NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - CHATTANOOGA VS ILLINOIS

March 17, 2022

Lamont Paris

Silvio De Sousa

David-Jean Baptiste

Malachi Smith

PPG Paints Arena

Chattanooga Mocs

Media Conference

Q. Malachi, you're playing Illinois and coming from the state, from Belleville West, does this game have a special meaning for you?

MALACHI SMITH: Most certainly. I grew up two hours from there. A lot of the kids in the area get recruited to Illinois, so it's going to be good to play my home state.

Q. Malachi, along those lines, we talked to E.J. Liddell earlier today and he spoke about playing with you back in high school. What does it mean that both of you guys are here representing your teams in March Madness, and will you get any chance to connect with each other while you're here?

MALACHI SMITH: It's a blessing for sure. We both were able to be successful together, and now we're both successful on our own journeys. We've been in communication since we've been here, so it's kind of crazy how we got put in the same region for the tournament. It's really a blessing for sure.

Q. Every coach has a little bit of a different style or a different approach. How would you describe Lamont Paris and his style of coaching, and what do you feel like are some of the biggest changes to the program as opposed to a couple years ago before he got there?

SILVIO DE SOUSA: Hmm. Would you repeat the question for me, please?

Q. How would you describe your coach's coaching style and his leadership approach?

SILVIO DE SOUSA: I would describe him for me personally, my personal opinion, as a mentor, because he usually is pretty hard on me, and that's something when I came to Chattanooga, I feel like I needed or we needed. I think that him just being hard on me makes him special in a way that he's pretty good.

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: I'd say his coaching style is kind of like letting his players do their own thing but still go within the flow of the offense, still go within the motion of the sense of everything we're trying to get accomplished, but still having -- if you see a mismatch go ahead and take advantage, go ahead and do your thing. We work on our own games, so you see a mismatch go ahead and take advantage of it.

Q. With Kofi on the inside, it's going to be tough. I know you haven't been shooting the three like you wanted to most recently. How much has that been an emphasis this week, making sure those three shots go in so you can play a little outside and spread out a little bit more?

MALACHI SMITH: I think just staying confident in myself. You're going to have moments in games where you don't make a lot of the threes that you want to make, but I'm still confident and I know the work I've put in. So whenever I get the touch I'm going to -- if it's a good shot for the team, I'm going to shoot it.

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: Yeah, just like Mal said, sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't. It's just having the confidence to shoot them any time. I still think it's going to be a balance of both, not relying on the three-point as much. Still you want attack Kofi and get him in foul trouble and do what you can. But still get that attack game going on first and let it run and have the three ball game going, so a good balance of both.

Q. Silvio, what stands out about Kofi, and have you in your college basketball journey, does he remind you of anybody you've gone up against?

SILVIO DE SOUSA: One thing that stands out the most for me about Kofi is just how much better he has been in college compared to when I first seen him in high school. From what I remember, they weren't as big as he is right now. But the two players I played against, it was Final Four against Duke, against Marvin Bagley and Wendell Carter, those were one of the two biggest players I played against in college. He kind of reminds me of both of them.

I just remember it being my sophomore or junior year of high school and we were just there playing, going at each other.

Q. Kofi seems to be a pretty popular topic right now. We asked him in the last conference a little bit about you and he said that one of the things that stood out to him was your footwork, your patience, and your technique. It seems like they're anticipating a matchup between you two. What sort of a battle do you anticipate with him in this game?

SILVIO DE SOUSA: Just first thing is just respect him. He's a good player. He's having a great season. I just feel like I have to respect his game and just see what he's going to give me and what I need to improve during the game just to make sure that I can get a stop or a better game.

But he's great, and I'm just looking forward for the matchup.

Q. David, you mentioned a few days ago that you did have some history with Trent Frazier back in the day. When you're looking at their guards, what's your opinion of them and what kind of skill do you think you can match up well with them?

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: Well, they're high level guards, you have Frazier at the 1, I'm not sure of the 2. I forgot his last name, great shooter. Is that Plummer? Yeah, big-time shooter. I think today was my first time watching some video clips of him and the type of shots he was able to get off, and I think that really shows how high level of a player he is. It will just be a game of just making each shot as difficult as possible for Frazier and Plummer both. It's going to be a great matchup. I'm looking forward to going against great guards.

