INVESCO QQQ LEGACY CLASSIC: HOWARD VS NORTH CAROLINA A&T

December 18, 2021

Kenneth Blankeney

Kyle Foster

Steve Settle

Prudential Center

Howard Bison

Postgame Press Conference

Howard 79 - N.C. A&T 57

KENNETH BLANKENEY: Introduce yourself, your year, your major.

KYLE FOSTER: I'm Kyle Foster. I'm a senior sports management major, double major in sociology.

KENNETH BLANKENEY: My name is Kenny Blakeney, the head coach at Howard University.

STEVE SETTLE: Steve Settle. I'm a junior. Sports management major from Glenarden, Maryland.

KENNETH BLANKENEY: Firstly, love to thank Michael B. Jordan, Serena Williams, Invesco, the William Morris Agency and everyone else that supported and put this event on. It's a fabulous event, and I love the title, Legacy Classic, and I hope Legacy can continue for a long time and we can be a part of it.

Q. (Inaudible)

KENNETH BLANKENEY: For us to have a chance to compete and play and to be together as a team is unbelievable. Last year at this time I think we were about to go home for Christmas; and when we got back, we had a series of positive COVID tests, and subsequently from that point on our season was canceled. We were only able to get five games in, so this means so much to us as a program, to our university, and it's something that we're not taking for granted. Hopefully, each and every day we can really fulfill our maximum potential as we're working to get better.

Q. I call it a tale of two halves. Came out the second half, and you were lights-out, and I mean that (Inaudible).

KENNETH BLANKENEY: Thank you for the question, Travis. I thought for in the first half was our full court zone press that it put us in a situation where we could not in the half court connect body to body where we could have five people on five people, and I thought going a little bit more to a full-court press back to a half court man-to-man situation would allow us to keep a body on a body.

Langley is so good and so crafty. He is one of my favorite players that I've watched over the last three years because he is such an old-school point guard and does a great job of finding open areas or open people. He is extremely unselfish and the key to their program and to their team, so I thought if we could keep bodies on body, it wouldn't allow Langley to really exploit us being in help and recover.

Q. Next question. You guys shot lights-out. You know, I mean, executing on offense, the free-flowing and guys believing in you all. Any insight on that?

KENNETH BLANKENEY: I'll let these two guys address that one.

KYLE FOSTER: Really we always emphasize ball movement and cutting and playing for the next player, so, you know, in the first half we were kind of stagnant, and I say in the second half we came to the locker room and talked about what we needed to talk about, and we applied it. We just showed up.

STEVE SETTLE: I feel like in the first half we had great looks, and they didn't fall, which that's going to happen sometimes, but we knew that we were going to keep our confidence and just allow the carry over into the second half, and we knew shots were going to fall. When they did, that kind of blew the game open.

Q. My question is for the players as well. You guys having to build your step-up situation and -- (Inaudible). What does that say about you guys going forward?

STEVE FOSTER: It says a lot about our group and our maturity and how far we've come. A lot of teams would have crumbled in a spotlight like this, but we have a list of things with he emphasize, and that helps us stick to what is going to win the game, and that's really our main goal as a team to get the win. We stick to those things. We know we have as good a chance as anybody.

KYLE FOSTER: Can you repeat the question one more time?

Q. How you guys having to step up in big moments -- (Inaudible). What does that say about you guys on the court and in bigger games as the season goes on?

KYLE FOSTER: Like Steve said, we got a group of high-quality guys, but at the end of the day we're coming to work every day, so it's like what we do in practice translates to the game. We put in the work. That's the bottom line.

KENNETH BLANKENEY: Thank you. Happy holidays, merry Christmas, everyone.