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NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FINAL FOURApril 1, 2019Chris BeardMinneapolis, Minnesota THE MODERATOR: Coach, this is David Worlock with the NCAA. Congratulations on winning the West Regional and advancing to the Final Four. Q. Coach, I'm wondering if you had a chance to reach out to Bob Knight after you guys qualified for the Final Four and his reaction and what has been your interaction with him during this tournament and also during this particular season? CHRIS BEARD: I have not talked to Coach Knight personally to date, but I have heard back from several people that he sent his congratulations. As always, Coach has been very supportive. He's really been great the past three years since I've been back to Lubbock. Just this morning, I was talking to Dick Vitale about his fund-raiser for the Jimmy V. Foundation in May, and I think Coach Vitale -- Dick talked to Coach Knight and said that Coach was really pleased with the way we've been playing. Q. Just a few minutes ago, Coach Izzo was saying he had spoken to you today and had talked about getting your tickets taken care of and all the auxiliary things taken care of. I apologize, I don't know of your history with Coach Izzo. Are you guys long-term friends? How did this conversation come about? CHRIS BEARD: No, Coach Izzo is always one of my, you know, idols. He's somebody I look up to. He's been great to coaches. When I was a junior college coach, small college coach, and a young assistant, I watched his teams practice any open practices at Final Fours for years. In our program, we have terminology, Michigan State toughness, Tom Izzo rebounding. These are things we tell our teams. It's almost surreal that we'll be having a chance to coach and play against him. Just to his experience at Michigan State, when Coach Knight was in the Big Ten at Indiana, I think Coach Izzo has always gone out of his way to say nice things about Coach Knight, and I've always respected that from afar. I did have a chance to talk to him one time, and he probably doesn't even remember it, but it was at a Peach Jam on the recruiting circuit, and he went out of his way to be nice to me. So today talking to him on the phone was just really cool. People talk about Final Four moments, and I'm sure there will be a bunch this weekend, but it's pretty cool having a chance to talk to Coach Izzo. We have so much respect for his program. We're a program ourselves that try to be blue collar and rebound and play defense and try to be as tough as anyone. To me, in my opinion, that's Michigan State basketball. Q. Is this part of some other media event, or did he just reach out to you or you to him? CHRIS BEARD: I actually reached out to him this morning just to congratulate him on another trip to the Final Four and tell him how much respect I had for him. Sometimes at the Final Four, you just kind of run into somebody at the hallway. It was just important to me that I was going to try to reach out to him so, when I do already see him in the hallway or something, that we had already talked. He was gracious enough to return the call, I think what's happened. Somebody else handed me the phone, but it was pretty cool. Q. You've got a veteran lineup and kind of guys that have come from all parts and different ways that they got there. I'm wondering, what benefits have you seen from having veteran guys that maybe aren't in your program but have played a lot of college basketball in differing styles? CHRIS BEARD: Yes, it's always been a part of our plan, not just as Texas Tech, but other schools we've been at. We basically just try to stay old. What I mean by that, I'll never forget the night we got the Texas Tech job and sitting around thinking, okay, how are we going to win a game? Are we going to outcoach people? No. Bill Self, Lon Kruger, Bob Huggins, all of them -- that's not going to be our plan here. Number two, are we just going to outtalent people? No, that's not our plan. Recruiting is improving, and we'd love to get to the point one day where we have four or five McDonald's All-Americans. But right now, that's not who we are. So as we went down the list and tried to get an identity. One of the things we thought was trying to be old. I think experience is everything. Last year's Elite Eight team that lost to Villanova had the five seniors, and this year we have four seniors. The way we had to stay old was the graduate transfer market and just getting our guys better. But I think sometimes to beat really, really good talented teams, experience has always been part of our equation. Q. Chris, congratulations. It wasn't a banner year for the Big 12 otherwise in the NCAA Tournament with you guys the only ones getting out of the first weekend. I'm wondering, just the way that -- with the conference play and the complete double round robin and the coaches that you just mentioned, just how the conference helped you guys get to where you are today? CHRIS BEARD: I think that's what makes college basketball unique and special. It's a one-shot deal with our tournament. I'd be pretty quick to tell you that last year I think we had four teams in the Sweet 16, three teams in the Elite Eight maybe. I think that's true. Texas Tech, Kansas State, and Kansas, and Kansas went to the Final Four. So I think year in and year out the Big 12's proven that we're one of the best conferences in college basketball. In terms of the round robin, it's brutal when you're going through it, but it's just cool, man. The rivalries exist because