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

March 23, 2019

Columbia, South Carolina

THE MODERATOR: Our student-athletes from Oklahoma, Jamal Bieniemy, Kristian Doolittle, Christian James, Brady Manek.

Q. Christian James, can you talk about playing a big role on the Final Four team and sort of your mindset at that point thinking this is going to happen every year and all those things, and then three years later, you finally got another NCAA Tournament victory, and just the frustrations of fighting through what you -- I assume you sort of expected was going to happen a lot.
CHRISTIAN JAMES: Definitely coming in as a freshman, you don't know how hard it is on a collegiate level to make it into the Final Four. My freshman year, I thought we were going to go every year. It's definitely a lot harder than it looks. I'm having great guard play and just great players on my freshman team.

We had some struggles my sophomore year and my junior year, but I'm just doing what it takes. Just hard work and dedication. I'm locking in every game. Have to take every game seriously. I feel like this team -- we have a pretty good team. We can do that. I feel like we can go on a big run. We got a lot of work ahead, though.

Q. This is for Brady. The numbers would indicate that yesterday was your best -- the team's best offensive game of the season. Did you as a player perceive it as such?
BRADY MANEK: Yeah, I think so. I think yesterday was probably the most fun we've had as a team. I mean, we came out, and we hit them first. Everybody contributed, whether it was find an open guy or knocking down shots. I think everybody played a really big role in yesterday's victory.

Q. I guess this is for any of you all. Do you -- in a region that has, I think, three double-digit seeds left, and y'all are the 9 seed here, do you feel like a Cinderella at all because you've got to take on the top seed tomorrow?
JAMAL BIENIEMY: No. We expect to be in this position. That's what we worked for all season, and we kept chipping away. That's just our expectation.

CHRISTIAN JAMES: Like Jamal said, we've worked hard. We worked hard all year just to get to this point. I don't want to say a Cinderella story, but we've worked hard, and we kind of expect to be in this situation. We just want to take it one game at a time, lock in and focus. When the lights come on, we just want to show up.

BRADY MANEK: I don't think we want to take anybody lightly. Just we know what we have to do. Now we have to bring energy like we did yesterday and just play hard and play together.

Q. Brady and Christian, UVA is a pack line defense. Everyone knows about it. They play to keep teams out of the paint. You guys have a really strong inside-out game. What do you think about that system, and what's the key to maybe competing against that system?
BRADY MANEK: I think just moving the ball, finding the open guy, finding a possible mismatch here and there, just doing small things correctly and hopefully getting better results.

KRISTIAN DOOLITTLE: You're asking me? Moving the ball, like Brady said, inside and out, just being able to make the right play, not really forcing the issue, like we did the other day. Being able to just take the right shot and just trusting the offense that we have set in stone for the game.

Q. This is for Christian James. Christian, Virginia is ranked among the top ten nationally in defensive efficiency, but so too are Texas Tech and Kansas State, teams you're very familiar with. As f.
You have studied Virginia -- I don't know how much you've gotten into yet -- but do you see any similarities between UVA and, perhaps, Texas Tech and/or Kansas State, especially on the defensive end?

CHRISTIAN JAMES: Most definitely. They're both long teams, very long, and they play with great help defense. When we penetrate, they do a great job of swarming to the ball. That's something that they have in similarities and things like that. They're great teams, great teams. We've been watching them. We've been studying them. Like Brady said, we just have to move the ball and find the right guy, find the open man.

Q. Christian James, you guys are a senior-dominated team. The four up there, you're the only senior. Do you find yourself as a senior being more desperate when you reach the NCAA Tournament, realizing, hey, this is my last chance? Got a bigger sense of urgency maybe than you did before your senior year?
CHRISTIAN JAMES: Most definitely. Most definitely. Last year and my sophomore year, I was really frustrated. We made it to the tournament last year, but it kind of hurt me a lot. Just looking forward and being in a situation again, I don't want to take anything for granted. Being a senior on this team, just making plays or just getting somebody else going, that's really big for our team because we have a lot of great players. I just want to come out and do whatever I can just to get a win.

The energy has to be there, and I'll make sure my team is ready to play.

Q. Brady, three of the last four games, you got 22, 21, and 18 points. What's the reason for your game sort of accelerating to such consistent high production?
BRADY MANEK: I think just having guys like Jamal on the court with me, find an open guy, having other threats on the court, too. They can't just face guard me the whole time. They have other guys on this court to be threats on the offensive end. I think just everybody having their confidence up. We played well yesterday.

Going back to the Texas and Kansas games, everybody really had their confidence high, and I think that plays a big part in how everybody and myself score like that.

