NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - NOTRE DAME VS ALABAMA

March 17, 2022

JD Davison

Keon Ellis

Noah Gurley

Nate Oats

Jahvon Quinerly

Jaden Shackleford

Viejas Arena

Alabama Crimson Tide

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Alabama.

Q. What do you feel you have to prove tomorrow when you play Notre Dame?

JADEN SHACKELFORD: I don't think we have too much to prove. I think it comes with how your season went. And we're going out there with a fresh mindset to go play our hardest. I don't feel we necessarily have anything to prove but we've got to go out there and prove to ourselves that we can go out play for 40 minutes, play hard and give our best effort.

KEON ELLIS: Everyone knows what we have done this year. But all that's in the past and we've got to come out and prove it again in the March Madness tournament.

Q. Jahvon, what was it like growing up learning the game in North Jersey playing for Hudson Catholic? How does it impact you as a player at this level?

JAHVON QUINERLY: It's definitely different. Basketball in New Jersey is probably the best it's been in a really long time right now. In the past couple of years going into New York and playing in the parks and things of that nature has made me the player I am today and gave me that toughness that you need at this level. And I miss being home and I'm just glad I'm here where I am right now. And it's definitely played a vital role in the player I am today.

Q. Your opponent could have been Rutgers, and I'm sure you know some of those guys. Curious who do you know on that team? Did you watch the game last night and what did you think about it? Everyone in New Jersey is talking about it.

JAHVON QUINERLY: I'm close with Ron Harper, Geo Baker, I know pretty much everybody on the time. Brandin Knight, assistant coach who recruited me pretty hard. I watched that game last night. It was crazy. I texted Ron after the game, let him know he had a great season and I'm excited for his future.

And at this point I'm just excited to be back in the NCAA Tournament and fight with these guys and try and go out there, win the championship.

Q. Jaden, Coach Crow (phonetic), what does he mean to you and how did he help you become the player you are today?

JADEN SHACKELFORD: He means a lot to me. He got me going with like my EYBL stuff before I got to college and what not. He played a huge role being a mentor for me. He's taught me a lot of things. It's cool to be back on the West Coast where all these people can come see me again. He played a vital role in me getting recruited and getting to where I am now. So big ups to him and what he's done for me.

Q. Jaden, before you left, your family, potentially coming down from L.A. What's it been like to have them around and what will it be like tomorrow?

JADEN SHACKELFORD: I've been in contact with all of them. It feels great to be back on the West Coast. A lot of my family and friends will be able to come see us play. It means the world to me to play in front of them. It's another opportunity to play in front of our fans.

Q. For any of you who played in the Sweet 16 overtime loss to UCLA, what did you learn from that game that you think will help you this time around?

JAHVON QUINERLY: Obviously free throws is a big thing. I feel like that's something we've improved on a lot this year, still can keep improving on that. But really like what it comes down to is this is a game of runs. You've just got to be able to answer runs at this level.

And that's something that we've been talking about amongst ourselves and in practice and just being able to respond to adversity at this level because it gets crazy at this stage. Just making sure that guys who haven't been here are prepared and we just give as much knowledge as we can being the older guys and being guys who played in that atmosphere before.

Q. Jahvon, I know you guys are in a different bracket completely and focused on a different game. Wondering being from Arizona, a long, long time ago did you commit there and did you ever keep up with them? Wonder what might have been/ a lot of things happened with them; a lot of things have happened with you since then.

JAHVON QUINERLY: I mean, I haven't been following them as much as I used to. Obviously focused on my season. But I got family who goes to Arizona. So I'm kind of in the loop every now and then. They've got a really good team this year. But other than that, I haven't really been following Arizona like that.

THE MODERATOR:

COACH OATS: Excited to be here, excited to be in the NCAA Tournament again. It's nice, it was great we pulled the tournament off in the bubble last year. It's nice to be in a city where you can go out, enjoy parts of the city. And this isn't the first time we've been sent out west. When I was at Buffalo we got sent to Boise, which was great to us. And got sent to Tulsa. Now they sent us even further west.

So we're enjoying the weather here in San Diego. Our guys are excited to play in a tournament again. We're looking forward to hopefully a couple of good games here in San Diego and ready to get the thing tipped off tomorrow.

Q. You have the number one strength of schedule in the nation this year. Was it a happy accident? If not, is this the week that you hope that it's set up for?

COACH OATS: I hope it pays off this week. It certainly paid off in getting us into the tournament. It wasn't an accident. We scheduled hard on purpose. We tried to schedule to get ourselves into the tournament. That's what happened. We scheduled a team like Gonzaga. You can't get a win against Gonzaga if you don't schedule them.

So we played well that game in Seattle. We scheduled a team like Houston. Had a series with them. So you beat two Final Four teams we scheduled. The SEC/Big 12 Challenge gave us the Baylor game.

There were three Final Four teams from last year, and two of those three are number one seeds right now and we've got wins over all of them.

And our bye games were tougher games. Davidson came to Birmingham to play us. We lost the game but they end up winning the A-10. Even the lesser, if you will, opponents, a lot of them made the NCAA Tournament -- South Dakota State. There's a lot of -- half of our games were played against tournament teams.

So I think we're battle-tested. Hopefully it pays off this week. It certainly paid off in getting us into the tournament.

Q. Now that you know it's Notre Dame, what stands out? Their turnovers, they don't have many of them. What do you guys need to do to make sure they don't get too comfortable offensively?