you play everybody twice every year, home and away. The coaching in this league is just ridiculously good, and everybody has NBA players. But I think for sure, no doubt about it, I always kind of grew up studying this stuff and being a student of the game. You hear about the grind helping you, but I think it does. The. The last two years, when we get to March, no matter who's in front of us, we've played against a team just as good in the Big 12. So as good as Michigan State is -- and believe me, they're really, really good, obviously -- we have played teams this year, Kansas State and Iowa State, we have played Duke in the nonconference. So for us, it's another great game. Q. Coach, just a lot of people that people don't think that Texas Tech, this is the height that Texas Tech basketball could reach before this, but what do you think of the state the program was in when you took over this job? CHRIS BEARD: We inherited a good situation. Tubby Smith had gotten Texas Tech back to the NCAA Tournament. When we walked into Tech, there was a culture of defense, there was a culture of accountability. Coach Smith is in the basketball Hall of Fame for a reason. It was really cool inheriting something that he has built because you really get to know somebody in the coaching. You feel like two days on the job, two weeks on the job, you really get to know the coach before you, even if you never talked to him, because you inherited some stuff that he built. So I have the ultimate respect for Coach Smith and his wife, Mrs. Smith, and I love Coach Smith so much, I bought his house from him. Q. I know you mentioned coaches are calling you and talking to you about getting tickets out of the way, and you mentioned Coach Knight and Coach Smith. Is there anyone else or any people that you can kind of lean on for advice this week and going through your first Final Four? How do you try to approach it? CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, absolutely. Great question. I've gone to the Final Four every year for my career. I just never coached there. The logistics of just getting around to practice and things like that, and I'm dealing with a whole other issue. But, no, in all seriousness, absolutely. We have two guys on our coaching staff here, Glynn Cyprien and Sean Sutton as an advisor, both participated in Final Fours, at Oklahoma State with Coach Sutton, and I think Sean played in a Final Four at Kentucky. Right here in house we rely on those guys a lot. Chris Ogden was on our staff last year, and he was part of a Final Four at Texas. So, yeah, it just starts kind of within the family, and then the Big 12 family. I've gotten a text from, I think, every coach in the league, and I actually had a chance to talk to Coach Self and Coach Weber. I got some other calls out to some guys. Absolutely, you make calls. Simply stated, if a coach's job was put into one sentence, it would be to do everything he can to help this team win. With that, it's not just the Xs and Os, it's the Final Four, the event, how big this is, and just trying to give my guys all the information they need. Even though I've never coached in these games, I'll do my work, and I'll spend time on the phone talking to guys that know what they're doing, and I'll get the information to the players. Q. Stemming off your earlier answer about getting your roster older, can you speak to the specific impact of Matt and Tariq, your two grad transfers? And what were you able to sell to them to lead them to choose Texas Tech to conclude their careers? CHRIS BEARD: Simply stated, those guys have had great seasons. In my mind, they're all -- they're both All Big 12 players. They've made their impact here from day one all the way to the Final Four, and they've done it in ways far beyond the stat sheet. They're really good players. Tariq, shot block record at St. John's; Matt, over 20 points a game scorer. When they came here, they kind of put their egos to the side, and it was just about one thing, winning. In terms of selling Texas Tech, you got to start by giving last year's team credit, with Smith and Evans leading us to Elite Eight. Our tournament run last year opened up a lot of doors recruiting. I don't want to speak for Matt and for Tariq, but I think f we're not an NCAA Tournament team last year, they're probably not attracted like they were to our program. At the end of the day, we have just sold the idea of coming here and trying to make history again, like in the outside world, no one gave us much of a chance, even in our own league. I think we just kind of set our own vision, and it started by eliminating any negative noise outside of our locker room. We said, look, last year's over. Let's try to be a part of the fight again. I think Tariq and Matt understood that. In other words, I think they knew they were coming down, and we weren't going to talk much about last year. It was a new day. I told Matt Mooney, look, I'm as hungry as I've ever been. Don't get this wrong. It's just like we didn't win a game. Nothing will change with me. I'm going to bring it every day, and that's my promise. Q. Coach, piggy-backing on that last question and answer, can you think of any old moments in this tournament, maybe even a last game, where being old really helped on a play or during a part of a game? CHRIS BEARD: Absolutely. The first game, guys on our team -- Northern Kentucky was really good. First game of the tournament is always the scariest. Even though we had some guys that had never even played in an NCAA Tournament game, we got some experienced