Q. Mal, when you guys had that two-game losing streak before the last two games of the regular season and you go on the run that you have, obviously winning in the fashion that you did, have you felt the intensity of practice start to pick up in the aftermath of that shot, especially here today when you were practicing earlier, when you touched down here in Pittsburgh?

MALACHI SMITH: Yeah, for sure. We have a sense of urgency to us, a mentality to come here and continue to just keep doing what we're doing and win games. We're not just happy to be here. We're here to make a statement. And to beat a team like Illinois, you need to have all your Is dotted and Ts crossed. We wanted to make sure that we were ready for this game.

Q. For all three of you, so serious, but how exciting is this? What are the emotions like when you touched down yesterday?

SILVIO DE SOUSA: It's a lot of different emotions. Just being here, March Madness again, and from what I know, my freshman year in college was the most fun I've had, and now I'm having the same opportunity to do the same thing.

It's just a great feeling and super excited to get this thing started.

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: Yeah, so for me, first time being here, it's awesome. It's an amazing experience, seeing everything. I think for me it's just walking in the gym, seeing all the signs, the March Madness, seeing everything, it's unreal. Like, it's game day tomorrow, so I think that's why I'm just focused, tunnel vision now. I think just seeing everything, you get those little butterflies. But like I said, it's really so just awesome here. I'm looking forward to a great experience and amazing moments every step of the way.

MALACHI SMITH: For me I'm just really determined right now to just play, so I'm soaking it all in, but I'm also here on a mission, too, as well. Trying to just compartmentalize both. In my room I'm like, man, we're really here, but when we're in the gym and we're taking care of business, I'm just laser focused right now.

Q. Lamont has mentioned several times over the last week that he wants to throw multiple guys at Kofi and Avery Diggs is one of those guys that's going to be thrown at him. What have you seen from Avery in practice this week that makes you think he's ready for the moment?

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: With Avery, just from an overall physical standpoint, just being more physical, just being -- just trying to be as dominant as possible, just being physical. Just seeing what we seen on film from Kofi, seeing everything he does well, with the footwork, with how patient he is down below. He did a great job of playing like him, so hopefully we use that to turn against him and every great player, as well, so he can use some of those same moves and use it against him.

Q. For David, everyone has seen the shot to win the Southern Conference. Does that momentum from that carry over to the NCAA Tournament?

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: Just the shot in particular?

Q. Yeah, the shot and just the feeling of winning the conference.

DAVID JEAN-BAPTISTE: Oh, a hundred percent. I think any time you win a game, that momentum is going to carry over, and I think especially in the fashion that it happened. I think that's just one of those moments, like it's going to be there forever, and it's like, why not. It's one of those things that it's crazy how it happened, so it's one of those things just like it happened, so what else can happen from there.

So it's like, breaking barriers and just making more moments happen, not being afraid of the moment. A lot of times it's just playing like with nothing to lose.

Q. Keith was on those Belleville West teams. He's obviously at Illinois. Have you talked since Selection Sunday at all?

MALACHI SMITH: No, I haven't talked to him, but I keep in touch with all of them. He's doing his thing at football, so that team was really special. But it's kind of crazy how E.J. is at Ohio State, he's at Illinois, and now I'm playing him. We support each other, but I think he's supporting Illinois right now, so I don't know.

LAMONT PARIS: Just really excited to be back here in the NCAA Tournament and really excited to watch our guys enjoy the whole experience and take part in it. It's really neat for me. I've been blessed enough to be a part of this thing for a lot of games in my career, but this may be the most rewarding one. And we've got a great group of guys, and I'm just so excited to watch them experience it and lead them into battle tomorrow.

Really excited, glad to be back in Pittsburgh. I used to work at IUP for four years, so I've been in the state, recruited in the Pittsburgh area a bunch, so it's neat to be back around here.

Anyway, just really excited for our guys and having them really enjoy this moment.

Q. Coach, taking you back maybe a few years, but I wondered when you were at Wooster, did your paths cross with Ryan Pedon and if so how well do you know each other?

LAMONT PARIS: I bumped into him a couple times. He's one of my best friends in this business. He was there as a player when I had just graduated, so I actually coached him. Don't ask me about his jump shot. I like to compliment guys more than I don't.

