NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - VERMONT VS ARKANSAS

March 17, 2022

Eric Musselman

Stanley Umude

J.D. Notae

Davonte Davis

KeyBank Center

Arkansas Razorbacks

Media Conference

Arkansas 75, Vermont 71

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Just a ton of credit to Vermont. They're so well-coached. They understand their roles. They play really hard. They're a really smart basketball team. They can shoot the three and present a lot of problems in preparation, but I thought our guys to a man stepped up big-time with J.D. getting into foul trouble in the first half. Devo Davis stepped up huge and saved us with his ability to score and also run our offense tonight. And Stan was phenomenal. We probably could have run some more plays for him, but Stan came up huge tonight on a stage that it was his first time being on it, so really proud of Stan and what he did and.

Obviously, we had confidence in the second half that J.D. would put together a really good second half offensively, which he did, and obviously, Devo, the bigger the stage, the bigger the performance.

Q. This is maybe for Stan and J.D. There were upsets here today, two big upsets. Kentucky got knocked off by a 15 seed, St. Peters. Vermont gave you all you could handle. How big is it to survive these first round games and not be an upset victim like happens to a lot of teams, and what was the key to you being able to avoid that? Maybe Stan and then J.D.

STANLEY UMUDE: It's huge. You know coming in that every possession, we are going to have to fight. I don't think we came in relaxed or anything. We came in ready to go, and I think the upsets going around, it's March, so we just have to be ready.

J.D. NOTAE: Just like what Stan said, we just got to be ready, got to come out ready to play. This tournament is nothing guaranteed. Everybody is trying to win. So with that, we just have to come out there and play from the jump to the finish.

Q. Stan, this one is for you. When things get thick in the heat of the battle, man, you pretty much seize the moment. You never get too high, never get too low. You made some big three-pointers down the stretch. Just care to talk about what really went into that down the stretch for you there?

STANLEY UMUDE: I think it's just preparation and confidence in myself. I believe that and my teammates believe if I take those shots, they're going to go in. And all my threes, like I said, I usually always come off assists, so credit to them for finding me. Coach just told us before the game, we're built for it. We're built for this. We're battle-tested, and we were ready to go.

Q. For Devo and J.D., just thoughts on Stan's game tonight and how much of a difference maker he can be when he is playing with a little bit of swagger like he showed tonight and a bounce in his step.

J.D. NOTAE: He is huge. Before he came, me and Stan talked. I would just tell him when it gets to crunch time, we're going to go to him. He is kind of like Justin Smith with his body type the way he plays. He is a little more offensively skilled, so we just told him, like, you are about to be that guy, so just be ready.

DAVONTE DAVIS: For sure. Like J.D. said, Stan can score on all three levels so, I think we used that to his advantage in our offense, and I think as we continue to run plays for him, he continues to make plays for us and himself. I think if we continue to do that down the stretch like we did tonight, then the sky is the limit for Stan.

Q. I think you're averaging 15 points in NCAA tournament games for you, Devo. What is it about this stage that brings out the best in you?

DAVONTE DAVIS: I'm just playing basketball. Like Coach Muss said, the bright lights, we all need to step up at some point, and so I think the team and I know that when it's time to play, then like I was telling them in the locker room, you win, you advance, so we just want to find a way to win.

Q. This is for J.D. and maybe Stan. J.D., how tough was that first half, and then what was the key to bouncing back in the second half? How much were you sweating out that turnover they called with nine seconds and reversed it? Stan, what did you think of J.D.'s second half?

J.D. NOTAE: Just got to be more aggressive. I feel like I settled too much in the first half. Second half, I got downhill a little more, made plays for my teammates, and I thought it was out on me, honestly. I'm not going to cap to you. He this gave us the ball back.

STANLEY UMUDE: J.D. had a huge second half. I don't think we win that game without him stepping up. He knows that. We put a lot of trust in him in those situations, and he handles the pressure well, and he knows that he has to come through for, you and he did today.

Q. Stan, after tonight, I think you've hit three threes now in five of your last six games. What's been the difference lately? Are you just seeing a big rim or what?

STANLEY UMUDE: I feel good shooting the ball. A lot of confidence in my teammates, and coaches do a good job of finding me. So I think I just have been getting a lot of reps in and just picking my spots.

Q. Congratulations on the win. Do you think there's anything you need to work on before the second round match-up against New Mexico State?

