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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLEMarch 21, 2019Nathan HooverCameron JacksonFletcher MageeMike YoungJacksonville, Florida Wofford - 84, Seton Hall - 68 THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you could give us your thoughts about the big win tonight in round 1. MIKE YOUNG: How does our commissioner feel right now? JOHN IAMARINO: Pretty damned good! MIKE YOUNG: Yeah, just hats off to a really fine and exceptionally well-coached Seton Hall team. I knew that they were going to keep coming and keep coming. Myles is awesome. I did think we did a pretty good job on him as a team. Proud of my boys. Look forward to coming back over tomorrow and practicing with this team, I can't tell you how enjoyable that has been for me, and the thought of Wofford coming back on Saturday to face off against one of the great programs in our country in the Kentucky Wildcats, that's pretty cool stuff. We look forward to it. Q. Fletcher, could you talk about when you guys got on the -- after Nathan made two threes and then you followed it in the corner from the same spot that you had hit your two previous threes, were you just kind of feeling it there? Because you had a decent lead, you didn't let much shot clock expire. Was that more of a feeling-it type thing? FLETCHER MAGEE: Yeah, I think so. I knew that we had a lot of momentum going for us, and me and Nate were kind of feeding off each other at that point. We ran the same play to get it over there, and I felt like I was pretty open, so I decided to let it go. Q. Follow-up for Cameron: Could you give me what you feel is the distance that Fletcher will not go much beyond that to take a shot, like 26, 27? What number would you put on it that, OK, that's a little bit much? CAMERON JACKSON: I don't know. The kid can shoot it, so when he's open, I'm happy when he shoots it. I don't want to cap him. Whenever he wants to stop, he can stop, but I'm going to let him do his job and just hit threes. Q. Fletcher, can you just describe the moment when you hit the three that broke the record? Everyone was already standing on their feet before you even made the basket, right when you want to shoot it. I was wondering if you were aware of the crowd and if you could describe your emotions? FLETCHER MAGEE: Yeah, I was aware of it just from the media and everyone texting me and stuff, and saying I had three more. So when I hit it, I definitely noticed the crowd was louder than just the normal three in the second half. But I feel like I didn't caught too caught up in it. It was a close game. I was just focused on doing whatever I could to help us continue to stretch our lead and win down the stretch. I feel like I was aware of it, but I just kind of blocked it out and tried to focus on winning. Q. For the three players, what does it mean to be part of the first tournament victory in school history? NATHAN HOOVER: Oh, it means a lot to all of us, but we know we can't get caught up in the moment. We can enjoy it right now, but we know we have a lot of preparation to do and we're going to have a very tough game today. We know we came here to win and we came here to make it as far as we can, so we're just going to get ready for Saturday. Q. Fletcher, could you just talk a little bit about how tough Seton Hall's defenders really made it for you, particularly Myles Cale, No. 22, and you didn't seem to be forcing the issue very much in terms of getting frustrated and forcing up a shot. FLETCHER MAGEE: Yeah, they did a good job, especially in the first half, of just topping me and kind of making it hard to get the ball. But that's when Cam was playing amazing in the first half. Everyone else on our team was stepping up and doing a lot of things, so I knew that there was no need to rush it or take bad shots. We were still controlling the game. In the second half they went more to the match-up zone and there was some more open looks in the second half. Q. For all the players, have you guys watched Kentucky on TV this year? What are your impressions and what do you expect from them Saturday? CAMERON JACKSON: We've definitely watched Kentucky. They're on TV all the time. They're a very talented team. They've got a lot of guys that can score the ball. They're very athletic. So it's going to be a tough game. But we're welcoming the challenge. Q. Coach, how gratifying was it for you in the first half to watch your team go on a 13-0 run and not have Fletcher score at all? MIKE YOUNG: I didn't know that, but we've seen that so many times. We didn't play our second bunch as much as we typically do. But we've got a really talented team and a number of guys that can score. The big guy down there -- any time you can surround a person like Cameron with a number of guys that can crank it, and we've got a bunch of those, you'll be hard to guard. But I wasn't aware of that. Can't say I was surprised, but gratifying, yeah. On that stage, that's a big deal. Enjoyable. Q. This is for Coach, Fletch and Nate: The team seems to react differently to Cameron being the senior leader. What is it like having him on the floor, calming everyone down in those moments of chaos and stress and having that kind of leadership on the floor? FLETCHER MAGEE: Yeah, I think it's great. Cam definitely settles us down in tough times, and we know we can throw the ball in to him. He's going to either get a great shot for us or pass -- he's going to get a great shot for himself or pass it out. And then in the huddles, just talking, communicating the important things, I feel like he does a great job of just making sure that we're calm and ready for the next play. Q. Mike, what is it about your team that you guys finished the game on a big run? It seems like you never get rattled and frazzled at the end. MIKE YOUNG: No, man, I've seen it. We haven't had a lot of close games. But I think back to Greensboro, Sanford down six with 50 seconds to play. They never have that look about them like we've got a problem. You know, Seton Hall takes a stab at us, take the lead, was never an air of panic, never an air of, oh, my God, we've got a problem. Next possession, next best action. Figure it out. And they've done it time and time and time again. So comforting as a coach to be able to just manage the team. You're not trying to encourage them. You're not trying to lift their spirits. You're coaching the team, what's next, what are we looking at. That's a big deal. Q. Mike, obviously we knew that the record was going to come at some point tonight for Fletcher, but to have it come in a tournament game, how gratifying is that for you as a coach to have that all wrapped up into one special night? MIKE YOUNG: Really, really neat. Really neat. And what you don't see, what you don't have a pulse of is how uncommon he is and how hard he's worked time and time and time again in that gym. I go over often to watch film. I enjoy it, no phones, and I can't tell you how many times I walk in that gorgeous building of ours and there's a ball bouncing, and I know it's him. 9:00 at night, 10:00 at night, and he's not messing around. He's going at it, getting better. So proud of him, and I can't begin to tell you what a pleasure he has been to coach and be a part of our program. Q. Fletcher, being two hours from home, what was the final head count for friends and family members who showed up? FLETCHER MAGEE: It was definitely a lot. I'd say probably around like 50 people or so. MIKE YOUNG: More than that. FLETCHER MAGEE: Maybe 75 people. I don't know, I had a lot of some of my high school friends and teammates came, pretty much all my family that lives in Orlando, and just a lot of people that I've grown up with and seen along the way, they all came here to support me. So it was really cool to have everyone come and for us to get the win like we did. Q. Did you think it was even cooler to put on a show for them? FLETCHER MAGEE: That definitely didn't hurt, either. Q. This is also for Fletcher but a little different: Obviously your teammates set good screens for you and all that and you're the most prolific three-point shooter, so you know how hard it is to work to get open. Did you feel defensively you guys made it hard for Powell to do his thing? It took him 25 shots to get his points. FLETCHER MAGEE: Yeah, absolutely. Our game plan was to load over and to really make it tough on him and frustrate him. I feel like we did a decent job as a team. I know he ended up getting 27 on us, but we did a decent job as a team of making his points hard. He hit a lot of tough shots on us. When the guards got beat off the dribble, the bigs are coming up and helping over. So it was definitely a collective effort by everyone on the team to limit his points or at least make it as hard as we could. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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