Anyway, but yeah, we go way back, way back. He's a great human being, a great friend of mine, and I'm excited for them and for him and his future ventures as a head coach at Illinois State.

But yeah, we go way back, and he's like family to me.

Q. You mentioned your time at IUP. I imagine as a coach every stop you pick something up or maybe it shapes you. What were maybe some of the biggest things you learned during that chapter of your coaching career?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, you know, aside from we won a lot of games -- we made it to the Final Four. We won a lot of games, but that was the first time that I had recruited a lot of older guys and from just all different walks of life. We had kids from every part of the country, junior college kids, Division I transfers, kids from everywhere.

That kind of really -- I identified with that type of recruiting, and if you look at our team now, that's carried forward, and we, again, have kids from all over, different backgrounds, all over the country, transfers, high school guys, the whole gamut.

But that was one of the biggest things aside from some basketball things that are associated with just winning at a high level in terms of your expectation and how to get there and what it looks like and how kids respond and where they're good and in what areas they take their classes serious, all those things.

But one of the biggest things was just from a recruiting standpoint how to help blend and mesh all those guys together and to have a really good basketball experience.

Q. I know we've talked about Kofi inside. What specifically have you told the team this past week in order to beat that beast down in the paint?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, we have a couple different concepts that we're going to -- we're creatures of habit and we try to do the same things that are principle based, so we want to be true to who we are that way. This is a different type of player, quite frankly, and so you're going to have to tweak some of the things that you would typically do.

We've got a couple different things that we're going to look at, but we're going to keep fresh bodies out there on him at both ends of the floor. I think we have three guys for the most part, four guys that will play the center spot. And so I think they all present a different type of challenge or different type of person guarding Kofi. We'll use some quickness, we'll use -- Silvio De Sousa is very powerful in his own right, then we have Avery Diggs who's our tallest, longest players so he'll be out there, too. And then some different skill sets offensively that I think will potentially pose a problem for him in terms of having to get out -- they normally keep him closer to the basket.

We have a couple guys that can play in a way that's a little further away from the basket, and just to see what that looks like for him because it's not something that they typically have had to do. I was in the Big Ten a long time. There weren't as many guys that can do that and play that style of basketball.

Hopefully we can get him away from the floor and get him to have to defend in some different situations.

Q. Illinois was in a much different place when you left Wisconsin. What stands out about the job Brad has done in his tenure there?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, he's done a great job. Just they're extremely solid. They play well together. You don't accidentally -- the Big Ten conference regular season championship, they don't give that thing away. They've been resilient. They've had some injuries. I know Kofi was out a little while, Curbelo was out a little while. But he's done a phenomenal job. Because the league is so good, it's continued to be good, it's always been a good basketball league. But in these last couple years I think it's been really good.

For them to ascend to the top of that league, he's done a great job.

I think they defend -- I think this is the best I've seen them defend relative to my days in the Big Ten. They're defending differently. They have a different level of energy and effort in their individual match-ups defensively. And collectively I think they do a good job. And then you throw the personnel in there, and they have some different things that they can do because they have such size and athleticism around the rim. But Brad has done an incredible job with their team.

There's a lot of tradition and history that goes with Illinois, and they're obviously not falling short of that by any stretch of anyone's imagination.

Q. When we last spoke to you on Sunday, you mentioned a text you got from Brad Stevens about okay you got there, now you can play a little loose. And you mentioned you expected your team to do so. When we spoke to Malachi, he mentioned practice has been intense, there's a sense of urgency there. Do you feel that from your team, a sense of urgency but playing loose like you expected them to?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, I do. I think we've toed that line pretty well. I do want to make sure -- we've had such a long -- it's a little bit of a unique situation in that our conference tournament is so early so we've had some time. So we took two days completely off, we eased back into it with some shooting workouts only and then have built our way back into going hard. We did have to crank up the intensity just to remember what that was like. Three days, four days of not doing that and it's ancient history to these guys.

We have had to do that and crank it back up and get the intensity out there. I think you have to play with intensity. You have to be intentional about what you want to get done in order to get that done.

But at the same time we have definitely been loose, and that's a hard line to toe, honestly, with guys of this age. It's one or the other. They either want the music on at practice and this isn't serious or they want yelled at and this is really serious. To try to find some middle ground is the challenge, and I think we've done a pretty good job of that, but guys have been loose. I've been loose.

