NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 18, 2021

Robert Jones

Norfolk St Spartans

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall

Postgame Media Conference

Norfolk State - 54, Appalachian State - 53

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Coach Robert Jones. We'll begin with an opening statement.

COACH JONES: Wow, what a game. March Madness is back, right? Survive and advance, that's exactly what we did. We knew that Appalachian State wasn't going to go away. They came back from a big deficit earlier in the season to another opponent. So we told the guys that. And they did it. Then we went cold. And they got hot. And it made it a basketball game.

This is a tournament of champion. So 16 points is not really a big lead when a tournament of champions, because everyone has championship pedigree. But once again, I'd like to say kudos to my guys for relaxing and staying calm down the stretch when we could have easily folded, I think they got up four points. And we kept our calm and we was able to survive and advance and able to cancel that 9:30 flight tomorrow.

Q. Other than hopefully how to pronounce the city of Norfolk, what did the country learn about your squad tonight?

COACH JONES: Resilience. That's something we've been preaching all year. We came back from being down 17 against George Mason early this year. That was a different type of adversity. This time it was adversity, up 16. They came and took the lead. And we fought back.

We got a bunch of fighters, man. From the players to the managers, I mean, everyone has different paths in their lives. And everybody is a bunch of fighters. And we trying to stay as long as possible.

Q. In your TV interview you said that you (indiscernible) scout Gonzaga, and Jalen says the work begins tonight. I was wondering how long do you guys usually work on scouting right after a game? And what time do you think you guys might go to bed?

COACH JONES: From a coaching standpoint?

Q. Yes, sir.

COACH JONES: I don't know when I'm going to go to sleep, honestly. I don't know when the other coaches are going to go to sleep because we usually do scout two days in advance for our players to get familiar with the next opponent. Obviously tomorrow is only going to be a 24-hour advance scouting and of course a shoot-around the day of.

But as far as being prepared and giving it to guys, we're going to stay up all night to finish it. We've already started as coaches because we believed in this team. We believed we were going to play them, so we already started. Now we're going to finish it and be ready to present to the team tomorrow.

Q. What do you have to say about Jalen Hawkins?

COACH JONES: He drives me crazy. He knows it. But J-Hawk showed up tonight. We knew every single bucket he gave us. I'm not exactly what he finished with but I know he had 20 at half. We needed every single bucket of it to win by one.

Seemed like every game today was a low-scoring game. I'm not sure what the Drake-Wichita State game was but the other two were including ours, so the other three. But we needed every single point that he gave us. And he did a great job, did a great job, especially picking up with Devante Carter didn't have his best game. Kyonze Chavis didn't have his best game. Joe Bryant didn't have his best game. But that's why we're a team and other guys stepped up.

Q. Seemed like pregame, in the layup lines your guys were throwing dunks down, pretty engaged on the bench throughout the game. How much fun do these guys have playing together and how much does it help in games like this?

COACH JONES: It means everything. Let's face it 500 people, honestly that's probably the most people we played in front of all year. We've had to bring our own energy all year. We talk about it all the time -- manufacture energy, manufacture energy. BYOE, Bring Your Own Energy. So, we've been doing it all year.

These guys love each other like brothers. When you say family, you can see it. Forget about me preaching it. You can see it that these guys are family. And they want to do everything they can for their family. And the family didn't want to go home tonight.

Q. How great is it to have the guys trust the process and to come out and execute so well in the first half. And also to trust the resiliency of relying on defense in the second half? And as they said earlier, making a positive approach toward everything and trusting it all the way through?

COACH JONES: First half, obviously we got just about any shot we wanted. We were executing to a T. We were executing the game plan to a T. That's sometimes the risk you take -- I can't say take, but the risk you have when your team is doing so well, and it's a 16-point game at halftime. You try to tell the guys that 16 points is nothing.

But once again you're dealing with 18- to 22-year-olds and sometimes that message doesn't always resonate until it gets a little sticky. When it got a little sticky the guys responded and we did executed in the stretches that we needed to, and executed defensively to finish the game. We got what we call a turkey, like bowling. We got three stops in a row to finish the game. That's exactly what we talk about every day in practice, a turkey.

Q. How do you approach going from the euphoria and relief of winning this game to now facing the number one team in the nation? And how do you approach that-- you're laughing, smiling -- how do you approach that with your team, knowing that this was going to be what you're going to be facing anyways?

COACH JONES: You take it with a grain of salt. Like I tell people all the time, the pressure was getting here. Being from a one-bid league -- everyone who is in a one-bid league across the country, that's where all the pressure is at is trying to get here. Once you get here you're playing with house money. You just gotta go out and play.

Yeah, I know we're playing the Lakers of college basketball, the Brooklyn Nets of college basketball. They got three All-Americans, one first-team, two third-team. We know it's going to be a challenge. It's no secret that it's going to be a challenge. But at the same time we have to lace them up and we have to play the basketball game.

We've been in situations before as a program, with Missouri and Alabama in the NIT and things like that. And no one gave us a shot, and we were able to come out on top. It's a whole different animal in Gonzaga, and we understand that, trust me. We understand that. At the same time, as a program we have the two largest victories by point spread in both the NIT and NCAA. So why not do it again?

Q. I asked Jim Hawkins about Devante Carter at the end, the two free throws, any doubt, and he didn't have a doubt at all. How about you, a little bit nervous there, what's it say for him coming through that spot, that's a pressurized spot there for him coming through that for not having his best night?

COACH JONES: To be honest, I probably would have had more doubt at the beginning of the year than I do at the end. As everyone knows, Devante Carter's overall free throw percentage isn't that great. But if you look at the last 10 to 12 games, it's actually pretty good. So with that said, I didn't really have a lot of doubt. What I did, though, I told the bench, no one talk to him on the bench. Sometimes you get somebody, hey, ten toes to the rim. Elbow in. Don't say anything to him. Let him go out there and shoot the free throws. And kudos to the young man who didn't have the greatest game. But as I told him in the locker room when he was crying, that without him we wouldn't even be in the situation we're in right now anyway. So stars are allowed to have bad games, too. He'll have a better game hopefully on Saturday.

Q. We talked after the MEAC championship about what it meant to return to the NCAA for the program. And now that you've got this win. What does that say not only for your program but for the MEAC as a whole to get this victory to move on in the NCAA Tournament?

COACH JONES: I mean, it's amazing that two HBCUs moved on tonight. I don't know if that's the first time or whatever it is. But that's just amazing. It just shows that basketball you can play across the country.

And for us, that's the first MEAC win, I think, in a long time, honestly. There's been a lot of teams that got to the tournament but haven't got a win. And we were able to get a MEAC win. And it's just tremendous.

I'm happy. I'm happy for the conference. I'm happy for the school. I'm happy for the young men in that locker room. It's never about me. It's about everybody else. And I'm happy for HBCUs and I'm happy for everybody.

Q. Can you beat Gonzaga in the next round if Devante Carter has another bad shooting night?

COACH JONES: No. That might have been the simplest answer all night. But everybody, not just Carter, Joe Bryant, Kyonze Chavis, J.J. Matthews has to give us more. There's a lot of guys that didn't play well tonight but we were still able to win. These guys owe it to themselves owe it to the team to make sure they have a better game on Saturday.