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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLE

March 21, 2019

Charlie Buscaglia

Louisville, Kentucky

CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: Very excited to be here. Really proud of our team to have such a successful year on and off the court. Beautiful place, beautiful arena. Very impressed with the hospitality and the professionalism we've received so far.

Getting ourself ready to go out there tomorrow and play.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. Open up to the floor.

Q. So with (indiscernible) doing it last year and Harvard doing it like in the '90s, how are you and your team preparing to try to do the ultimate upset?
CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: We prepare the same way no matter who we play, from game one to the conference tournament to the conference championship. We're very routine driven as far as just being grateful or every chance we get to go out there and play no matter the situation.

That's our culture, is to just work our hardest every day. Not looking for the big game or the big moment, but treating every moment as a big game or a big moment. We are extremely blessed to be able to do this and go out there and give it our best.

We value each day at practice the same way we would value it now as we would back in game one, opening game. Obviously at this point in the season we've earned the right to be here and worked really hard for it, but we can't forget that the light at the end the path that I always tell them we got to stay on. Stay on that path and just continue with the way we've been doing things and not get caught up in the moment.

Obviously 1 and 16 looks very difficult, obviously the percentages of a 16 seed being able to knock off a 1 seed on either the men's or women's side is extremely low.

But that's not what we focus on. It's a game, and we have to go out there and play the game to the best of our ability. If we work our hardest, we let the chips fall.

Q. How much of an opportunity do you get to really see some of the top teams during the course of the season? How much did you really know about Louisville before the seedings went out?
CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: Well, we come across a lot of top teams because of our nonconference schedule. We'll scout whether we're playing one the top teams or somebody played a top team that we're playing. We'll see them in video. Obviously not focus on them as much because we're looking at the other side, but like say for instance this year we went and played Iowa, who won the Big 10, and they have one of the best players in the country at the center position.

We had to scout and prepare for that game. We were able to see the different things that a team at that level can do to hurt you. Every top team has a different identity, but you could see the level of size, maybe athleticism, speed. In our opinion and in our culture, continue to be who we are and to continue to try to do what we do the best.

We're not a team that's a Jack of all trades, master of none. We like to try to master what we do and be the best we can at what we do. So that's kind of something that we've had to already look at when dealing with teams at that level and knowing who we are and continuing to be true to who we are, even if the opponent looks as strong as a Louisville.

Louisville particularly, did get a chance to see them play just a couple times during the year. I wasn't looking at them thinking about when March comes we'll be playing them and I better start take some notes. It was more of a casual watch.

Obviously if you're on the road as a coach and recruiting, you see the players that on their roster in the summer and spring, and you get a chance to see them growing up from sophomore, freshman year, sometimes all the way to senior year, as they play in the AAU circuits or in high school games they were at.

So familiar with them as well just from knowing how good they were coming out of high school and how they were going to help any program. Now that we've had some time to look at them more, definitely getting more of the in-depth look that we need to have. We're definitely just continuing to prepare and to learn them the best we can in such a short turnaround time for us.

Q. Talk about what your team does do well and what you have mastered, as you say.
CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: We're an extremely young team. If you look at our roster, we're just a couple tenths of a percentage below 70% freshman-sophomore. You say, Boy, how could a team like that be able to be in this position being so young? What we do well is focus on what we can control and come into work every day. Our work ethic is what we pride ourselves on.

We come to practice every day looking to get better. I always tell them, Just get a little bit better every day. Just get a little bit better every day and we're going in the right direction then. We will grow, and you'll someday be able to look back when that timing is right and say, Boy, look at what I'm doing now that I wasn't back in September. Not trying to be a different person each day, but get a little bit better and put bricks on our foundation.

Whether we won a game this year or lost a game, this team had a full heart to come back to the locker room and go into video session and come up the office and want to see the clips -- not the good clips, but the bad clips. The clips that like I don't really like seeing myself mess up like that. They have to be willing to do that.

That's what we were willing to do all year. And especially when you're a freshman or a sophomore you can look a that and say, Well, they're young, they're immature, they're not going to get that yet. If you push yourself and you really have it in your heart to want to get better at that stuff and be more mature, you will.

I think that has a lot to do with what we did well. We grew throughout the season. We started off our nonconference 3 and 8. Even though we were 3 and 8 we lost or first game in overtime against a team that was a top 100 RPI team, a team that did really well in Youngstown. We had that game won and we let it slip out of our hands in the last nine seconds.

