NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - UAB BLAZERS VS HOUSTON COUGARS

March 17, 2022

Andy Kennedy

Michael Ertel

Quan Jackson

Jordan Walker

PPG Paints Arena

UAB Blazers

Media Conference

Q. What's it mean for you guys to be here, to have this opportunity and compete against a really good team in Houston?

MICHAEL ERTEL: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously a dream come true to be in the NCAA Tournament. It's been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid. I was lucky with COVID, I got another year. This is kind of the last hurrah for me, and we were blessed enough to make the tournament.

Yeah, so I'm just really grateful.

QUAN JACKSON: Definitely a dream to be here and we're just getting started. We're here to make noise, we're not here just to be here and to look around with the bright lights like we're in front of a car like a deer. We're here for a reason so it's time to put work in and make noise.

JORDAN WALKER: To piggyback on what both of them said, it's a blessing to be here. This is the type of stage you dream of, to sit in front of this March Madness logo and in front of you guys and to talk to you and answer your questions and put on a show for all the people that are going to come and show people how great at basketball we are and how great of a team we can be.

Q. You've seen a lot of video now of University of Houston. What jumps out at you when you watch Houston play?

JORDAN WALKER: Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm very familiar with them being in the American Conference. I sat out a year and we played them twice. Then I played them two more times each year, two years after that. This is going to be my seventh time playing them. What I know from them is they just play hard. They play really, really hard. Kelvin Sampson, he's a tremendous coach. Credits to him and what he's been doing at Houston these last couple years.

They just play really, really hard. I don't think they really do anything that special, but everyone on that floor, they're going to play hard every single possession. And that's a team that makes it far, especially in the basketball world because a lot of players and teams, they take possessions off, and that's how sometimes teams are able to come back and beat them or just flat-out beat them. Not many teams do that, obviously their record over the past couple years?

QUAN JACKSON: I would say we've got to match their energy, we got to rebound, we got to play as hard as them. And like Jordan said, they play hard. We can't take any possessions off. We've got to do what we do better than they do.

MICHAEL ERTEL: Obviously like they said, they play really hard, and the main thing is their physicality, I feel like. To go along with that playing hard, they have the athletes and the size to really make you feel it. Then another thing is rebounding. We have got to really rebound it.

Q. I just want to know how you feel knowing that some people are already counting you out. You are the underdogs of this tournament. Bracket challenges have been filled out and people are not necessarily picking you. What kind of motivation does that provide you? Is it fuel? How do you approach the game?

QUAN JACKSON: We're not really worried about what people say. We're a brotherhood right here and we know we've got each other's backs, so we know we've got to stay focused and only focus on us and what we can control. We can't control what people think because it's always a different outcome than what people expect. The only thing we can control is what happens on the court, and that's playing hard, executing, doing things like that, and we'll come out on top.

JORDAN WALKER: We don't really care what nobody says, to keep it quite frank. We don't care. Doesn't matter what anybody says, whether it's a reporter, a coach, a player, a fan. We don't care. We haven't cared since the beginning of the year. People were saying, oh, you guys are supposed to win this and win that, and like yeah, obviously we see it, but it didn't bother us.

It doesn't make us feel like, oh, we've got to do this for them. Nothing we do on this floor is for anybody but us, each other. We do this for each other. We do this for the names on our back and the people who love us, who have been there for us since we were kids.

Everything else, that don't matter. That don't matter.

MICHAEL ERTEL: Like they said, we don't really care about what people say that we've never talked to or never met. I mean, like for me, the only thing that matters is my teammates and the people that are in that locker room. Those are the only things that matter to me. We know what we can do and we know how good we are.

Q. Jordan, can you give me the origin of the nickname?

JORDAN WALKER: Yeah, so I'm part of the Jelly Fam group. We probably blew up, I would probably would say I was in high school, around 2015, 2017. Jelly is basically like a fancy lay-up, just like a finger roll lay-up with your own type of flavor on it, and obviously I'm part of the group Jelly Fam. And my name is Jordan and it's just easy to put J and J, so everybody calls me Jelly.

