NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - WISCONSIN VS BAYLOR

March 21, 2021

Davion Mitchell

Lucas Oil Stadium - Unity Court (South)

Baylor Bears

Postgame Media Conference

Baylor 76, Wisconsin 63

THE MODERATOR: Do you want to give us some general impressions on the game?

DAVION MITCHELL: It was a really tough game. Wisconsin is a really fundamental team. They're really talented. They listen to their coaches. They made it hard for us defensively and offensively. It was just a really good win, though.

Q. You all had a lot of lob opportunities today. What about Wisconsin's pick-and-roll coverage do you feel like you exploited to get so many lobs today?

DAVION MITCHELL: It was definitely similar to Illinois'. They dropped coverages, something that we love to see. We kind of got used to it. We used to do it in practice. We had to switch it up a little bit, so we just tried to take advantage of what the defense gave us, and we did great today.

Q. To get back to the Sweet 16 for the first time since really any of you guys at Baylor were on the roster, how special was this win for you all?

DAVION MITCHELL: It's real special, man. We just give credit to all the guys behind the scenes, the GAs, the coaches, and all the managers that helped us with this win, man. It wasn't just us. We all came together. We all had one goal. The job is not finished. We're just going to keep playing hard and try to take one game at a time.

Q. Did you feel like maybe there were a little less nerves coming into the game today, and what did you feel like was working for you guys?

DAVION MITCHELL: It wasn't really nerves. We prepared all our practices for this moment right here, all the times, the COVID protocols we had to go through. We all prepared for this moment. I don't think anybody was nervous. We was all excited to play. We're just blessed to be able to play in this tournament, to give credit to all the people behind the scenes in the NCAA Tournament that's given us a chance to play these games with this COVID going around.

But yeah, I don't think it was no nerves.

Q. I was curious, the second half you guys weren't playing your best, but Wisconsin never got closer than seven. Every time they got to seven, you guys had an answer. What does that say about you guys?

DAVION MITCHELL: We knew those guys were going to go on a run. They're a really well-coached team. We tried to limit their transition, limit their shots, limit their threes. They pass, shoot. Their guards are really well at getting into the paint and looking for people with wide open shots.

We did a really good job stopping the momentum, scoring back to back. In the long run I think we're going to have to stop those runs, though.

Q. Have you guys felt more like kind of yourselves so far in this tournament? You didn't finish maybe quite as well as you have, especially defensively. Do you feel like you guys are getting back to the team that looked like the best team in the country in the middle of the season?

DAVION MITCHELL: Yeah, for sure. I think those practices before the tournament really helped us on our defense. We really pride ourselves on just making things hard for other teams, giving ball pressure, not making them feel comfortable, making them keep dribbling the ball and not being able to look. So I think we definitely are getting back to ourselves. There's a lot of things we've got to work on. We're going to watch film and correct it for the next game, and we're just going to keep preparing for each game.

Q. Davion, you guys did such a great job on Trice today. You held him to like 5-of-17 from the field. What was the key against him, because he is their most prolific scorer?

DAVION MITCHELL: Yeah, he's a really good player. We just tried to keep a body on him at all times, tried not to give him open looks. We gave him some open looks, but he's really good getting into the paint. His jump shot, he can really shoot the ball. He can run a team. He's a really well-coached dude. He's a really cool dude. You can tell that he worked on his game a lot. He's just really good. We just tried to limit his looks.