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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DES MOINESMarch 21, 2019Mike WhiteJalen HudsonKevarrius HayesDes Moines, Iowa Florida 70, Nevada 61 THE MODERATOR: Welcome the victorious Florida Gators and their head coach, Mike White. Coach, opening statement? MIKE WHITE: Thank you. What a game, my goodness. We did enough in the end. The Wolf Pack were terrific. They continued to fight. They made great adjustments. They sped the game up. I thought we did a great job of controlling tempo. The biggest key to the game I thought it might put us if we played well enough to put us in a position of success both offensively and defensively, 12 or 14 minutes in the game, anxious to watch it. They did a great job of changing their defense, pressed us in both the half court and the full court and sped us up. They got downhill in transition offense. Now we know firsthand, we saw it live and up close, why this team has won so many games these last couple of years. It was a big win for us. Nevada is terrific. We did enough down the stretch led by these two seniors, had enough poise and toughness, few possessions there late where it could have got away from us. We lost a little bit of poise at times but did enough, made some huge plays down the stretch to obviously survive and advance. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes? Q. Jalen, you guys held Caleb 5 of 22 in shooting. What did you do to make him so offensively inefficient? JALEN HUDSON: We just tried to slow him down and both the Martin brothers are really good in transition. So we were just trying to slow them down in transition and make him take tough, contested shots. Q. Kevarrius, what do you think happened in the last 15 minutes that it almost got away from you guys and how did you feel like you were part of the turnaround? KEVARRIUS HAYES: I felt like we didn't pay attention enough, felt like we got a little bit of a lead, a little too casual, reminded the team it was far from over. We had to stay locked in, in the moment and we had to stand together and eventually we dug ourselves out and could do enough to finish the game. Q. Jalen, obviously Nevada made a couple of huge second half comebacks in the last year's NCAA Tournament. They made a run at you. What do you think made the difference this year that they weren't able to do that? JALEN HUDSON: It was really just a team effort. I felt like during that 10-minute stretch six or seven minutes of it they were controlling the tempo and they were able to speed us up and we were making jump passes which are not allowed in the program. So that stood out and took us out of character and we were also in the bonus, too. They were starting to foul and it helped us get to the free throw line and stop the clock and get into our defense and we ran a zone at them, and us playing the 13 slowed the clock down as well. So it was good for us. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you. Questions for Coach? Q. Coach, talk about the switching to the 1-3-1? Had you seen anything on tape that decided if it was close you would break that out? Describe what you did to implement that switch late because it threw them off? MIKE WHITE: Sure. What we saw on tape was just how dynamic they are offensively. You've got a little bit of time here where you want to sharpen all your tools, if you will, leading into the NCAA Tournament, of course, and we worked on the three or four different zones this week in preparation just knowing that, again, we wanted to be able to throw everything at them. We had decided to run our 13 much earlier than that, but we had to score to get in it. We just couldn't score. I had to remind, I've got a great staff and actually one of them suggested it early and then the other couple guys kept saying we got to get into 13 and we had to remind each other we had to score. They did a great job of speeding us up. They made us play a little bit faster and if we had just been able to convert one of those floaters, contested layups, one of those, and they've got great length. Obviously you're not going to get many open looks against them, but we had a couple that rolled around the rim there which might have been able to help us settle in a little bit and change defenses on them. The run was fantastic. I mean, their effort in the second half, the way that they played, they were terrific. I think that the average viewer would probably attest most of it to their offense but they were out in transition because they were getting stops. They were playing with a crazy amount of energy, running and jumping both in the half court and the full court and it was a great adjustment. Obviously, again, we did just enough. We were very fortunate to hold on. Q. Coach, you guys for the first 10 minutes were getting outrebounded 10-2 and then the next 10 minutes you outrebounded them 12-2. How did you change the intensity and get after the 50/50 balls? MIKE WHITE: I'm not sure we made a big adjustment there. First media I remember talking to our guys and they talked. Our seniors have taken good ownership especially late in the season led by Kevarrius and Jalen here lately, understood that we were getting beat up on the glass led by Jordan Caroline. He is as good of an offensive rebounder as we have played all year. He is just a handful. We understood once the ball went in force a few times we settled in. Sometimes that can happen for you. You play with a little bit more pep in your step with the lead when you are in a decent flow, getting some stops and getting some scores. Q. Coach, did you feel like this was a new level of a resolve that your team showed down the stretch? They did make it interesting, but they got within two and your guys still held them off. MIKE WHITE: Yeah, I would say, playing in the SEC and then playing the nonconference schedule that we played, it seems like we've had, I'm just guessing off the top of my head, 15 games like that where late in the game, you know, it's a 1-2 possession game within a couple of minutes, whether you're up or down. We had a stretch during the season where we lost those games. Continued to play really hard and lost some composure at times and then we went on a stretch where we won some of those games and then we had the home game against LSU and we lost a heartbreaker. Then we were able to win a heartbreaker against LSU in the tournament and then lost one to Auburn. We've been here in these situations. These may be unique where you are up big where you make that type of run but you used the word "resolve" I believe. This team has been pretty good in that category and gotten better throughout the year. This team early in the year I thought had a little bit of toughness. I think this team now possesses a lot of toughness, and mentally we've probably made a bigger improvement than the physical level of toughness in that it's more important to our seniors late in the year and our freshmen have grown up a lot. Q. You're going against Jordan Caroline and Caleb Martin and you hold them to 9 turnovers and 7 made field goals. Why were you so effective against those two players? MIKE WHITE: You know, we've been really good defensively all year. I'm looking at their offensive numbers and we have had a lot of performances like that. This team, we have struggled to score at times. I think slowing the tempo helped us a lot, and if they lived in transition offense the whole game we would have been in trouble. They're so electric playing downhill. Jalen said it by setting our half court defense it gave us a better chance to guard these guys. Our guys have active hands. They have gotten more competitive throughout the year. I thought we contested a lot of shots but they missed a few, especially late in the game. I thought both the Martin twins had a few open looks and sometimes it's a make-or-miss game, and we were fortunate that they did. Beyond that, I don't know that we did anything really special. I would say probably more than anything it came with the preparation and level of respect that was necessary to guard these guys. Our guys, when you watch film on these guys and you show personnel our guys were like, wow! They knew we had our not hands full. They knew we would have to guard at a really high level to have success tonight. Q. Coach, 3:44 mark of the game, final media timeout. Describe what the huddle was like and how proud of your guys are you that they were able to finish it out? MIKE WHITE: Really proud. We looked a little disconnected there for about six or seven minutes. When the run started we looked like we could stymie it and we would be fine. All of the sudden they cut it to maybe ten and they looked a little different. When it was in not single digits, there for a little while. That's probably the mark there, probably the last media. I didn't like the body language. I was very concerned with our level. We talked about toughness and focus. I thought we were just watching the clock and hoping a little bit and we had been there earlier in the year. I don't know what the score was at the last media, but I know we got a couple of stops there and converted a little bit, whether it be a field goal or two. I don't quite remember, but I know we converted some at the foul line late that allowed us to change defenses and I thought we did a pretty good job in our zone late in the game. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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