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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: LOUISVILLEMarch 28, 2019Mamadi DiakiteBraxton KeyLouisville, Kentucky Virginia-53, Oregon-49 Q. (Question regarding Kihei Clark) BRAXTON KEY: One of the top scorers probably and our point today. Q. His offense hasn't been consistent this season. How does he change your offense when he scores the way he did tonight? BRAXTON KEY: It's huge just like anyone outside of the big three. Someone is giving a big contribution like he is, Mamadi, myself, whoever it might be, it's huge. Gives the other team another person to look out for. Q. Coming out of a halftime, Kyle Guy was all smiles. What does it mean to miss 16 three-pointers and come out smiling? BRAXTON KEY: Kyle's confident. He's a shooter. Shooters are going to shoot. He doesn't care. If you told him he missed 16, he'd be okay, well, I'll shoot the next one. That that's the kind of confidence you've got to have and speaks volumes about him as a player individually. Q. Playing to the Elite Eight, how does it feel? BRAXTON KEY: It's huge. I mean, it's definitely a milestone for us. But we're not done yet. We're happy, we're excited, obviously. We don't want our season to end here. We're going to do what we have to do to keep moving forward. Q. I know it's early and you haven't scouted the team yet, but what do you know about them, the little bit that you did over the last game? BRAXTON KEY: They're tough. I was watching them against Tennessee. They were battling, getting offensive rebounds. They've got big guys inside. Williams played really well off Carsen. So they're tough and it's going to be a good battle between two tough teams. MAMADI DIAKITE: I missed the first couple times when I got the ball, I was missing a lot because I had to use my pump fake, and their guards were coming under me to steal the ball away from me. I was missing a little bit. After that, I was able to find my comfort zone, which was to just grab the ball and (indiscernible) and it started working. Q. Talk about that spurt at the end of the first half. Looks like you were probably able to get some dribble penetration and finish your shots. MAMADI DIAKITE: Yeah, the guards were more aggressive, so that put a lot of pressure on them. I was open most of the time, so I took advantage of that. Q. Talk about the defense you guys had down the stretch. That was really, really impressive. MAMADI DIAKITE: Offensively, we knew they were talented and long. It was hard to guard them. We had to do it together. So every timeout, we're coming out with more energy. Whenever we had, like, a break in the middle of the game, out of bounds or whatever, we have time to talk to each other. We're, like, lifting up each other and telling each other we need to do it differently tonight in order to win the whole game. That's what we did. Q. You talked yesterday about rebounds were going to win this game. How do you feel you did in that aspect? MAMADI DIAKITE: I was more aggressive on the board today. I had -- I don't remember. I think, yeah, 11, right? So I had like 11 boards. I was being very aggressive and putting a lot of pressure on them. Defensively, I wasn't allowing them to get a lot of rebounds over me. I was first fronting bodies, although sometimes some of the guards were very aggressive on the board. Though, again, they were starting -- they were overwhelming. They got a couple of those. Q. You knew these guys were going to be a tough test. How tough of a test was this? MAMADI DIAKITE: You know, we respected them. And in order to play against them, we would have to come out right. And we made our mind up and, you know, we came out with our best defense. It wasn't really what we expected offensively today. We moved the ball a lot. I mean, we had some good looks. It's just everything wasn't going in. And they were able to battle with us, back and forth. Q. Mamadi, talk about Kihei today and the lift he gave you. MAMADI DIAKITE: Man, Kihei was terrific. Talking about a guy who represents what the pillar says. He shows every night. He shows up every night and plays great defense. But today, he was able to have 12 points. That was terrific. And that gave us a lot of lift. Q. Talk about every time Ty seems like he puts up a late game 3-pointer, it goes in. MAMADI DIAKITE: Yeah, he's cold, you know. He's just cold, you know. Whenever he catches fire, he just let it go. He's very cold. In those situations, you know, most people will not shoot the ball because they're a little nervous. But that's not the type of guy he is. He's very cold. He's very, you know, how can I say, confident. So, you know, he just let it go every time that he had it. And people just got to respect his game. If you don't get close to him, he's going to let it go. Q. How does it feel to play in the Elite Eight? MAMADI DIAKITE: Feels great. When I was redshirting, the team I was redshirting was in the Elite Eight. Lost against Syracuse. I wasn't there, but I kind of know what it takes to be there. Takes a lot of work. A lot of focus. We know we just won. We got to turn the page again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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