NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - RICHMOND VS IOWA

March 16, 2022

Chris Mooney

KeyBank Center

Richmond Spiders

Media Conference

CHRIS MOONEY: Well, we're thrilled to be here. Excited to get started. We've had a very exciting conference tournament, and we had a good practice yesterday. I was fearful that we would have a little bit of a letdown yesterday, but we had a good practice, and looking forward to get started today and the game tomorrow.

Q. Hello, Chris. What's it like to be here knowing where you were two years ago, and you couldn't make it, and now you've got the six guys who stuck around after all the ups and downs and many downs last year? What's it like to have this group here this year?

CHRIS MOONEY: It's a great feeling. You know, two years ago, we were in the hotel in Brooklyn when everything was canceled, and we had to talk to the guys about that. The one thing I said when we got back to Richmond before we left until the middle of the summer was that this isn't something that -- that event wasn't something that would be made better or made whole. It's not like you didn't play well the first half, we have to try to play well the second half. It was just something out of everyone's control.

It's so hard to be in a position to be an at-large team. It's just incredibly challenging, and, you know, for these guys, obviously, to come back, six seniors to come back, two walk-ons paying their own way for an extra year, and the four scholarship players all had 1,000 points before this year, they could be anywhere. It's incredible. So counter to what so much of what college basketball is today. This is great.

Those guys who were in that room and experienced that pain of the tournament being canceled, so for those players in particular -- for everybody, it's incredible, but for those players in particular, it's very special.

Q. Congratulations, Coach, on your success.

CHRIS MOONEY: Thank you.

Q. What strengths does your team possess that makes you confident that you will advance to the next round in the tournament?

CHRIS MOONEY: We're very experienced, of course. That's a big one. Even our players who come into the game -- a lot of them are experienced, have been in games, have been in big games. You know, we generally take care of the ball pretty well, and I think we play together. That would be my -- I think our best strength is that we play together on both sides, on offense and defense. We really share the ball and have a good understanding of how to play and play together.

To me, that's our best chance is that, obviously, we're going to play Iowa, champion of the Big Ten, great players. Our best chance is to make sure we play together, have five guys playing together every possession, and hopefully can do as well as possible.

Q. I wanted to know, you and Fran are Philly guys.

CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah.

Q. What's your relationship like with Fran over the years, and how close are you guys?

CHRIS MOONEY: We're pretty close. We've gotten to know each other very well over the past few years. You know, I can remember his Lehigh team. That's a long, long time ago. When he was an assistant coach at Notre Dame, and I was kind of just coming up and getting into coaching, I knew who he was obviously because of his Philadelphia years. He is kind of a legend in Philadelphia.

And then subsequently on some of the Nike basketball coaching trips, we've hung out a lot and had a lot -- he is a great storyteller, very funny. He has been a really, really good friend to me and somebody that, obviously, I look up to, and his success has been impressive.

Q. How are the Phillies looking? I'm just kidding.

(Laughing).

Q. I knew that would get you. With everything kind of you've gone through, I know what it means to your players sticking together, but you've had some tough times here.

CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah.

Q. What does this mean to you to be here?

CHRIS MOONEY: It means a great deal, obviously. I think this is -- this is such an extraordinary accomplishment for a team. It's different if you are a high major team than it is for us, and we have a tremendous conference, but it's still different. And to be able to make it here is great.

For me personally, I have to tell you that I don't -- there's no more vindication or anything like that. I don't really think like that. Sometimes the Yankees qualify for the wild card, and they say nobody thought we could do it. Well, the Yankees, everybody kind of thought.

I don't really have that mindset. I feel like it's so common, especially in sports, to worry about the doubters. It's irrelevant to me. I would rather worry about the believers and the investors. We have that. We have guys and our staff and our administration, and we have plenty of investors that are more important.

Rather than try to prove some people wrong, I would rather try to prove those people right. That's the way I've always looked at it. So I don't feel any better because of that, but I feel great that we're here for sure.

Q. I was curious before the bracket draw versus Iowa, how much were you aware of what Keegan Murray had been doing on a national stage, and since the draw, maybe what has stood out to you in studying him?

CHRIS MOONEY: Well, before -- so Darius Stokes is our video coordinator. He played at Iowa. His father was a great player at Iowa. Our athletic director, John Hart, is an Iowa grad, football player.

Yeah, so I was pretty aware of him. We would watch some Iowa games on the road because Darius was interested, and then subsequently having drawn them, Murray is amazing. He can score in so many ways. He is so fluid, athletic, calm, incredibly in control. He is tremendous. He is better than I thought he was before we started watching them.

I'm not sure what he is projected in the NBA draft, but I imagine very high. He's a great player. I don't know -- if you average 23 points per game, I'm not sure that anybody has guarded you very well in that conference. He is an amazing player and someone that will take the whole team to defend and to make sure that we make him make as hard of shots as possible, which he is capable of, but still want to make them as hard as possible.