COACH OATS: There's a really good team. To beat Rutgers last night, Rutgers is tough. If you look at all the wins Rutgers had middle of the season, end of the season, for them to beat Rutgers in a game like that showed you how tough they are.

They don't turn the ball over, your right. They had five turnovers last night. We haven't been a team that turns people over much anyway. Some teams handed us a few more; most teams turned it over more than five teams.

But we do have to try to make them a little uncomfortable. The issue is they are smart and handle it and if you get overly aggressive against them, they will make you pay, go back door or whatever. We don't want to give them open shots. They don't miss too many open shots either. But they're a high-IQ, really talented offensive group.

On the defensive end they don't foul much. They're smart that way. And they kind of keep you in front. They're one of the better teams in the country at forcing you into long 2s. We're one of the better teams in the country at not taking too many mid-range shots. It's going to be a battle on that deal. Can we get to the rim? Can we get 3s off against the way they play?

And if you look at the way they play offensively, they've got seven players. The only one that doesn't take and make a lot of 3s is their starting center, Atkinson, who was their leading scorer against Rutgers. He's a really talented player, player of the year in the Ivy League. They've got seven really good players that are out there on the floor in their rotation. They played seven guys in a double-overtime game last night.

They're not quite as deep as we are. And they're coming off having to play Wednesday and then Friday. Hopefully we can get into their depth a little bit. But they control tempo pretty well, too, and don't play particularly fast. I'm sure they'll try to do that again tomorrow.

Q. There's been a couple of your last opponents have expressed eagerness about playing you, whether it's Scotty Pippen or Cormac Ryan last night --

COACH OATS: I missed that. What did Cormac say?

Q. He said he can't wait to play Alabama, is what he said. In terms of being a tough team to play at this time of year, what do you think you still have to prove as a team?

COACH OATS: I don't know the context of what Cormac's thing. I don't want to talk too much to that. Everybody can't wait to play the next game in March. Shoot, their whole team should be excited to play us. They almost went home. It went to two overtimes. They're excited to play anybody sitting on the other end of it.

Scotty Pippen's statements were obviously a little more they wanted us because they lost to us at their place. If it's something where they wanted Alabama, then our guys can use it for a little extra motivation, that's fine. But at the end of the day, Pippen's statements may have motivated our guys more. We still have to go out and play the right way and win the game. Our kids played hard, but we didn't play very smart. We fouled them a lot. Put them to the free-throw line, and it's not good basketball.

So whatever they need to do to motivate themselves, they can't just be motivated to play hard. We also have to play smart, play the right way and do it without fouling on the defensive end. I wasn't even aware Cormac -- he's a good player. Shoot, they got a lot of good players on Notre Dame's team.

Q. Question about Jahvon, how much New Jersey or New York do you see in his game, and how does that influence the way your team plays?

COACH OATS: He's one of those point guards from New York, New Jersey area with lots of skill and talent. He's really good with the ball. Comes downhill. He's great off the dribble. He has some swagger to him. When he's playing well he's got as much swagger as anybody in the country. He's kind of that New York City point guard you're talking about; he's not from New York City, but New Jersey/New York area.

When he's on his game he's as good as any point guard in the country. I think he's been locked in here pretty good for about three to four weeks. He was great last year in March. He was SEC Tournament MVP.

I thought he was going to have another great SEC Tournament. We didn't get the chance to play more than the one game. He was in foul trouble. He never fouls out of a game. Our whole team was in foul trouble that game, so it was unfortunate we didn't get a chance to really see what we could do in the SEC Tournament.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to show what we can do in the NCAA Tournament. He'll be a big part of what we do. And he kind of makes us go. He creates offense for a lot of our other players.

Q. As you mentioned, you guys have struggled sometimes with consistency and decision-making in games. I know they know there's no margin for error at this time of the year, but how do you drive that point home? It's 40 minutes and decisions will kill you?

COACH OATS: It's a great question. If I had all those answers, I'd probably try to sprinkle the magic potion on them a little sooner than now.

We've been trying to simplify it. I think sometimes you overthink things, complicate matters. To really get back to what you did when you started playing in elementary on offense, we're going to take care of the ball.

We don't need home runs, just make a bunch of singles. We're one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the country.

If we get a shot up on the rim, we've got a chance to score. So let's take care of the ball and get a shot off. Let's make our layups. Vandy game, were 50 percent at the rim, it's not good enough to win against good teams. Take care of the ball, make your layups and free throws.

And we didn't make our free throws at a high clip against Vandy either. It's real simple stuff.

If we would have done any of those three just a little bit better we would have beat Vandy. If we would have done any of those a little bit better we would have beat LSU. Those are last two games. They're both two good teams that we lost to.

On the defensive end, I thought we played hard enough to win both of those games. We can't lose sight of the fact we did a lot of things well in those games. But it's more than playing hard at this level. You've got to play hard, be locked into the scouting report and execute it and do it without fouling. Like fouling's not smart basketball.

We've got to be a little smarter. Not just play hard, fly around and do dumb stuff on defense, let's show some IQ as well.

So we tried to simplify it a little bit. Let's not overamplify the game. We know if you lose you go home at this point. There's no sense in overanalyzing that part of it. It's just let's have some fun. This tournament's fun. It's back in front of full crowds again. That's another big reason it's fun. So let's have some fun while we're doing it.

At Buffalo we were able to win two first-round games. One of them was an upset. One we were favored in. Here, we were able to win two last year. It was a little different in the bubble. But get your guys to relax, have fun, simplify it a little bit this time of the year. I think they can go out and execute without putting any added pressure on themselves.