Q. This is for any one of you guys who would care to answer. If they didn't look so much alike, would you know that the two Coach Krugers are related just in the way they act or the way they interact?
KRISTIAN DOOLITTLE: I mean, Kev has his own personality. We call Coach Kruger's son Kev because they're both Krug. Kev has his own personality. He's a young guy, so we have side conversations with him all the time. Big Krug been through it all, so he's speaking from experience whenever he's telling us something. We can relate to Kev whenever we're just sitting around talking or chilling. But to answer your question, I mean, that's kind of tough. I'm pretty sure Big Krug was just the way Kev is when he was younger. So it's kind of hard.

JAMAL BIENIEMY: I spent a lot of time with Coach Kev, and I can definitely see some similarities, and I can see Coach Kruger acting like Kev when he was younger.

Q. For Christian James, it looks as if you had that five-game losing streak, went to TCU, got the win. What kind of turning point was that in your season?
CHRISTIAN JAMES: It was huge for us. We went on a losing streak, and we went to their place and got a win, so that was big for us just to go get an away game just to get our momentum rolling again.

Q. Brady, what was missing during the five-game losing streak? Why did that happen, and what's better now?
BRADY MANEK: I don't know. I just think we had a few close ones, and then they kind of brought us down, and getting that TCU win brought us back up. I think just our confidence level was kind of low at the time, and I think winning a few games got it back up and led to where we are now.

Q. For Kristian Doolittle, want to get your impressions on Virginia's bigs, in particular Mamadi Diakite, and what kind of challenges he brings on the defensive end?
KRISTIAN DOOLITTLE: Can you say their names again?

Q. Mamadi Diakite, 25.
KRISTIAN DOOLITTLE: That's better. The Coach was telling us today all their bigs are tall and long. They read the post on every post touch, whether it be the bigs or guards. Passing the ball around would be very tough. Being able to throw around hands. With that said, we have to make them pay for doubling, so just making the right play and knocking down shots.

THE MODERATOR: Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger. We'll start questioning on the right-hand side.

Q. Coach, I was talking to your son about the experience of playing for you, working for you. I'm just curious, as a coach who's seen all that it entails in the business, did you want Kevin to go into coaching after basketball, and what has that experience been like?
LON KRUGER: It's been a great experience. What he chose to do, as any parent, you want your kids to be happy and enjoy what they do. I'm not disappointed that he decided to do that for sure. Surely, it was his decision. But it's been great, from the time as a player, when a young guy or daughter leaves home after high school, you really don't expect to be around them on a daily basis ever again, perhaps, and we've been blessed with the opportunity to spend a lot of time together since he graduated from high school and graduated from Arizona State when he came back as a fifth-year grad to UNLV and now back on the staff. So it's fantastic. You can't beat it.

Q. Coach, Kihei Clark for Virginia yesterday was very active in terms of chasing loose balls, getting steals, getting rebounds. What have you seen from him so far, and how do you prepare for a player like that who's so active?
LON KRUGER: He's engaged in everything. Like you say, he's active defensively. He's alert. All the players do a great job of being alert, focused on each possession. He keys a lot of things they do offensively. Terrific leader for them, it appears. Does a good job on both ends.

Q. Lon, how has the recruiting of international guys changed since you first became a college coach?
LON KRUGER: Back then, it was probably rare to have a foreign player on the team. Now, it seems like a majority of teams have at least one from outside the country. So just the numbers of foreign players have changed a lot. I think the technology, the video, the information that's available today on foreign players is much greater than it was 40 years ago for sure.

Q. Do you find yourself recruiting them more through that technology, or do you get out and get feet on the ground and go see those guys? How do you do it?
LON KRUGER: Usually, it's the technology. You get video on someone, and you're intrigued, and maybe you have an international competition or you may catch them when they're touring the United States. We did that with Matt Freeman. We saw some video, and he was playing an event in Vegas actually that we watched him four or five summers ago and liked him more. Usually starts with a video, though, on someone that gives us a heads-up on someone.

Q. Coach, you competed against Dick Bennett back when you were both in the Big Ten. As you study Virginia on film, do you see Dick Bennett in what Tony Bennett does?
LON KRUGER: Tony does -- he's got his own standpoint for everything he does, but certainly, how difficult it is to score, the great job they do defensively. His dad's teams are always like that. So maybe a little bit different style in a way, but still the difficulty in playing against him is very similar for sure.

Q. Coach, Virginia is known for its pack line defense. What have you seen out of the defense, and have you faced anyone this year that you can compare their defense to?
LON KRUGER: They're very, very good. Not many people as good in the country as they are. Probably out of our league, the two teams that are a little bit pack line, very, very tough to score on. Texas Tech, Kansas State, probably reminds you more in preparation than any other teams, and we had trouble scoring on those teams. So we've got to improve for tomorrow.

