	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

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

March 22, 2019

Columbia, South Carolina

Virginia - 71, Gardner-Webb - 56

THE MODERATOR: Gardner-Webb head coach Tim Craft with student-athletes David Efianayi, D.J. Laster, Brandon Miller, and Jose Perez.

TIM CRAFT: Yeah, I'm just unbelievably proud of our team for really just our entire season. This hurts to lose, but in our second half, we just didn't play particularly well. I thought Virginia had a lot to do with that. I think Virginia's a terrific team, obviously.

Just really proud of our group, proud of these guys up here and all the guys in our locker room and what they've done for our school, for our university, for our alumni, our former players, our community. This run that they've been on, that we've been on, has just done so much for a lot of people in our area and that are associated with Gardner-Webb.

So just very thankful to coach this group of guys, to coach these three seniors, and just very, very thankful.

Q. This is for the players. Talk about the great start you got off to and the support from your fans. It looked like you really fed off your fans in the first half.
DAVID EFIANAYI: Yes, sir. I think we just came out with a lot of energy. We were moving the ball well, and we were making great shots.

D.J. LASTER: At the beginning of the first half, our fans really had us going, and we fed off their energy. We were just playing well as a team -- passing the ball, making the right cuts, making the right plays. It was a really good experience for them to all show support, and even at the end, they were still showing support.

BRANDON MILLER: Pretty much the beginning of the game, the nerves kick in. Everyone's excited. We're moving the ball, we're scoring. The first bucket, everyone was going crazy. First one for us in March Madness, it was a great experience. The fans, the best I've ever seen in my five years. That really motivated us to do better and just keep Gardner-Webb happy at the end of the day.

JOSE PEREZ: It was a great atmosphere here. I just want to thank the fans for traveling from Boiling Springs down here. It's a small town. Looked like there was about a thousand people here supporting us. It was a great atmosphere.

Q. Obviously, first time, we've written a lot about that. You mentioned a little bit of it, Brandon, for the players. You all didn't seem to play nervous early on. Was it because it was going well? Everything looks good when shots are falling, but how did you fight off not being nervous coming into this historic first game for you?
BRANDON MILLER: I mean, we just played our game. At the end of the day, we all strap up the same way. So no matter what school you're going to, at the end of the day, the ball goes in one hoop, you know. So for us, it was just being ready, be prepared. We had a couple of days to prepare. Practice was crazy good. A lot of guys communicating and talking. At the end of the day, we want to win. We didn't really care about anything else but winning.

So definitely us staying locked in, staying together, and just communication is best. Guys were just flowing together, you know. No one wanted to be a ball hog today and be a hero. That was something that really lightened my eyes as a guy that didn't play much, but such an experience. A crazy experience and something I will never forget.

Q. Brandon, you mentioned that you wanted to win, but when you get some time to kind of look back on this, you won the Big South Tournament, two road games -- yeah, it wasn't happily ever after with Cinderella, but you were up 14 in the first half. Is it something you think, when you have a little time and distance to look at, you'll be like, that was pretty amazing?
BRANDON MILLER: It's amazing, but you don't want to settle for it. You want more out of it. We're hungry for more. It's not enough to settle for it. Yeah, we're up 14, and all of a sudden give up the lead. We're dogs. At the end of the day, we want to keep pushing that lead as much as we can. It didn't go our way like we wanted it to. They figured it out a little bit. This is just motivation for the guys coming up next, especially for Jose and all of them. They're going to stay hungry, and they'll be back next year for sure.

Q. I know the end result was not what you wanted, but what does it mean to each one of the players to have the opportunity to participate in March Madness in an NCAA Tournament?
DAVID EFIANAYI: It was a dream come true. As a player, you want to play at the highest level, and March Madness is basically the high level in college. So it's a dream come true for me and for all the guys just to be playing at the highest level.

D.J. LASTER: Yeah, like he said, just a great experience, like something I'll never forget, something I could tell my kids that I participated in. It's just good that we were able to do it for the school and do it for the community also, and I just thank God just giving us the opportunity to play in this. Just through success and failure, I still give God all the glory for just giving us the opportunity to compete and play against the Number 1 seed and showing that we can compete with them in the first half. We just let it go a little bit. But still give God the glory through success and failure.

BRANDON MILLER: For me, it's unforgettable. I could carry this on for the rest of my life, and no one can take it from me. You can do what you want at the end of the day, but we're Conference champs, made history at Gardner-Webb, and that's something no one can take from us, and we take pride in that.

I'm going to dream about this tonight for sure. It was a great experience, and the fans have been amazing. There's no better way to go out senior year than going to March Madness.

