NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - GEORGETOWN VS COLORADO

March 20, 2021

Jabari Walker

Colorado Buffaloes

Hinkle Fieldhouse

Postgame Media Conference

Colorado 96, Georgetown 73

Q. Congrats on the win. Do you think you guys made a statement today kind of laying it to the Big East champ, and what do you think you proved to fans that may not have been able to watch you all season long?

JABARI WALKER: Well, it was crazy coming into this game. We were like the underdog, even being a 5 seed, everybody had us losing this game. So we just met I think it was yesterday as a team, and it was like, there was really no pressure. Just come into this game, we're the underdog, nobody has us winning. Anything we do from now on, nobody expected it. Just go in there with that underdog mindset, trying to prove everybody wrong, and really we wear the warm-up shirt, it's just us. It's us versus everybody, just this group.

Q. Is this as good all around as you guys have played for 40 minutes this season?

JABARI WALKER: Can you repeat your question?

Q. Just wondering if this is as good a 40-minute performance as you guys have put together this season?

JABARI WALKER: Yeah, I think so. It's definitely up there. Later on in the season, our shots weren't really falling like they were tonight, and we said eventually they would fall, so just keep trusting the process, and tonight we had several guys get hot, so definitely one of our best shooting performances.

Defensively we all locked in and the motto today was just going in and playing happy. For some of the seniors, this is their first appearance here, so I'm blessed to be here and I just want to enjoy this moment because you never know when you're going to be back. They said, just come out, smile, have fun while playing the game. One of the things we did in the Pac-12 championship, we were too tense. We had too much pressure on our shoulders. So just let all that go, just our brothers, just lock in and just play free.

Q. I guess a lot of people were saying maybe you guys might lose this game because of the Georgetown mystique. How did you guys keep that out of your minds and how much did you know about Patrick Ewing and how nice was it to beat Georgetown?

JABARI WALKER: It was really good, especially with them winning their championship in their conference, everybody thought they were hot and they were on a roll and they had us losing this game. But really we just focused on our group, focused on what we could control. Like all our guys believed, if we're playing our best basketball, there are not too many teams in this country that could beat us. With a guard -- we have the most versatile guys. We can guard pretty much every position. We can score in so many different ways. We're a dangerous team. A lot of teams can't run with us. There's just so many skill sets that we have.

The seniors, they just lead us, so just with all that, it is really hard to beat us, I believe.

Q. You guys were so good from three tonight, and strangely enough it really didn't seem like Georgetown was getting a lot of hands in your faces early on or contesting shots. I don't want to say they were daring you to shoot the long ball, but it didn't really look like, especially with how good you guys were from deep, that they were doing much about it. What were you seeing defensively from them and was there kind of lack of pressure? Was that encouraging in you guys wanting to get up those three-pointers?

JABARI WALKER: Yeah, I was definitely surprised. I noticed when I first caught the ball he was kind of far, and I thought, I'm going to wait it out, we'll see how he continues to guard it, and then we ran a couple plays that came to me, and I just found myself getting wide open, and I thought surely after the first few that they would get a hand up, and then I just kept finding myself open. I was a little confused. Maybe that was part of the scouting report or I don't know what was going on, but I got open shots, and just like I continue to say, it's my job to knock them down, and I've been able to do a good job at that.

Q. When you and everybody else on the team, including Dallas Walton, are channeling their inner Steph Curry, do you get a look in each other's guys like it's going in? What the heck was happening in the first half? You shoot 65 percent from three, you're going to beat a lot of teams.

JABARI WALKER: Yeah, maybe it's contagious. I think I started off, D'Shawn kept it going, and then Dallas. Next thing you know Dallas is up hitting threes. I would have liked Jeriah to get hot. That would have made it even more fun. They haven't seen Jeriah get hot yet and they don't want to see Jeriah get hot. If they would have happened tonight, they would have seen even more threes going in the basket.

Q. You mentioned the senior leadership there a little bit. I know McKinley ended up with 13 assists. How much does he bring to this offense and to the team from a leadership perspective?

JABARI WALKER: Can you repeat that question one more time, please?

Q. I just asked about McKinley and what he brings to this offense as well as the leadership standpoint, as well.

JABARI WALKER: Yeah, there's so much that I don't even realize yet playing with him. I'll probably see it next year. But just having him initiate the offense, it just makes my job easy. I really don't have to do too much. He just finds me when I'm open. When he shoots the ball, you don't realize how many people are going after to block his shot. So helps me getting offensive rebounds. Just keeping us in the right mentality, keeping us composed. He's been in like so many situations and his experience has carried this team.

It's a blessing to have somebody like him and like all these seniors that we have on this team, especially with it being my first year playing college basketball.

Q. When you saw them kind of soft drop your big man and pick-and-roll, it really opened up the pick-and-pop as well as the deep corners through ball movement, did you lick your chops a little bit? Because it seemed like that scheme played into what you guys wanted to do, you were getting wide open shots.

JABARI WALKER: Well, originally the plan was for me to just start rolling, and I think my first three came in just like a motion set and just me getting open. When we seen that they were kind of focusing on Kin a little bit too much, then we started to run a couple plays that had me getting open for three, and we just attacked that, attacked that part of their defense.

It wasn't really designed for me to just come off and start shooting threes like that tonight, but we just took what the defense gave us and just kept going from there.

Q. You shot 90 percent from the field today, man. How did you feel before the game?

JABARI WALKER: I felt happy. Just listening to my music and just happy with the guys, dancing before the game, getting back to what we usually do. This last game against Oregon State I felt like we were a little tense and all the guys know that. Like I said, just relieving that pressure and remembering it's just basketball. We're supposed to have fun while we're here, it's not supposed to be stressful.

Everybody had us losing this game, so we just played with a chip on our shoulder and we played free. I got back to my normal routine, having fun before the game, laughing with my guys, and just being relaxed.

Q. Your father played four tournament games back when he was at Louisville and averaged about 13 points a game. My question for you, what has he told you or taught you about what it takes to win games in March, and how does it feel to know that you're now averaging 24 points a game, ahead of him right now?

JABARI WALKER: It feels good. We didn't really talk about March Madness or anything like that to be honest. He just told me that it was a big platform, just -- not to come out here with any pressure, just do what I'm supposed to do, just play the game that I play. Nothing special, just do the little things like I always do, and eventually everything will work itself out. It wasn't too much. He called me and he said, I'm not going to fill your ear with nothing, but I'm just telling you, just play your game and play stress-free, and that's what I went out there and did.