We turned around a lost a buzzer beater at Bowling Green on a reverse layup on a blocked shot where the ball bounced under the basket, player caught it in stride, and shot a reverse layup and made it. That's how we lost another game on the road.

Those are tough moments. They're either going to break you down or make you stronger. This team had a full heart to get stronger, to continue to come to work. I always tell them, You got to be able to handle winning and losing. Losing can separate you and so can winning. You can start to lose your passion to come and get better every day.

We went on some great winning streaks this year and had to stay humble. Part of our pillars is humility. Humility is a big part of this program. That's a big thing for us. You notice I'm not talking about hitting shots or throwing great passes. These are the things that I believe in that are going to build shooting the ball better, build throwing better passes.

Our defense is our work ethic. We can talk about all the great ways to play defense, how you're going to get stops. You got to have heart to do it, and you got to be able to push yourself to come to practice when you're a little sore or tired to go harder to become a better defender.

So all the stuff they talk about with our defense and our nationally-ranked defense and our conference-ranked difference and all that, that is all from work ethic. I could give them all the knowledge in the world about what I've been taught over the years being assistant coach under my father for a while, and obviously the friends I've made in the basketball world.

I can bring all that knowledge to practice every day, but you have to have player-driven mentality to get better. Sorry for the long-winded answer, but you're asking me what we do well, and it's not just summed up in a few words. It really is our mentality and our work ethic and player-driven mentality to come to practice every day and push themselves to get better.

That's why we've gotten better. I can tell them all the words in the world about what's going to make you better. They got to have the heart to do it. That's why we were able to go into the conference tournament with such a young team and to respond by looking so mature. It's because of how hard they work.

Q. When ESPN asks you what are the keys to the game, what are you going to tell them?
CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: We know they're a very fast, physical, athletic team. We know they have some players that are considered top players in the nation, if not the top player in the nation. We expect them to come out with a ton of energy, a ton of passion, and we have to be able to match that. We have to be able to be mentally tough.

We have to go out there and understand that the game is going to be played in between the lines. We have not get caught up in the moment of what's around us and all this, all of the media and all the attention they're getting. We talked a lot about that before we came out here today, about every game how we prepare, and we have to be prepared the same way. We have to understand that this is going to be a game that's played, and what's going to win or lose the game is the way you go out there and how hard you work and to withstand the pressure and the aggressiveness that they're going to have.

That's going to be a big part game, obviously, just understanding how talented and athletic and strong Louisville is, and when they want to come at you, you got to be able to fight for yourself, your team, and to continue to play.

If you make a mistake, something bad happens, we've been working on this all year. Handling adversity. That's going to be big. We have to handle adversity out there. We've been growing so much with that. We just got to stay on our path.

Q. You hear coaches talk about preparing for big environments by sometimes piping in loud noise, that sort of thing. What kind of unorthodox method have you done with your team at any point to prepare them for that big atmosphere, maybe such as the Iowa game?
CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: Going into the Iowa game? There has been times we've made it loud through using the speaker system in our arena and stuff like that just to make it hard to call a play out using hand signals.

Really the biggest preparation is, besides all that stuff, is coming to practice and creating an environment that is tough. Practice has to be hard. Practice is by far the most important thing we do every day as far as basketball-wise. It teaches us a lot basketball-wise, a lot about people, about dealing with adversity. That's why it has to be tough.

That's the best preparation you could have, is have hard practices every day and challenge ourself at practice to put yourself in the moment as much as you can.

If you're going through a drill or playing 5-on-5 or you're running something up and down the court, that takes a lot of endurance and cardio, you got to push yourself. That way when you're in the game that pace isn't too fast for you. That's really how you get better. That's really how you handle teams that play really fast. Louisville plays extremely fast. They're up and down, they're athletic.

You have to push yourself at practice to go after that and to be prepared for it. If you practice harder, you know, than you did the day before, you're getting tougher and better. That's the best way I could say it.

Besides all the noise and everything else, you can't simulate -- I can't pay 20,000 people to go sit in a crowd and watch our practice. You just have to go out there when you first get out there on the court, take it in, look around for a minute, and at that point say, Okay, I took it in. Now everything is between the lines. Don't worry about the crowd. All here today; gone tomorrow.

We got to live with ourselves.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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