JOSE PEREZ: Well, as a freshman playing in March Madness is like definitely a dream come true, and being a part of it with these guys, they're like family, especially Dave, D.J., and Brandon. Those are guys that in practice pushed me every day, even when I was going through the motions sometimes. They just push me to become better every day. We can compete with anybody. Unfortunately, we didn't come out with the win today, though.

Q. For you, Jose, obviously, those three seniors, you said pushed you. You talked a lot about how the seniors have tried so hard to get to this point. You've got a chance to come back. How much have you learned through this process, and how much of their leadership will help going forward with the program?
JOSE PEREZ: I've learned a ton from them. They're like my role models, even though I don't tell them because they'll probably pick on me for that. But, yeah, I learned a lot from them on and off the court, like how to move and stuff like that. It's just great. It's sad it had to end today, though.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Craft?

Q. In the second half, as they decided to use their size to their advantage a lot more, how difficult is it for your guys to cover a guy like De'Andre Hunter, who is an NBA lottery pick, and they're able to really kind of stretch out that floor?
TIM CRAFT: Yeah, I think it was difficult for everybody in the ACC this year for the most part, so it was going to be a difficult challenge for us. We ended up -- they did, they beat us up on the glass. I thought they made some good adjustments, both offensively and defensively, to exploit some areas that in the beginning of the first half, they weren't.

But they were getting it on those pick-and-rolls like right to the block and being able to kind of finish over our smaller size. And then when they missed jumpers, they were getting them back a lot early. Credit those guys for getting to the glass, for fighting on the glass. I was a little disappointed with our effort on the defensive glass. I didn't think it was -- obviously, not good enough. But I did think they made some good adjustments to kind of get it to a spot that was hard for us to guard, and Hunter was -- yeah, he's a monster for us to guard, and most of the country.

Q. How did you approach halftime? What was going on in your mind, and what did you tell the team?
TIM CRAFT: We felt like we had a great half, obviously, and we talked about some of the things that we felt like led to us getting stops and led to us being able to get good shots and just kind of emphasized trying to continue to do those things. We really emphasized trying to communicate defensively on that far end because they weren't going to have our bench, you know, kind of talking to them and calling things out and to try to stay connected there.

I think in that first four minutes, I really thought that first four minutes was going to be critical, whichever way it went. If we were able to make a run there early, maybe we put a little pressure on them, but that didn't happen. I thought, when they made a couple buckets and we struggled to score and had some bad offensive possessions, then we started to break down defensively. We started to give stuff up that we didn't give up in the first half. Some of that was mental, just not responding to adversity in the way that we needed to. That was unfortunate.

But I thought that Virginia really made some great adjustments there to attack us in some weak spots. But that's what we talked about at halftime. We just tried to emphasize the game plan again, and we said, hey, let's try to do it again for another 20 minutes.

Q. At that point, the elephant in the room is you're leading the Number 1 seed. Did you address that at all, or was that all basketball?
TIM CRAFT: No, it was just about, hey, here's what we've done well. In the last four minutes, they got a couple offensive rebounds. We've got to keep fighting on the glass. Here's the keys that we talked about before the game. Let's make sure we're continuing to do these things well, and let's make sure we stay connected down on that far end because we're not going to be in your ear.

And when they make a run because they're going to make a run, we'd better stay together and be able to come back and have good offensive possessions.

No, we're trying -- we came into the game, obviously, knowing we're playing a great team, but we certainly came into the game with a game plan and with good players that we felt like, if we have a chance to execute, we'll have a chance in the end.

Q. Coach Bennett referenced that last four minutes of the first half and thought that kind of gave them a little bit of momentum. Surprised that you started as well as you did? And did you think that that kind of shifted the game's momentum?
TIM CRAFT: Well, I wouldn't say I wasn't surprised necessarily. You hope to start well. You prepare to play well. So when you play well, I don't think that you're going to be surprised. But our guys played with a lot of confidence. I think they -- I think probably them talking about some things in time-outs, talking about some things at halftime as the game wore on and they got a little bit of a rhythm guarding us, and they made some adjustments. They started switching Jose Perez's pick-and-rolls, which he had made some threes early. So that took his threes away. Then we were trying to post him on the smaller, 0, Clark, their point guard, and they were doubling the post, and we didn't handle that great.

D.J. Laster had some success inside there early, and they began to double the post. Their length bothered us when they came with the double-teams, and we were getting passes deflected. Just our offensive rhythm was out of sorts. That last three minutes, and I thought a lot of the second half as well.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297