guys that I thought looked experienced. One thing about being a leader and being an experience guy, sometimes you've got to follow. I think Matt and Tariq's big deal is, hey, we've never played in the NCAA Tournament. Tell us about it. Even though Matt and Tariq are older in years than Jarrett Culver, they're listening to Culver because he's played in the tournament. I think there's a poise to our team. Every team we've played to this point gave us a real punch in the face, but we got ourselves back up, whether it be Game 1, Buffalo, certainly Michigan was so talented, and then Gonzaga, one of the best teams in the country. I would think we have to look like an experienced team out there at times. Q. Hi, Coach. In college basketball coaches, there's almost a caste system where you don't find very many junior college coaches that get into Division I, or Division II coaches even that get into becoming head coaches in Division I, and you're a unique exception. How much do you feel like you're carrying a torch for those guys? Because I think you've probably said it, there's a lot of good coaches down there that never get this opportunity you're going to get. CHRIS BEARD: I think I take that part of my past and the reality of who I am very seriously. I'm very proud of that. For a long time, I would just kind of shy away from that, but now I understand that I represent a lot of people, and I take it seriously. I felt pressure last season, and I'll feel the pressure for the next season to get back in the fight and do it again. I'm very proud of my path in coaching, and I feel like I represent a lot of guys out there. I grew up going to these open practices on Friday. I was the guy that would always get there early and stay for all four practices and take notes and just dream of maybe one day being down there. I'm sure that will be the case Friday. There's going to be a lot of coaches in that arena Friday, and maybe deep, deep down inside they know: I can do this. I'm going to do this one day, even though the whole world kind of doesn't give you much of a chance. But there's great coaching at every level. I'm speaking from experience. This isn't my opinion. This is the facts. When I was in the Lone Star Conference, it's very, very hard to beat Tarleton State. When I was in junior college, it's very hard to beat West Tarleton. When I was at Little Rock, Louisiana-Lafayette is really good. There are coaches that can really do -- you know, it's just all about opportunity. Sometimes the trend changes, and sometimes it's kind of hard to hire a major assistant, sometimes it's hard to hire the guy that's already been a head coach, but what I would tell ADs out there -- nobody's asking, but if anybody did ask me, which they don't, I'd go out and hire a guy that knows how to coach. And I wouldn't worry about what division it is and I'd get a basketball coach. Basketball is basketball. Three years ago I was trying to win a game in D-II, just like Saturday I'll be trying to win a game in D-I. Q. Chris, congratulations. Look forward to seeing you in Minneapolis. For those of us who don't know much about the history of Matt, can you tell us about him, how you found him at South Dakota before the transfer portal? And beyond what we've read, did you know anything about his past at Air Force? CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, so Matt Mooney is one of the best stories in college basketball. Just like I guess myself, when they talk about how kind of we've worked our way up, and Matt's no different. To my knowledge, Matt had one Division I offer out of high school at Air Force. He actually played at Texas Tech when he was a freshman. I wasn't here, but I went back and watched that game when I was recruiting Matt. He actually had the game-winning shot here in Lubbock. The ball went in and out on him. Just like a lot of guys do, they make a decision to transfer, and he ended up in a great situation and just did about everything he possibly could in South Dakota in terms of individual accolades, and the teams were really good. They could just never win that conference championship game to get you in the tournament. So when Matt chose to be a grad transfer, it wasn't an easy decision for him. It wasn't a man who was running from something. It was really hard because he loved South Dakota and his program and his teammates, but I think at the end of the day, simply stated -- you'd have to ask Matt this, but he just wanted to play in the tournament. It was all about getting to the tournament. He's a self-made player, in my opinion. He goes from one Division I offer to really one of the best players in college basketball. He's an All Big 12 defensive player. Second Team All Big 12 player. He's just really good. We're in the Final Four because of Matt and others. But he's kind of -- you know, he's just a guy that works, man. He outworks people, and he loves the game. I think most impressive thing for Matt is just he's all about winning. I've never seen the guy one time look at a stat sheet or ask about individual minutes or shots. He just wants to win, and it's been great coaching him. It's really been the ride of my life coaching these guys. I've loved coaching Matt. I want to coach him two more games. That's all I want. I mean, one game, I'd just do anything to be able to coach this guy two more games. THE MODERATOR: Coach Beard, thank you very much for your time. Safe travels. We'll see you in a few days. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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