NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - NEW MEXICO ST. VS ARKANSAS

March 19, 2022

Eric Musselman

Jaylin Williams

Au'Diese Toney

KeyBank Center

Arkansas Razorbacks

Media Conference

Arkansas 53, New Mexico 48.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I just from a defensive standpoint, obviously Au'Diese Toney, the way that he played individually tonight was as good as any defender that I've ever coached, and then collectively the team being able to adjust in a short turnaround and be able to switch timeout after timeout into different coverages, we played almost the whole first half in our spy coverage. The guys just did an incredible job.

We were worried about giving them too much in a short amount of time, but I mean, these guys play so hard. It was obviously not a cosmetically pleasing offensive game, but the toughness and the resilience and the way that we played defense is incredible.

Q. I guess this is probably directed at all three of you guys, if that's okay. Just you've been through two battles here this weekend, and you're one of the final 16 teams remaining in the country. Can you describe the emotions that you feel in the moment and what it means to you individually and for the program?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I would say it's great. Especially because how we started this year or started our SEC play. It's great for the team knowing that we proved a lot of people wrong. This whole season for us, it's just been fighting. Everybody just kept fighting. Everybody turned into a dog. Everybody wanted it bad, so we just kept fighting throughout the whole year, and it's a great feeling.

Q. What did you make of that pass that Devo made in transition that led to Au'Diese's dunk, especially the pass to thread the needle in that moment?

AU'DIESE TONEY: It was a perfect pass. We were just talking about it in the huddle. He is, like, just run. I'll get you. It was on the money. I just capitalized on it. Congratulations on him for making that pass. It was tough.

Q. It seemed like you was, like, you know, you went out there with those straps. Five points in the first half. You came out like you was like the Teddy Allen wrench of the tournament at this point. You know what I mean? What was going on in your mind when the Coach said that you had Teddy Allen for this game?

AU'DIESE TONEY: When he told me that the night they won, he just said you got a big responsibility. The man can play ball. He is a bucket getter, so I just -- my mindset was just to keep him under control and not let him get loose, and my guy -- I couldn't do it without my guys, you know?

Q. Jaylin, hey, double-double machine out there. They went on a run, obviously, and in this tournament, it's going to be a game of runs, but you guys were able to go on the 9-0 run pretty much to pull away for victory. What was Coach telling you when they made that run for you to doubleback with that 9-0 run?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Really for us to stay calm. Go to the offensive end and run our plays. Stay calm against the defense. We knew what they were in, and we had to pick up on the defensive side. We had to get stops and turn them into offensive plays for us.

Q. Question for Au'Diese. Was there a moment tonight where you sensed that you had the upper hand on Teddy, and what was that moment in the game?

AU'DIESE TONEY: Man, I guess when a couple of possessions later on in second half, he started getting a little frustrated, and that was my key then to just keep doing what I was doing. A couple of possessions, the last game he had, when he had 37, he was aggressive. He just wanted the ball more, and this game he really didn't seem like he wanted the ball as much, so I just kept trying to be locked in on that.

Q. Kind of a two-parter here. Jaylin, I don't know if you are know this. Your 15 rebounds set a tournament record. What do you think about that?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I just came into the game knowing I had to rebound. That's one of the things. They're a great rebounding team. I came into the game thinking rebound.

Q. Maybe for Chris and Jaylin, you guys shot like a season low 27% from the field, but at the line, 22 of 25. Chris, you were 7 of 7. Jaylin, I think you were 4 of 4. What was it like surviving a shooting game like that and winning at the free-throw line? This tournament, you guys hit 42 of 50, so pretty good. What did you think about your free-throw shooting tonight that basically saved the game for you?

CHRIS LYKES: Free-throws are always important in the game. I knew as the game was going on, it's always a dog fight. It's tough for both teams to score. I knew at the end of the game, if it was close, it would come down to free-throws. Just understanding that you have to knock those down, and it really helps you win games. It was really crucial for us.

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Free-throws have been our identity the whole year and getting to the free-throw line and hitting free-throws. Our offense wasn't clicking, so we just stayed aggressive and tried to get to the line. Every time we stepped up to the line, we stepped up there confident. We knew that Chris was going to knock down the free-throws at the end. Everybody was. We just stepped up and hit them.

Q. This one is for Au'Diese. Could you just kind of talk about the battle that you had with Teddy Allen just being locked up with him and defending him throughout the night? Just what was it like just first off trying to keep the ball out of his hands, and then secondly, whenever he did get the ball trying to force him into as bad a shot as possible?

AU'DIESE TONEY: It was tough. Like I said, he is a very good competitor, and he stayed moving without the ball, and finding ways to get the ball, and it's just hard, but we just had to switch the defense. At the timeout, it was just to maintain him not getting the ball.

