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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DES MOINESMarch 20, 2019Mike WhiteKevarrius HayesJalen HudsonDes Moines, Iowa THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome the student-athletes from the University of Florida. Q. Jalen, I'm curious what it's like for you to match-up with the Martin twins. Obviously, you guys go way back. JALEN HUDSON: I'm excited. I actually won the last match-up against them when they were at NC State and I was at Virginia Tech. I know they're going to be super competitive and honestly I consider them family. I'm just excited to see them. It's been a long time. I'm excited and looking forward to tomorrow. Q. Looking at the season, there have been any number of times in which you guys could have gone into a mental bad place, roller coaster, ups and downs, big wins, frustrating losses. How have you guys been resilient enough to get here and with this fresh start of the tournament even though it's one and done what kind of energy do you have to make a run like any team could? JALEN HUDSON: All these post-season games are considered new seasons. So right now we're 0-0. I don't count the SEC Tournament for now. I'm excited to get our feet wet again in another postseason game. As far as the season, we're not looking back at all. During the season, obviously we have ups and downs. But like you said, it's a fresh start now, especially in the NCAA Tournament. Just looking forward to getting our feet wet and competing and playing hard and some of us for the last time with Florida across our chest. So just excited to compete. KEVARRIUS HAYES: We have been able to stick together by drawing close to one another, relying on each other as far as moving forward, all the frustrating losses, you know, rough times, I feel like we just want to be able to overcome all of that because we all have a positive mindset. Coach talks about learning from the losses and then even from our wins, kinda keep building on the positives and fixing the things we do wrong. Like he said, it is a new season, 0-0, coming out the right mindset and coming out and play the way we play. Q. Curious what you think of the Wolf Pack. There will be several guys on each side with a lot of experience in this tournament so it could be a fun match-up? JALEN HUDSON: They're a very experienced team. Obviously, they have had a lot of success. They are a mid-major team though. I don't think they've seen a team like us in a long time. I know they had a match-up with USC and I think it was another high major team they kind of had trouble with. So I'm just excited to bring our SEC vibe to the game and see how they kinda can match-up with that. Obviously they're a very good team. I know the Martin twins well. They've played at a very high level in the ACC at NC State. I don't know the other guys, but I know they can play and a bunch of them have transferred as well. So I think it will be a good match-up for both teams. KEVARRIUS HAYES: This team has a lot of experience as far as a lot of seniors and transfers and it will be interesting to go up against them. I know they're talented players from the perimeter down to the post. I feel like it will be a good way to test our strengths and some of our weaknesses right now and just kind of give it all we got. The Martin twins are very good and they've got a lot of three-point shooters. We're going to stick to what we do, play our principles. Q. Kevarrius, you're playing some of your best basketball. You're averaging over 11 points. What do you attribute that to? KEVARRIUS HAYES: Staying the course, working on it a lot, just trying to get shots just about every day, anytime I can. It's kind of starting to show and pay off a little more, the confidence to hit the mid-range shot like I did in one of our games. Just kinda keep building on that. I feel like I always play hard in every game. So that's never going to go away. I'm just going to keep building on that. Q. Kevarrius, do you think there is something about this team playing better given the rotation has shrunk a little bit? You guys, all five starters averaging over 30 minutes a game last week in the SEC tournament and Mike says you all are playing your best basketball right now. Is there a coincidence there or is this the best lineup for you guys right now? KEVARRIUS HAYES: I feel like we owe that to our chemistry, how we are off court. It's starting to transition on the court, understanding each other's play style and playing around our strengths and even then our bench is actually really good. When they come in they keep up the energy, and I feel like that's what we do very well. We keep the energy going. When we have a lot of energy in our games we send a snowball after of that even when something goes wrong we can band together. Everybody has the right mindset as far as we all like want to win, and the starting five set the tone as strong as we can and we build off of that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, guys. We have Florida head coach, Mike White. Coach, welcome to Des Moines. MIKE WHITE: Thank you. Great to be here. Appreciate you all's time. Exciting to play in the NCAA Tournament as