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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN JOSE

March 23, 2019

Russell Turner

San Jose, California

MODERATOR: We welcome head coach Russell Turner to the dais. We'll open the floor for Coach for an opening statement, and then we'll open it up to questions.

RUSSELL TURNER: Thanks, everybody, for being here. As an opening statement, just want to say how proud I am of my team, how excited I am for the UC Irvine fans and alumni and community to be able to enjoy our team's success for another couple of days as part of this great event, the NCAA basketball tournament.

Q. Oregon has been on a great defensive spree here the last 10 or 11 games when you look at the stats. And obviously you've played good defenses before. What's unique about this challenge for your offense, and is it a matter of if we just play our offense -- do you feel like if you play your offense, you can still get your shots, or are you going to have to do something special?
RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah. I think we're going to have to play a special game to be effective. But we did that yesterday against a team that's actually a better-ranked defense than Oregon's. And that takes nothing away from Oregon. Oregon is incredibly improved, and that's a credit to their players and their staff.

They've got unusual length. They've got size and length more like an NBA team than a typical college team. So the looks that they're able to give to teams are different, and I think they've figured that out as this season has gonna long.

They challenge each team they face in multiple different ways. They don't just challenge you with the way they play man to man, they adjust to zone. Sometimes they make one thing look like the other. They often surprise teams with traps.

They remind me in many ways of playing Louisville in 2015. I thought that we were able to prepare in 2015 well for that game. We had longer to get ready. But I thought that the preparation in 2015 had occurred throughout the course of the season, not just in the week that we were playing.

There's nothing that Oregon is going to show us that we won't know how to handle, but they're going to show it to us with guys that are hard to handle. So we're going to have to be really good.

But we're different from what they are, and that can cause them problems, too.

Q. Coach, what makes Coach Blaine the Sister Jean of UC Irvine?
RUSSELL TURNER: (Laughs). You know, the other day in our watch party, I was addressing the fans who were there, and what I said was that, you know, a year ago Loyola Chicago was in the same position that day as we were, and at that time Loyola Chicago had a record of 28 and 5 and we were 30 and 5. And Loyola Chicago had created great momentum around a veteran group, and we've done the same thing, and probably even won more games in a row at that stage than they had. I don't know that to be true.

But I also said they had a secret weapon that everyone remembers in Sister Jean and that we also have a secret weapon that no one knows about, and it's Uncle Blaine.

So it was a play on words, you know, as a way to entertain the crowd, but Blaine is special for our team and our staff. You know, Blaine has 380 Division I wins. You can see that if you look it up. But more critical than that, he's just a talented basketball person, a coach, a motivator, a lot of different things that I was able to see up close when he and I worked together for Mike Montgomery here in the Bay Area in 2000.

And we also won 30 games that year. And 30 games in college basketball is rare air. So I remembered and was watching very closely what I saw from Blaine and went on to follow him when he went to Virginia, from where I'm from, to be the head coach at Old Dominion.

So when I had an opening on my staff, the opportunity to bring him back made so much sense because he was at a university in Old Dominion that's very similar to UC Irvine, and he accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. He won multiple conference championships. He won multiple conference tournament championships. He made the NCAA I think four times. Even once got an at-large bid and advanced in the tournament.

So when we won our conference tournament the other night, one of the things I said to him when I gave him a hug, was: Hey, this is why I brought you here. And I had that same feeling Friday when we won in the NCAA Tournament. You know, he had done it at a school like ours and has been a big part of us finding the way to also do it at Irvine. Sorry for the long answer.

Q. I know that don't want to put the cart before the horse, but whenever you look at teams that -- that term "mid majors," everybody talks about Gonzaga, that's no longer looked at that way because they've done it for 20 years. When you look at them, what are the things in their path to doing this that are applicable to a place like UC Irvine -- and, of course, you see others like Wofford and others, but applicable to your place where you could say why can't we do that, too, over the long-term?
RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah, I mean, you make a long list. Wofford this year, you know, Davidson, George Mason, VCU. There are more. You know, all those places have done what I'd like to dream that maybe we could do. And, I mean, hey, this year we're on the way. You know, who knows what's still possible for us. We're clearly making progress in the right direction, and I think that's what's critical.

Gonzaga didn't become what we are now in a short window. They gradually got better. They continued to improve, and they were committed to sustaining their success through the investments they made as a university.

I believe the same things are all possible at Irvine. Just as they've been at the other schools that I've mentioned. I don't get to just decide that that happens, but I can do my part really well, and that's what I've been focused on trying to do.

And I do think we've developed as a program an identity that suits us and our community and our university really well. I think the type of guys that we attract now are the type of guys that we can continue to attract. And as we do a better job at identifying even better players and we benefit from days like we had Friday and opportunities like we have today and tomorrow, we can also get better and better.

Q. I asked your players this question. What we love so much about March Madness is the Cinderella stories, obviously. And I asked them if they felt that they were a Cinderella. And that could be taken as a derogatory term --
RUSSELL TURNER: (Laughs.)

Q. You know? But how do you look at this team? Do you look at yourselves as a Cinderella story?
RUSSELL TURNER: I don't know. I mean, kind of. Depends on what that means to you. You know, Cinderella. Yeah, not every guy would like to be called that, I don't guess. I don't mind it because I think it's, you know, a positive expression for teams in this tournament that do something special. That's how I think of the term.

What it really means is underdog, and nobody minds being an underdog. Nobody knows better than we do that we're underdogs. But that doesn't really matter. You know, you gotta -- that's the great thing about this tournament. You get to settle it in a rectangle. And what your seed is doesn't matter. You play for it. And that's what we'll get a chance to do tomorrow. So if they call us Cinderella, that's fine. But I think we've earned everybody's respect, whatever they call us.

Q. I know it was a long time ago, but you guys went to A&M and won. The things that you learned about yourselves that night and what's translated into now, because that's a Power 5 team with a lot of good athletes on the road?
RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah, that was an important night for us to win that game. As you said, it's a Power 5 opponent with outstanding athleticism. You know, they really tried to challenge us, and we withstood that challenge.

It was a shock to us early in that game. They got off to a big lead because it was hard for us to adjust to their size, strength, length combination. But we were able to adjust and stay in the game and figure out ways to execute the things that we thought we would be able to execute in that matchup.

And then we got lucky in the end. You know, tossed one in with six seconds left to go up by one and withstood the last six seconds to win. But knowing -- even had we not won, I think our team would have emerged from that day knowing that we can play with anybody. That's what we truly believe. It doesn't mean we can play successfully on every possession against anybody, but we think we can figure out a way to have a chance in any matchup based on the experiences we've had together, the depth and talent of this roster and the combination of skills our guys have.

Q. You mentioned the length Oregon has, but at the point guard spot, Payton Pritchard has shown his ability to take over a game. What kind of threat does he pose to your team tomorrow?
RUSSELL TURNER: Well, he's played outstanding, especially recently. And anybody who's watched Oregon knows that, can look at his numbers. He's not only scored at a high level, but he's the one that gets easy shots for all of his teammates. And he's also an incredible game manager, I think, for them in the run that they've had. So he's an outstanding point guard, one that we fully respect.

I think we got a great matchup for him in Robert Cartwright, who's also a veteran, and it won't just be Robert's job to disrupt the rhythm that he's had. We'll try to do that as a team. But we've been pretty good as a team, our group has, when we've focused on the other team's most critical players. So I think he's got his hands full with us just like we do with him.

MODERATOR: Any additional questions? Sounds like we're good. Thanks, Coach.

RUSSELL TURNER: All right. Thank you all.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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