STANLEY UMUDE: I would say maybe containing ball a little better. They did a good job of -- we were trying to take away their three ball, and they were doing a good job of driving us and forcing us to rotate in the first half, and I think we have got to do a better job of staying in front of the ball.

Q. Devo, this question is for you. You all pretty much had the game. Y'all controlled the game for the most part, but then Vermont is quite sure teams are definitely going to make their run. What was Coach Musselman telling you guys at that point when Vermont started to make their run?

DAVONTE DAVIS: Yeah. We knew Vermont was going to make a run. We just didn't know when. They're a great team, like Coach Muss said. Once they make their run, we have to stop it and make our own run, and so I think we did that. We did that pretty well.

Once we made our run, I think we kept the lead. Since I think the last few games, teams have been making late runs on us, and I think as a team, we've all come together and stopped that run and came together and finished the game out really well.

Q. This question is for Davonte. How important is it for you to be able to come off the bench and provide such a contribution to this team, especially on this kind of stage?

DAVONTE DAVIS: I think it's just me coming off the bench and just doing whatever it takes to help us win. If it's getting on the floor, getting rebounds or even going to the basket and trying to draw fouls and score, so whatever it takes to win, I think that's my ability coming off the bench.

Q. Eric, players get ready to play, and they're a little Teflon to things. As a coach, how nervous did New Mexico State and Richmond make you that it just happened in this building, and then secondly, where did you get the sneakers?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Well, I've been wearing a different theme sneaker all season long. One of our staff members's mother-in-law has done probably 80%, but then a schoolteacher brought me a pair that he painted one day, a couple of different students on campus have painted some shoes. What was the first?

Q. (Off microphone).

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I kind of know what's going to happen. I mean, we all do. We all know that there's going to be upsets, so watching those games earlier today didn't really affect my mentality at all. As a matter of fact, I used in part of our pregame just talking about how much respect we had to have for Vermont and how every possession was going to matter, so I don't think that necessarily that, you know, nerves or angst or anything like that needs to come into play.

We pride ourselves on rebounding. We pride ourselves on defending people, and I tell the guys, the last three days defend and rebounding, your nerves are never going to affect those two things. Obviously, when you are a higher seed, especially I think in the first game, you know, there is an added element to it for sure. Then I think once you get that first game, now it is just playing.

Last year it was Oral Roberts that we had to play as a progress. They were a lower seeded team, but we didn't feel that pressure like we did in game one against Colgate, just like tonight I think there is a little bit of extra. Just getting the first win. It's the hardest one to get in my opinion.

Q. We've mentioned Stanley Umude playing in his first NCAA Tournament. Just curious what you had seen from him this week and the buildup and if you had a sense that he was due to have a big game like he did tonight?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: It was interesting before the game. He was kind of non-emotional, you know, laser-focused. We got here early because the tip time kind of kept getting moved back, and we just have one locker room, so I would kind of pop in from the hallway and a couple of guys had their phones just because we don't collect the phones until 90 minutes before tipoff. He wasn't one that had the phone. He was staring right at the video screen as we had Vermont film rolling.

To sit here and say that I had some feeling that he was going to have a great -- I really didn't know because it was his first tournament. I did go to bed last night thinking that Devo and J.D. and Jay Will would have a huge impact on this game.

Q. Free-throws getting to the line have been a big MO for you guys. You hit 8 out of 10 to close it out. How big was that and just the clutch free-throw shooting you guys showed?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Huge. I think I mentioned it to you guys. We do a drill at the end of every practice called perfect free-throw, and it's time-consuming, but last year when J.D. Notae told me he is more nervous doing perfect free-throw drill than he is in a game with the game on the line. I know it does put pressure on our guys, and clutch free-throw shooting, you know, has been very big for us all year. I mean, I feel like we've done a great job at the free-throw line.

Q. You muscled your way through this round one. Were there any other players that weren't on the podium that you felt played exceptional, that fulfilled their roles?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think that Au'Diese did a phenomenal job defensively. He is always assigned to the offensive player that we feel his length can bother, and I think every game, there's always little things that happen. I thought Trey Wade did a really good job defensively, although it might not show up on the box score.

And even Chris Lykes, we put him in at the end of the first half, and his two free-throws, I thought that gave us a little bit of extra cushion instead of going in five to go up seven. I think everybody that played for us tonight in some way contributed.