Q. Michael and Quan, what's it like to have a guy who can go off for 40 entering the NCAA Tournament?

QUAN JACKSON: It makes our jobs a little easier. Everybody focuses on him where I can get a slip to the basket or do things where they're not really too big on knowing about. And it hurts them in the long run because they're too worried about Jordan, so it makes the game easier. And I know him, when he starts to make shots, then I know we're going to be on a roll.

Q. Jordan, what's this like to have something that was important to you in high school like a nickname like that in high school and now it's like everybody knows, like it's the NCAA Tournament, this kind of platform to get that out, what's that like?

JORDAN WALKER: I mean, it feels great, I guess. I mean, just to be known on a national stage and be talked about by so many influential people and so many people that I've watched when I was a kid. I keep saying in interviews, it's just surreal. I just can't thank God enough for having this opportunity and being blessed with this national stage and people knowing who I am, especially even my nickname. It's just crazy.

I just think it's truly a blessing.

ANDY KENNEDY: Pleasure to be here, part of the biggest basketball tournament in the world. Really proud of the way that our guys have put themselves in this position to experience March Madness, and we're looking forward to the opportunity that tomorrow presents.

Q. What's it mean to have a player like Jordan who can take over a game in this kind of environment, this kind of atmosphere?

ANDY KENNEDY: You know, Jelly has been dynamic for us all season. Honestly, that was expected when we signed him. That's what we were hoping for. As this season has progressed and the stage has gotten better, it's just the rest of the country is having the opportunity to see what we have seen all season.

The thing I'm most proud of with Jelly is he has matured in his role as our quarterback. You understand UAB is in the south. We've got to speak in football terms. But his ability as the quarterback making good decisions, there's still times that his shot selection makes Coffey nervous, but I actually encourage it. I want him not to have to worry about good shot, bad shot. Let me worry about that. Let me try to help put you in a position where you can go make plays, and he has done that certainly throughout the course of the season.

As teams are game planning to stop him, and I'm sure Kelvin Sampson and Houston will do the same, that's where he's gotten better in allowing the game to come to him and us take advantage of some of that by the gaps that are in the defense by the way in which they tilt the floor to stop him.

Q. Is there any kind of level of different experience taking your alma mater to this kind of a tournament than your previous experiences?

ANDY KENNEDY: Yeah, it's certainly very special to me. When I got the opportunity to come back and take over the reigns of this program, we were right in the middle of a global pandemic, so I really went through the first year -- it didn't even feel real to me, simply because everything was so strange last year. This year we start creeping out of the pandemic, the crowds have gotten better, we're starting to rebuild some of the momentum that I knew was capable in this program because I experienced it as a player.

We always talk about the Gene Bartow standard, and Coach was obviously the founding father of UAB athletics. He was the AD and the coach. In year 3 took UAB to a Sweet Sixteen; in year 4 went to an Elite Eight. Went to seven straight NCAA tournaments in the '80s.

The standard that I'm referring to is one in which we're currently living. Having the opportunity to compete for a conference championship, having the opportunity to climb up that ladder and cut down the nets as a champion. And then to be able to be on this stage, which is the biggest stage in college basketball in the month of March and participate in the NCAA Tournament, that's the Gene Bartow standard.

I'm certainly proud that we've been able to get there as expediently as we have.

Q. I heard you say before the team left the other day that you wanted to use Houston's successful blueprint to rebuild UAB basketball. What is it about their team that you want to incorporate into your own?

ANDY KENNEDY: Well, it's more than just their on-court success. I see a lot of parallels. Obviously Houston has had incredible history in their program from Olajuwon to Drexler to Mr. Mean, Larry Micheaux, to Benny Anders. They've had some really, really great players, Guy Lewis. And then it kind of lost its shine a bit.

What Coach Sampson has done is not only had terrific success between the lines, but he's revitalized that program into a top-20 program, and that's the potential of it, and it took a great vision and a stern leader in order to get it there.

So I see that. I see a lot of similarities in the history and the lineage of UAB basketball, and we want to try to formulate that same game plan to try to elevate our program back to the standard that I know it's capable of being.