around and finished, I think we won seven of the last eight. But a lot of those games weren't close. We went down to San Diego and cleared up 20 right off. CHECK a lot of guys made some changes, that's what happened with our team. That's why we're playing in the snowstorm tomorrow.

Q. Coach, when Coach Wright saw the pairing he immediately went back to 2010. I know it's like a million years ago. But what did that win do for your program winning such a high profile game as an underdog like that?
RANDY BENNETT: That win was probably the biggest win in St. Mary's program history. Everybody remembers it back in California. It was -- it kind of came out of the nowhere. We had a special group of guys, and Omar, Sam Han as our leader and top scorer. Dell dove have a turned out to be a pretty good player. Mickey McConnell's a pretty good player. We had a pretty good group. We remember it. It's a historical moment. I'm sure he thought about that as well, unfortunately.

Q. Randy, when was the last time your teams played on the east coast and how are they handling the time change?
RANDY BENNETT: I don't remember last time. Probably NCAA Tournament, is the last time we came out to the east coast unless you count Western Kentucky but that is the time zone. We handled it by getting out here an extra day early. I think that's the key in trying to get your guys on that. It's a long trip so you got to get your kids adjusted and get them on the time, get them -- get their bodies adjusted a little bit. So, other than that, nothing else. So we played pretty good at Western Kentucky. I think we played well on it last time when we came out here and played up in Providence.

Q. Randy, you have quite a few Australians and New Zealanders on your team and the mass shooting from last Friday, what effect do you think that had on your players as a whole and especially the two from New Zealand?
RANDY BENNETT: I don't want to seem insensitive, but they didn't have -- our kids will be concerned on something like that, and would be worried about our two players from New Zealand. But it wasn't a big topic when it happened for whatever reason.

So I think our guys are good on that. I talked to our two New Zealanders, and they were -- it's just a sad, sad event. And in life, you have to deal with those things and move on. We try and make sure our players are okay on those situations. I think they are. I can't say, hey, everything's okey-dokey, but it was -- I think our guys have done a good job with it.

Q. Coach, building on the defensive thing, how much are the challenges to stop Villanova tomorrow night and have you played any teams similar to them this year?
RANDY BENNETT: We played some teams similar to Villanova, as far as what I've seen on film watching them. The challenges -- obviously, their game is towards getting threes, hit over ten a game, which is probably the highest. That's the highest of anybody we've played this year. They're a little bit like Gonzaga defensively, how they play, how they switch a lot of ball screens and switch a lot of things. They're a little bit like them and a little like San Diego in terms of how they attack you to get threes. They're more than threes. They'll take the hole and have some really good players scoring inside the paint.

But the big part of their deal is they're going to make you help and kick out and have some really good shooters and they put five guys out there that shoot the three. At the same time, they really don't -- I guess their back-up center is a true center, but that's the only guy on the team that's a true center. They always put you in a position where you have to decide where you're going to get help from on the penetration. And from there, they'll find that and play off that and get open threes or turn it into a second penetration and get another three.

So, they just kind of wear you down with that game. I'm familiar with it, like we see that a lot out west. Maybe not with the same caliber players that Villanova is playing with.

Q. Obviously, this isn't your first NCAA appearance. You've had a lot of 20-win seasons, you've won 400 games. People who are avid college basketball fans know about St. Mary's. But if you could tell -- what would you like people to learn about your program as a result of this particular appearance right after beating the number one team in the country.
RANDY BENNETT: I think you kind of said it, like we've been consistent. I think we pride ourselves on being efficient. And that's in player development, recruiting, the whole deal. But I think we get good players that are high character kids, and they are trying to be part of a program or part of a thing that's bigger than them. It's hard to find guys like that. We really try. We try and coach them that way. So, I think we've been efficient. We've been really efficient for the last 12 years, and even longer than that.

But for the last 12 years, had a really good run, and this year was -- this year, I take a lot of pride in this year's team. Because we basically started from scratch. We had two guys return that played a lot for us last year and that was Tanner Krebs and Jordan Ford. But neither of those guys were our go-to guys last year. So every guy -- that's what is happening with our team, every guy has had to make a move and improve and take on a new role.

A guy like Kuhse, he wasn't playing for us for seven games. Moved in the lineup. He's grown into a pretty good player. Matthias Tass was a freshman, earlier he wasn't playing, now he's become a good third inside guy for us, and Jordan Hunter came off back surgery. He was out four, five months, and for him to step in and continue to improve. I think he first started playing again late September, first started being able to go five on five. For him to make that -- have this kind of year -- and he's really come on down the stretch.

Those are things that they had to happen if we're going to be good. And so, for these guys to get -- we're not really only a one-shot wonder. We could have got in the tournament if we didn't win the conference tournament. We might have. I'm sure glad we didn't have to go through that again, though. But these guys turned themselves into another good team. I'm really proud of them to do that. They would have easily -- they could have easily gone a lot of different directions. I tell them they're pretty tough. They're really resilient, so I think they're 13-9, 4-3 at one point. And they hung in there. They stayed together. You couldn't get them to go sideways.

We came down the stretch, fortunately and had a huge win to get to this tournament. That's what I'm most proud of. All of these groups of guys over the years have been pretty consistent, pretty efficient and really high character kids.

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