They know -- I joke around with them, but that's not to say that we're not going to come out and be prepared and prepare the way we normally do and come out and play, again, with an intentional focus of winning a game.

Q. Illinois has several explosive guards on the perimeter. How valuable will Darius Banks' defensive versatility be tomorrow?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, that will be a big part of it because there won't be too many people on their team that he doesn't guard at some point, including potentially Kofi at times. We'll see what that looks like.

But his versatility has been a big thing for us all season on both ends of the ball. But in this game in particular because they do have so many guys -- typically it's a man on a man and you get a matchup that you're supposed to stay with for most of the game. But they have a multitude of guys that can shoot the ball, especially shoot, but even some guys that attack the rim pretty good, too.

Just to have him be versatile enough to do that, it'll be more size on those guys than even sometimes they're used to going against. And then another part, an important factor will be his ability to rebound down from those perimeter positions to try to get in there and get some rebounds.

Q. Seems like there's kind of a contrast in styles offensively in this game. Your team is an attacking team, shoot a high percentage of twos; Illinois is going to let it fly from three quite a bit. Is there a team or other teams in the Southern Conference that you've played that play that style, and what have you learned from them?

LAMONT PARIS: Well, I'll tell you this: The one thing about defending the three, which has been something that we've done pretty well statistically on the year. In our conference -- out of 32 conferences, in our conference, 47 percent of all field goals attempted by any team are threes. That leads the nation by not even close. That's one thing that we have done. We're used to five men shooting the threes. Everyone shoots the threes.

I said, I can't wait to play a team where I can value a three for only three. I value a three like it's worth 10 because everyone shoots them, they're shooting them crazy. They're good at shooting the three and so we'll have to do a good job of that. It's a good combination of that. Obviously Brad has put that together on purpose, that you have a big-time threat at the basket and then at the same time, it's hard to show a lot of help to that because you've guys that shoot ball from the perimeter. So it's a good combination, it works well for him, it has worked well for them.

We've been prepared to guard the three anyway because we have guarded a lot of teams that shoot a ton of threes. And so they'll shoot some that are difficult, they'll make some that are difficult. Our job is to make them make those and not to get caught on one's rhythm threes where guys have their feet set, and they'll make some of the hard ones, also. But you play the odds on that, so we'll try to take away some of the easy ones, make them earn some of those threes, and again, I think rebounding is going to be a big part of success in the game.

Q. As you look back over the progression of this program and how you've built it the last couple years, when a coach comes in I think most of them expect there could be some challenging seasons. What are some of the biggest changes you've made culturally, from a personnel standpoint, schematically that have led you to this moment?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, I think by and large the biggest changes that we made -- the most important changes that we made had to do with culture. I think there have been some basketball things here and there that we've changed also and for the better. But I think some of the basketball things that I didn't like had to do also with some of the personnel that was performing those things.

And so I just think culturally it was a huge thing in terms of our emphasis on academics, our emphasis on team play. And trust me, the guys that I inherited, they didn't ask for me to be their coach, so I'm not saying they're bad guys. I'm not. They didn't pick me. So I completely understand that, any sort of resistance or whatever.

But we did, we got some guys that wanted to be coached by me, wanted to be coached badly by me, and we got some guys that I think holistically we were in a different place in terms of our emphasis on academics, our emphasis on sharing the ball, being a good teammate.

Here's a good example, Malachi Smith leads us in scoring and he's wherever in the country and I probably have fewer plays specifically to get him a shot than anyone else on the entire team. So he knows how to get his, but he's also not concerned about getting his. He leads us in assists.

I think we've gotten more guys that have that team-oriented kind of belief and want to win and they know that they're going to be able to get what they need to get out of this whole deal if we win enough games.

I'd say culturally that was probably one of the biggest things we did was change the culture. I know everyone does that, it sounds like a cliche. But if you don't have that right -- and there's not right and wrong, but there's right for you. And if you don't have it right for you, it makes it very difficult to succeed.

Q. How did you manage and maneuver a roster that has seven Division I transfers and try to get the chemistry right for this club this year?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, it wasn't easy, and we had a lot of -- our roster changed. In fact, in year three, David-Jean Baptiste was the sole player on that third season that was on the first season, as well. Not one guy.

