NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - OHIO VS CREIGHTON

March 22, 2021

Greg McDermott

Hinkle Fieldhouse

Creighton Bluejays

Postgame Media Conference

Creighton - 72, Ohio - 58

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for joining us. If you'd like to provide some opening comments.

GREG McDERMOTT: Just incredibly proud of this group. The journey of the last two years with this core group of guys has been incredible, and as I told them before the game, this is where they were suppose ed to be. Last year's tournament got taken away. We would have been a 2 or 3 seed. And the celebrations of a great season last year were taken from us because of the virus.

To sacrifice and do everything that they've done to allow us to get to this day has been pretty incredible by a special group of young guys. So I couldn't be more proud of them. Obviously, we beat a very good Ohio team that was playing at a high level, and especially defensively, I thought we did a terrific job.

Q. I'm curious for you what it means to lead this program into a regional semifinal for the first time since 1974.

GREG McDERMOTT: Yeah, it means a lot. Obviously the tournament was a lot different in '74, there were fewer teams. So really since the expanded tournament, this is a first.

So to do it with this core group of guys, as I mentioned, what they went through last year, to be able to get to this day and have this opportunity, I'm really, really proud of them, and obviously appreciate the support of everyone that's helped me along the way, starting with my wife, Theresa, and my family, and then the Creighton administration, from Father Hendrickson to Bruce Rasmussen to Butch and Adrian Dowell and the gang. They've been incredibly supportive during our 11-year tenure here, and this is a ribbon on top of it for now, but I hope we're not finished.

Q. Mac, Denzel's defense on Jason Preston tonight, you can argue that Jason Preston is one of the top two or three guards in this whole tournament, and it didn't seem like Denzel and Shereef ever let him get into a rhythm.

GREG McDERMOTT: Denzel was terrific in both games, both against McLaughlin and against Jason Preston. As you mentioned, Jason is very talented, sees the floor so well. We didn't want to allow him to be a passer and a scorer, so I thought Denzel's work on him, on the ball, Christian and Ryan in the ball screen coverage was really good.

Then just like the Santa Barbara game, the change-up going from Denzel to Shereef, that's a hard one to follow as an offensive player, when all of a sudden you've got a big, strong physical defender on you in Denzel with great anticipation skills, and now you come in with this little guy that's going to get under you and poke at the ball and make every dribble difficult, that's hard to adjust to.

Those two have really emerged the last month of the season as go-to defenders for us. From where Denzel was coming from Southeast Missouri where he played the four all the time and guarded bigs and he did a lot of that last year to what he did today speaks volumes of his buy-in and his development on that end of the floor.

Q. Mac, Marcus talked a little bit about it, about the importance of playing loose and free. Did you get more of a sense tonight that they were a little more at ease, and how big was that first half surge?

GREG McDERMOTT: I think there was some nervous energy in that first game on Saturday. I thought we were a little better today. Their ball screen coverage was probably a little different than we anticipated, and I thought it took our guys a little time to get settled into that. Once we did, I thought we played better offensively and we were able to create a little separation before halftime.

Marcus just plays the game. He plays the game the right way. He's -- everybody's talking about a lot of good guards. You know, McLaughlin Saturday and Preston today and how good they are and what they mean to their team and their ability to play after college. They're missing the boat on the guy we've got on our team. That dude is going to -- when he makes a decision to go to the next level, he's going to play a long time because he wins, and he won when he was in high school, he won in AAU, and he's won in college.

He's got a grit and a toughness about him that you don't see often, and he's absolutely been a pleasure to coach.

Q. Greg, did you -- was there a moment at all, today, yesterday, when you got a sense that your guys were in the right frame of mind. You mentioned that you told them before the game, hey, this is where we're supposed to be. I'm wondering if you had an inkling at all that they might come out and play pretty well today?

GREG McDERMOTT: I felt good after the UConn game. I thought, for us to be able to win that game, as well as UConn was playing and kind of win a rock fight, where we didn't necessarily shoot the basketball great, even though we didn't play good against Georgetown -- and Georgetown deserves a lot of the credit -- I really felt good coming into this tournament because of that.

We've been in a lot of close games this year, and sometimes in the NCAA Tournament, especially in the early rounds, teams don't shoot it great for whatever reason, and we had to find other ways to win, and we really did a great job on two really good offensive teams, the two teams that we played in the tournament.

So their preparation was good. Their focus was good in the film room yesterday and this morning before we went over to shootaround, and they were hungry to play, and this group's been together a long time, and they know that I trust them, and I think they trust each other, and you saw that, I think, this afternoon.

Q. Chad Gallagher, a Hall of Famer, Paul Silas, and now Christian Bishop, the only Creighton Bluejays with back-to-back NCAA Tournament games with double double performances. Can you explain the level that Christian is playing at right now?

GREG McDERMOTT: It's incredible. You know, he's so active, and he tweaked the ankle the first play of the game against Georgetown and really struggled in practice most of the week probably until Friday, when he went through a full practice. He's attacking the glass. His ball screen coverage is elite, and his ability to roll to the rim and do what he does and run in transition is incredible.

Those are two spectacular names that he's in company with, and our sports information director, Rob Anderson, told me before the game or this morning at breakfast that the four NCAA Tournament wins that Creighton has since 2002, somebody's had a double double in that game, and the losses, nobody's had a double double. So we've got to find someone to have one again on Sunday against Gonzaga.

Q. Greg, curious about that run at the end of the first half where you guys finished on a 20-4 pace there. What do you think happened? What changed there late in the first half?

GREG McDERMOTT: Well, I thought we got some stops, and we got out in transition. I felt we were a little bit tired. I sensed that, and I think our guys sensed that. We're used to playing that way, and while there's some teams in their conference that play fast, I'm not sure they play as fast as we do.

So we were able to continue to put pressure on them in transition, and that created some mistakes on their part, and we were able to get loose and hit some shots during that stretch.

You don't have a 20-4 run without the 4, so defensively, you have to be doing that job, and obviously that allows us some run-outs and gets us in space, and we're really good when we play in space.

Q. Greg, you know how kind of tight knit the Creighton family is, especially from the basketball program side. I wondered -- I know you know that there's a lot of alums watching and a lot of former players who take pride in this. Did you hear from any of them the last couple of days, the last week or so? Just sort of what's your impression of how connected this group is and how much they cheer for you guys as you make this run?

GREG McDERMOTT: I've received a lot of texts during the course of the season from a lot of former players, and obviously a lot of our former guys that played for us, playing overseas or some of them in the NBA, are tuned in all the time. Then the guys that have moved on with their families and are in their jobs have played for Coach Altman and even before Coach Altman, the Creighton family, it's a special place.

You saw it in our fans today, and as I told the team in the locker room, we had a bunch of people here that took time out of their busy schedule to find their way to Indianapolis, not as much -- not just because they enjoy watching this group play basketball. I think they enjoy who this group is and what they stand for and how they've represented our university over the course of their careers.

To have so many people here today to celebrate on this stage is something that I'll never forget, I know our guys will never forget. But we've talked about having the best fans in the country for a long time, and we didn't get to enjoy the 17,000 or 18,000 fans per game at home this year, but the fact that we had that group here today and they were loud and they were proud and they had a chance to celebrate history with us is something that none of us will ever forget.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks so much for being here. Congratulations again, and best of luck going forward.