always. Anything can happen in this tournament and our guys are excited to be here. We're coming off an SEC Tournament in which we won a really close one and lost a really close one. But feel like we're playing our best basketball of the year and we certainly hope that teams against a team in Nevada who is coming after a great tournament in their own right last year in this tournament and has had another terrific season, a highly ranked team all year, a team who we're going to have to play really well against to have a chance. Excited about the opportunity. Q. Coach, what are going to be the keys to beating your opponent tomorrow and what's your biggest concerns? Have you ever been to Iowa before? MIKE WHITE: I will answer the first ones first, because I might ramble on the second one. Keys to the game? Defensive transition is important against these guys. A lot of things are important against these guys. Live ball turnovers and floor balance, it's all the same category. We're coming off a game in which we would have given ourselves a better chance against the Auburn Tigers to potentially play in the SEC championship on Sunday, if we didn't have 19 turnovers, uncharacteristically, like we did. We have got to do better than that against Nevada. Isolation defense has gotta be huge. These guys can go get it. They're great at drawing fouls. They're great at playing downhill. Then for us, not only specifically to these guys, but they are terrific defensively, but for us going into every game, offensively we have to figure out how we're going to score. How we're going to score. These guys defensively are very, very efficient. Again, we've got to value the ball at a high level and those are just a few keys, a few factors. But there's a bunch. This is a team that is as old as anybody in the country. They've done a great job with balancing that and managing that roster. They are as big as anybody in the country, an incredibly long lineup. They've got a good mix of shooters and handlers. They seem to have a bunch of guys that can pass, dribble and shoot it. They go at you. Coach obviously knows how to go at you with his background in terms of picking on certain guys at different spots on the floor and putting guys in position to be successful offensively, and they're tough. They're physical. They battle you. They're really good. Have I been to Iowa? First through fourth grade I lived in Dubuque, attended St. Columbkille Elementary as we just talked about behind the curtain. Fun time in my life, and my siblings lives. We loved it here. My father was the Athletic Director at Loras College right down the road. It was a great time. Q. The whole roller coaster word is a horrible cliche, but parentally to this team it might actually be something that close to fits. There has been a lot of chances for the team to really get down on itself, up points, down points, winning streaks, losing streaks, following those. How has the resiliency of this team impressed you to get to where you guys are today? MIKE WHITE: Very much so. It's been a really odd year. This team was 12-11. Went through losing streaks, winning streaks. We've been through different guys starting. We've been through seniors going off. Seniors having slumps. Freshmen trying to figure it out. Freshmen leading us to victories. It's been unique to say the least. We've had several opportunities having lost some very close games to lose interest, if you will, lose a little bit of fight. But instead it was about the next practice, the next play, the next timeout, the next film session and obviously won our share down the stretch, playing our best basketball of the year, won enough close ones. You wish we could have back some of those close ones that we lost and we might be sitting here not having to play Nevada. That said, it speaks to, you said s resiliency, toughness, character, you know, we have our flaws as a team, but collectively this team has got a lot of character in that we just kept plugging, kept work and anything can happen. Q. Coach, Nevada and you guys both have a lot of experience on this stage. What have you learned from the past couple of years about what it takes to succeed on this stage? MIKE WHITE: I think the last thing I said was anything can happen, and I'll stick to that. We know everyone has a clean slate and that have been ten teams that have made big runs in the NCAA Tournament and there was an 11 seed who came in last year and beat us on our home court and ended up going to Final Four in Loyola who was an 11 seed. That said, just like the SEC tournament, you can make a lot of noise. Who would we play next? None of that matters. This is about the first possession against Nevada and lock in on these guys, the scouting report, the film session tonight, the next film session tomorrow, trying to get a great shot versus a stifling defense, trying to get a stop, trying to get your second stop. That's it. Playing in the moment, moving on to the next play, playing in the game, locking in on the Wolf Pack. Hopefully we're competitive enough down the stretch to where we've got a shot. That's it. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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