Q. Outside of Keegan Murray, just looking at Iowa's offense, obviously high-octane. They like to get out in transition. What do you see as the keys to kind of slowing that offense down and making sure they don't get out and run?

CHRIS MOONEY: They're great in transition. What makes them unique is it's not -- it's not a particular fastbreak or a system fastbreak where everybody is in the same spot every time. They're kind of similar to their half court offense. They're playing together and reading each other.

Bohannon is such an incredible shooter with such range that generally the idea is you want to get back and be tight in transition defense. Against them you can't really do that because of the shooting, especially Bohannon and Murray.

I think the biggest thing is not turning the ball over so that -- they run off of rebounds and off of makes as well, but trying to get back and have as many guys back and building a wall at the hashmark as possible.

Even still, they're going to get transition. It's just so much a part of who they are. They're so good at it. Every guy seemingly brings the ball up if they get the rebound, so it's a different kind of transition than a traditional, like, Carolina fastbreak or numbered fastbreak.

They're just very good at crossing the court and finding guys in a little bit different areas. Nobody is in the same spot every time. That's a huge challenge for us. We need to limit that. I don't think you can take it away, but we need to limit that to the best of our ability.

Q. Chris, congratulations on being here.

CHRIS MOONEY: Thank you.

Q. The Rhode Island job obviously is open, and I just wonder from your perspective, having been in the league for so long and industry-wide, how you see the potential of that job and where you see it going forward?

CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah, well, I was sorry to see David be let go. I think he is a very good coach and a really good man. They've had three coaches since I've been there, and Coach Barron a couple of times, they had great seasons, especially great first 20 games.

And then, obviously, Danny did a tremendous job there. I thought David did a very good job. Two years ago, I think they were 21-9. It's hard for coaches that that doesn't count or that's kind of not quite as important if they had gotten an NIT or NCAA bid that year.

I think it's a really good job. It's a beautiful place obviously. They have good -- the facility is great. I think the fan base is great. I think they'll be able to attract somebody really, really good. I think -- I love the athletic director.

I think industry-wide, it's interesting. There are three openings in the Atlantic 10 right now, and I think they're all good jobs. We have a great conference. There's an incredible amount of commitment in our conference, and I think probably in my time at Richmond, that's what I've seen grow the most is the amount of teams that have better facilities, new practice facilities, that charter, that are just very, very invested. So I think Rhode Island, I would assume, is similar and, therefore, since it's such a pretty place, great location, good history, I think it's a great job.

Q. The amount of times you have overcome double digit deficits including in the A10 tournament, how much has that faded in some ways, and how much is that the experience that these -- the experience and depth that you have on your roster?

CHRIS MOONEY: It has. We've overcome, I think, double digit deficit maybe seven times second half.

Well, I think a lot of it is there's high character, and I think what shows itself in belief that we can do it. So often if you see college games and you see teams start to get sluggish when something bad happens or start to just throw up three-point shots when something bad happens, I think we're old enough not to do that, to know that if we can increase our energy, if we can continue to really kind of keep pushing.

One thing, I think we're good at pushing the pace on offense. Naturally we have a great point guard in Jacob, and so not only does he provide steals in those situations, but he is very disruptive, and he is also great at pushing the pace and having a great feel for how quickly we should shoot, what shot we should shoot, and can set up guys or take his own shot. I think that's a big part of it, the experience and having a great point guard.

And the belief that we've been in these situations before, these guys have been in so many games. You know, naturally we've been in games where we've been ahead, behind, tight games, overtime games. We can draw upon a lot of that experience.

Q. Your team, obviously, had to win four games in four days to get here. Holding teams under 64 points a game, 62 against Davidson, a team that averaged 75, what did you see from your defense as they kind of locked down in those four games and what are you hoping to see as you try to contain an offense that averages nearly 84 a game in Iowa?

CHRIS MOONEY: Yes. Well, we have defended very well, and it was very different kind of teams. Dayton's offense is great, but different than Davidson's, which is different than BCU's.

The familiarity, obviously, that helps every time, so that was one thing. We really -- we really had a good game plan, but we also really fought. The mistakes that are going to happen on defense on nearly every possession, whether a guy gets beat a little bit or is a step slow for a close-out or whatever, team-wise we played very well and helped one another.

Iowa is incredible on offense, just prolific. In watching the -- was it the Rutgers game in the conference tournament when they were down, what was it, 15-3, or was that the Indiana game? Indiana game. I mean, there's just such little panic.

Again, Murray plays so easily that everything feels a little bit easier when they score, so for us to defend them, I don't know if it's going to be because of how many points they have at the end of the game. I just don't know if anyone can really guard them for 40 minutes and just hold them to a low score, but for us, it's going to be about making it as difficult as possible.

They rarely turn the ball over. We're going to have to have some turnovers and generate some turnovers and be good on the backboard, but I don't necessarily know if it's going to be in the points department. I think it's going to be more a total effort and cumulative effect of great effort and hustle that help us to play well defensively.