Q. Last night why exactly were you confident that Devo was going to have a big game tonight?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Look, Devo, Jay Will and J.D., it's hard to go to an Elite 8. And even as I look back at that Baylor game, and we talked about it earlier today amongst our staff, I mean, we played Baylor better than anybody. And those three guys, two of them as freshmen, I felt like that they've grown, and so has J.D. We need those guys to play well in this environment.

You know, J.D. was able to regroup at halftime, and I whispered to him, I'm still going to run plays for you. You can't hide, man. I'm going to you. We're going to sink and swim with kind of your performance in the last 20 minutes, and I thought he started attacking the rim a lot more.

Q. Ryan Davis didn't have a field goal attempt in the last 13 minutes. What changed there for you defensively?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Say that again.

Q. Ryan Davis did not have a field goal attempt in the last 13 minutes. What changed there defensively?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: We changed our pick and roll coverage. I thought they were picking us apart. We tried in the first half to switch up our coverage every timeout so that they couldn't have a steady diet, and what we ended up going to was switching one through five and even switch some of their dribble hand-off actions, which was our plan C. We normally don't get even to a plan B.

Unfortunately for the game, coming up on Saturday, we will not have a plan A, B, and C because we won't have enough time with our preparation, but we were able to have three different coverages that we were able to work on, and we went to our last resort, and I thought it affected them a little bit.

Q. Before the game, you guys went to Niagara Falls. You were seeing wearing a lot of Bills and Bandits gear posted on social media. Talk about embracing the environment here and really embracing the city of Buffalo.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I went for maybe an hour and 40 minute walk today. I was really happy that it was sunny, and I could wear shorts. I went with, like, five of the staff today. We've had two incredible meals. I had no idea the food was this good. I don't know if we just got lucky with the two restaurants we went to, but that's part of this thing is what are we going to do? Keep the guys in the hotel and -- I mean, we did that last year for it seemed like an eternity in the bubble. We're the anti-bubble team right now. We're going to get out. We're not going to have all of our meals in the hotel. We're going to go to restaurants and experience different things. Like I said, it's the anti-bubble philosophy this year.

I do need a Bills Mafia hoodie. I have to try to find one of those in the morning.

Q. This is the fifth Arkansas has won their first game -- NCAA tournament game back-to-back years since the late 1990s. How significant is that? Also I couldn't help but notice you are icing your shoulder down. I hope you didn't dislocate it during the game or something. How is the shoulder?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Shoulder wasn't good today even before the game. It's heat, not ice, Bob, but that's really irrelevant. What was the first part?

Q. (Off microphone).

ERIC MUSSELMAN: When we saw our name on Sunday in the tournament, we came here to win, so I don't know the significance -- we expected to win the game. We expected it to be a hard fought game. We'll go into that same mentality Saturday. Fear nobody. Respect everybody.

New Mexico State is a really confident team. We're going regroup. They got a little bit of a head start on preparation by a few hours. A little more -- I shouldn't say preparation. A little more rest.

So we just have to wait to see what time we play on Saturday, and it will be a 40-minute game that will be entertaining. And like I said, New Mexico State is a great team, but we came here to win, Bob, so it's not like we're -- we didn't celebrate tonight in the locker room like maybe we have in the past. I think we felt like we should win tonight.

Q. Sorry I just got here. I'm not sure if you were asked. The significance of how the team overcame Notae's struggles in the first half and how cold he was and the fact it took him a little while to get going, but you guys kept maintaining your composure and the lead.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I thought Davonte Davis really stepped up for us offensively. He became really aggressive at that point guard position. Sometimes I play him at the two and the three and felt like tonight match-up-wise defensively and offensively -- I mean, J.D., this happens a lot, so it's kind of like, all right, we just -- and I'm a coach that just won't play players with two fouls in the first half.

I just believe the last ten minutes of the game are so important that I want to have my best players available, but J.D. was -- I don't know if you were here when I said it, I told him at halftime, my man, I'm going to you. We're going to run -- we're running all the sets for you, and we hadn't run the first maybe 31 minutes of the game. We hadn't run our fist-out 23 dive red, and we went to it and milked it, and he and Stan just got great look after great look.

Sometimes you want to hold the set based on match-ups and stuff until the latter part of the game. I couldn't run the play anyhow because J.D. was sitting next to me, so ...