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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: TULSAMarch 22, 2019Kelvin SampsonFabian White, Jr.Corey Davis, Jr.Tulsa, Oklahoma Houston - 84 Georgia State - 55 THE MODERATOR: We'll ask Coach Sampson to open up with a statement on the game and, we'll go to questions for all three members of the Houston Cougars. Kelvin, please. KELVIN SAMPSON: I thought tonight was an extension of how we play. I don't think you can play 34 games and get to an NCAA Tournament and become somebody else. This is who we are. We had 22 assists. It's been big for us all year, our ball movement. We pass up good shots for great shots. Our unselfishness, our ability to attack the offensive boards. I thought Fabian -- we felt like we had an advantage on the boards and that's important to us. Rebounding is very, very important to our program, and I'm looking at second chance points. We had 40 points in the paint. Ten second chance points. Then our shooting percentage was a reflex of our shot selection. You know, took good shots, moved the ball. And then defensively we had a plan on how we wanted to guard them behind the 3-point line. And I thought our kids really executed the game plan really, really good. Everybody was solid. Then our ISO defense was very good as well. Good defense, good rebounding, good ball movement. Good win. Move on. Q. Kelvin, just you know, after a big year, 32 wins American regular season championships and now second year in a row to the tournament, what does this mean -- win mean for your program? KELVIN SAMPSON: You know, I don't know if I quantify it like that. I think everything you said was important, we just want to advance. I think looking back at something means it's over. We've got another game Sunday. This is such a special group of kids in term of their preparation, their leadership, especially Corey and Galen. I think what we've done, you know, some people appreciate it more than others, you know. That's fine. But we know what we're accomplishing. We're moving toward our goal. Everybody wants to play as long as they can in this tournament as they can. So our focus is just live to fight another day. And Sunday will be a big game, and if we play well, we'll have a chance. That's all I care about. Q. Coach, you say that you just want to advance. Many times you didn't advance out of the first round. To do it as impressively as did you and, like you said, match, the way you played all season, you have to be -- feel good about the guys doing what they can do instead of playing a game they're not used to. KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah. You know, we stay inside our cocoon. Jerome is not -- you just described a very big picture of something. I'm not really a big picture guy when it comes to preparing our team. I was more focused on, for instance, one of the adjustments we made, we stopped running stuff. Just move the ball. Our worse stretch when the ball is in Galen's hands during the first half when we trying to run an action, a play, if you will. We said we don't need to run anything, move it. Get the ball moving from side to side. It will find the right shot. Then once we get them moving and the ball is shot, if we don't make it, we'll have a good angle to go get offensive rebounds. I was focused more on that. As far as the implications of playing good as it relates to winning the first round game, I don't really ever focus on that, you know. You get pounded in if you lose, that's for sure. If you don't play well, you're going to lose. Saw a lot of teams yesterday and today didn't play good and they lost. That's just the way it is. It's a tournament. It's not the NBA where it's four out of seven. We've won 32 games. One thing that we know how to do is we know how to win a game. That's apparent. Q. Corey, given how last year's season came to an abrupt end, how much did that exit last year drive you for this year's NCAA Tournament? COREY DAVIS, JR.: I feel like all the returners who came back from last year's game, they've been on fire since June. We all experienced what it felt like to lose in March and especially in that type of fashion. I mean, that's -- you can't have better motivation as that point, especially for me as a senior, Galen, everybody feeling like felt after that game. We're always trying to put our team in the best position to win. Q. Kelvin, you came out with a real hot start, up 19 - 5. How important were those starts to where you are right now? KELVIN SAMPSON: You know, watching film, little bit different than seeing someone in person when you've only seen them on film. We hadn't seen -- obviously we hadn't seen them all year, just like they hadn't seen us all year. You know, once you see them in person, the game gets going, you can figure out where you can hurt them. But Armoni got a lot of clean looks tonight. He did make one toward the end. Our spacing, our spacing tonight was really good. In transition it was good. When you're running to slots and spacing in the corners and then we're able to kind of punch them inside with Breaon. Now you got them spread out. You got Corey in one corner and Armoni in the other, somebody in the slot. They've got to decide how they're going to guard Breaon. If they got somebody, he knew where his outlets were. They played him one-on-one, they played Breaon one-on-one, unless you have great length, he struggles to score over six-ten, six-eleven kids. They didn't have those. We were content to space them and throw it inside to him. Anytime we got outside of who we were, we just kind of got back to home base. Q. Corey, you tweeted after the game last week it was the worst game of your career by far. To come out like did you today, to have the kind of game you had today less than a week later, how does that hit you? COREY DAVIS, JR.: That's the standards I set for myself. Because, I mean, I just want to be that guy that's a consistent person, just to give my team an uplift when they need him. I felt like the championships game I didn't do that at all on either sides of the ball, because there were a lot of plays I was getting blown by. I was very disappointed in my play in the championships game. I wanted to come back in the tournament, just kind of redeem myself individually, but make sure I was there for my teammates and just perform like I can perform. Q. Fabian, can you talk about how aggressive you were from the start and how it was critical to what you did today? FABIAN WHITE, JR.: We had a meeting, me and Coach Kelvin, it was a time in the season when the four of us weren't doing nothing. Other 4s were scoring against us and rebounding against us. Coach Sampson challenged me and us to rebound better and that's my focus every time I step on court now is just to rebound and play hard. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the gentlemen from Houston? All right. Well, then thank you and good luck Sunday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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