Q. When you're approaching tomorrow's game, do you kind of play the psychological angle that, hey, you're the 9 seed, you can be Cinderella, or do you go at it, hey, you play in the Big 12. You play teams like this all the time, and we'll just have at it.
LON KRUGER: Combination probably of the two. We want to play. We want to be aggressive. We want to attack. We want to be dictating. We try to go into every ball game thinking that way. Certainly we've played a lot of good teams in the Big 12, and Virginia is every bit as good as them based on the rankings. So, yeah, we'll go in, swing away and go ahead and try to do the best things that give us the best chance to be effective.

Q. Couple more on your son real quickly. He mentioned that earlier in your career you were not a guy to sit. Your demeanor on the sideline has changed. Is that older, wiser? What's behind that?
LON KRUGER: I don't know if it's -- I don't think about how it's changed necessarily. But, yeah, probably -- I don't know about the wiser part, certainly the older part for sure.

Q. In terms of your relationship away from the court and away from -- do you have to guard against being too much Oklahoma basketball with him and trying to have some other -- or do you -- is every family dinner Oklahoma basketball related?
LON KRUGER: I think a good mixture. Certainly, when you start the season in early October, there really aren't any days off until it ends in April. So it's kind of just every coach's life. I don't know that you ever go through a day not thinking about basketball and talking about basketball. So there's certainly a blend of that. But there's a lot of other interest, as well.

Q. Coach, the numbers would indicate that yesterday was your team's best offensive performance of the season, if not going back even farther. From a coach's more critical eye, was that indeed the case?
LON KRUGER: Probably one of the top ones for sure. Three weeks ago, probably Kansas had a really good, similar type performance against Kansas in Norman or had a good margin throughout the game and kind of played for 40 minutes. I thought yesterday the key was being able to sustain it for 40 minutes. Getting off to such a great start, and they made a little run to start the second half. Then we scored quickly right on the heels of their run and kind of widened the margin back out.

I thought the guys were really focused for 40 minutes and took good care of the ball, and shot selection was good. Like the guys mentioned, moved the ball well and trusted each other and made good plays.

Q. Christian James, I believe, was on your Final Four team as a freshman. How much have you leaned on him this season for leadership? Specifically in this tournament environment, how much do you lean on him to kind of guide the younger guys?
LON KRUGER: We've got seven or eight seniors. It's a case where collectively they do a good job, Christian being one of them. He's played a big role for us all year long, he's made big shots for us. I thought he really had a good game yesterday, not just offensively, but his focus and engagement on the defensive end and rebounding the ball and just the complete game, I thought, was really good from him yesterday.

Q. Coach, 25-year anniversary of your Final Four team at Florida. What do you remember about that team? What did you learn from that team? Sort of just the legacy of that team?
LON KRUGER: It was a great group of young guys. I think probably the biggest thing is they really trusted each other. I think they really respected the abilities, expected one another to take care of the responsibilities. They really came together as the year developed, a lot of confidence out of the group, great leadership out of Dan Cross and Andrew DeClercq, Dametri Hill, Brian Thompson, Craig Brown -- you go down the list a long way. They were very secure with themselves and trusted each other and enjoyed playing together.

Q. Lon, your teams have always run really great offense, even through the period of time when things got really difficult to move. So I'm wondering, now that we're like three or four years into the freedom of movement thing, sort of really going at it from the rules standpoint; what you've thought of that initiative and whether you think it's effective in making the game more attractive.
LON KRUGER: I think the intentions are great. I think people want to see movement. They want to see scoring. I think it opened up a little bit. I don't know that we've fully maximized on our goals. It's tough to score in the low post, all the physicalness of that. I think that's why you see more people going to the three-point shot. It's such a higher percentage shot. It takes a really skilled guy to score in the low post with all the contact that occurs on every shot. I think that's not necessarily healthy for the game. I think we would like to maybe get back to re-examining where we're at and where we want to go and maybe try to clean it up even a little bit more.

Today a guy keeps his hands back, he can do pretty much anything he wants with his body, in the low post especially. There's a lot of walking under, a lot of moving into guys as they shoot the ball. So it makes it a tough to score in there.

Q. Coach, as you look at Ty Jerome and the way he sort of commands things offensively and defensively, what challenges does he present? And specifically, his willingness to take threes from just inside of the half-court line, how does that enter into your defensive plan?
LON KRUGER: He's terrific. Like you said, he can score from deep. He can get in the paint and score. He's very, very good with ball screens and making plays, finding big guys. He just puts the pressure on the defense all the time because he sees the floor. He's got great vision, great imagination. Really a good player.

Q. Lon, you mentioned the difficulty about scoring in the post. When you look at Virginia's bigs, particularly Mamadi Diakite, what do you see out of him and the challenges that he presents?
LON KRUGER: He's terrific. He's long, rangy in there. They've got great poise when they catch it inside. He did a great job last night of catching it a couple times in a crowd and just collecting himself and letting the defense kind of make a mistake and then score. And, again, Hunter's great. Salt brings a different dimension to it. So their big guys are good.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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