A lot of that was by choice. Some of it happened. We also recruited the freshman of the year in the Southern Conference and that earned him after one year a Big 12 scholarship at TCU. Some of it was not my decision. That's just how it is. But to keep on having another piece and another piece, we focused on who they were, what kind of person they were, and how serious they were about the team and winning and how it all affected and interacted with them.

Once we did that, I think the blending part was a little easier. We were also older and more mature. We have a really old team.

My first year we had the youngest team in the entire country. Out of 358 teams we were the youngest. I won't ever do that again if I have any say so in that. So now they're older and they're just more willing to accept the truth. I've spent a lot of time developing a relationship with them and they accept what I'm saying as true and hope it affects them.

But building that with so many different pieces and so many guys from Division I. And we have multiple thousand-point scorers, Darius Banks -- again it comes down to character and emphasis on winning. Darius Banks has scored over 1,000 points, well over 1,000 points honestly and literally no one on our team cares less about scoring points than him. In fact, I had to remind him mid-season that you're a 1,000-point scorer, bud.

We'd go into a film session and I specifically showed four or five clips just of him making buckets and reminded the whole team that that's kind of what you've done your whole career, and we would like you to do more of that.

That's how it works. That's how it blends together is that you have selfless kids that are good teammates that enjoy having fun and one of their favorite things to do is to play and practice basketball. If you've got guys that don't like practice and only want to play in the games, there's going to be some friction, but we've got guys that like to practice and want to get better together.

Q. David-Jean Baptiste mentioned that getting Kofi in foul trouble is going to be a big thing, but as a coach how do you balance trying to get him in foul trouble and trying to exploit that matchup but also not getting away totally from what you guys have done all season?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, good question. I think it can be hard, but I don't -- we haven't talked much specifically about just trying to get him in foul trouble. I don't want to deviate a ton from our plan. We throw the ball inside, and we get a lot of our opportunities from post touches. Sometimes it'll be a basket in a one-on-one scenario, other times it'll be a double-team and we'll kick out for open shots.

We're going to throw the ball into the post. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to abort mission on that there.

If in the process of doing that and attacking downhill some, if in the process of doing that, he's more susceptible to a couple fouls, great. That would be great. But I'm not hanging our hopes on the fact that if he gets two fouls early then we have a great chance to win. If he doesn't, well then down goes Frazier.

That's not what we're hanging our hat on. While it would be nice if we can get that to happen, we're going to play our normal game, particularly from the offensive end, and we're going to attack and make them defend in there and try to put them in some other situations where he's got to guard.

He's a good defender, he's smart, he doesn't foul out of too many games, and that's a very physical league, the Big Ten.

We'll attack him. We'll attack him some, but it won't be such a focus that we get out of our normal way of doing things.

Q. With Plummer and his ability to get hot quickly and it seems like he doesn't need a lot of time to get a shot off, what kind of challenges does that present to you defensively, and have you seen a guy or coached a guy with that kind of release like that?

LAMONT PARIS: Yeah, good question. Because he can be so explosive, the typical way of guarding a guy like Kofi Cockburn is that you send bodies and you get people in there. Well, you're going to leave somebody open for three so it's very difficult to do that with Plummer. That's a challenge. That's the main challenge it presents. To address your main part, Fletcher Magee was at Wofford when I was there and I swear there's another kid in our conference that does the same thing. They run full speed in one direction, they jump, and they're not facing the rim when they jump and they shoot it and it goes in. Yeah, Fletcher Magee was one that we had to do that against, and so Plummer does some of the same stuff. And when he sees one go down, it's very difficult.

It's already cooked into our equation that he's going to make a tough one or two. You can't have him get going because in transition the first guy didn't get back so I had to help and he gets a wide open one or he gets to the free-throw line and sees it go in. If he's going to earn those, he's going to earn those. It is what it is.

I don't want to foul, also. I've seen some of the contests, and if you're contesting it any more than that, you're probably fouling him. You get there, get in the vicinity, put a hand up and if he makes it he makes it and you've got to move forward. But again, a very good inside-outside bunch that didn't happen by accident and Brad is no dummy. So he's a really effective inside threat and he's got a really effective outside threat, so it'll be a challenge for us, but we've got a really good game plan and we're ready to execute it.