Q. Question for Chris. Tell me about your mentality when J.D. fouls out. Then just tell me what it was like for you. You only get nine minutes in this game, but obviously you're a huge part. Just how were you able to focus in that moment and contribute in that moment like they needed to.

CHRIS LYKES: Simple. Just understanding that it's bigger than myself. It's a team game, and for us, in order to win this game, someone has to go down and knock those free-throws. I just stayed ready. Coaching staff did a good job of just talking to me and making sure I was ready, and I went in the game and knocked down free-throws.

Q. This question is for Jaylin. This was a big fight tonight. It was big dog versus big dog, you in the match-up with McCants. What keeps you motivated to have these match-ups and come out the victor in these match-ups, man? Who is keeping you motivated, and what's keeping you motivated?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Wanting to win. That's just been my thing the whole year. Doing whatever the team needs to get a win. I've seen a lot of great big men through our league. We have a lot of good guys in our league, so it's just another night. We were just playing against another really good big guy, and just wanted to get a win keeps pushing me to try defend these guys.

Q. Jaylin, this is your second straight Sweet 16, so probably just think this happens to everybody, but I wonder what you think, and the other two guys, you both have waited a long time for this. Chris, I know you played in the NCAA Tournament in Miami, but this is new for you, Au'Diese.

What does it feel like to be going back in the second year in a row, and then for the other two, what's it feel like to get there for the first time?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: It's a great feeling, but it's like a standard now for us. If feel like the program is what we want to do, what we feel like we need to do every year. It's our standard to get to where we were last year, but of course, it is a great feeling knowing that we are one of the last teams standing.

Q. (Off microphone)

CHRIS LYKES: This is my first time getting past the first round, so I'm super excited about that. Just shows all the hard work we put in in this offseason, and just understanding the culture here and hard work and the ethics, so I'm happy to be here, man. It's a really surreal moment for me, and, yeah.

AU'DIESE TONEY: For my first time even in the Sweet 16 is big for my first time. It's amazing just knowing that the guys we have and the culture we built is just crazy here, and it's just amazing to survive in this event.

Q. Question for Au'Diese. That was one of the best defensive efforts I've seen in this tournament, and I have been here two nights in a row. I just want to know who do you pattern your defensive game behind? Is there anybody you're watching?

AU'DIESE TONEY: It's crazy you say that, but I study Jimmy Butler on defense a lot. Just the way he plays on the defensive end, just his mindset, that dog mentality he has on the defensive end, I just try to take that mindset every game.

Q. I'm not sure you want to answer with Eric sitting right there. Maybe I'll ask Chris and Jaylin. This is the third time Eric has taken two different programs to the Sweet 16 in five years. That's pretty good. What do you guys think it is about him that enables him to do that? What do you think about that staff? Three Sweet 16s in five years, two different programs.

CHRIS LYKES: His will to win. He has the passion that we all do. He wants to win just as bad as we do, and that's important coming from your coach seeing how much he cares. That helps you go out there, and you're motivated to fight for him.

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I would just say it's his fire. He pushes everybody to be just as good as they can be. He might cuss you out, might yell at you, but it's because he wants you to be the best player that you can be. He is pushing you to be a perfectionist. He is pushing the team to be the best we can be every day.

Q. For Jaylin. I saw this from the sideline. I wonder if you can add some context to it. It looked like late in the game Devo is on the line. He kind of looks to you and makes a little bit of a face. It was a big free-throw. I wasn't sure if you guys were goofing around a little bit, just to make the moment light or if Teddy was maybe trash-talking a little bit, but it just seemed like in a pressure-packed moment, you guys were having a little bit of a light moment, and I'm wondering if you can fill in some details.

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Devo, he just -- that was him and Teddy were going at each other a little bit, and Teddy was talking trash to him, and we're just having fun with the game. Devo continues to have fun. He finds ways to have fun, and that's his way. Just being that dog. We're just having fun out there. He was talking trash.

Q. Jaylin, Devo didn't have his usual NCAA Tournament game. I guess I jinxed him earlier. He is 0 for 6 from the field, and he goes to the line and knocks down both free-throws and plus with that interaction you were just talking about. How confident were you that Devo was going to hit those free-throws even though he wasn't having a particularly good shooting night?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Super. I felt confident. We work on free-throws every day at practice. In big-time situations too. We work on that, and Devo might not have had a good offensive game, but I feel like he did a good job on the defense. He is contributing even if it's not on the offensive side. He was getting other teammates open. He was creating even though it wasn't for himself. Other than his shots or not making shots, I feel like he had a great game.

Q. Chris, this question is for you. Obviously, you like the big moments, but I want to know what's your mindset and what's your mentality like only playing nine minutes you are on the bench? I know everybody as a basketball player wants to be out there and contribute, but what's your mind set that keeps you motivated and the wheels turning while you're on the bench being the role player?

CHRIS LYKES: I just wanted to help this team advance to the next round. And whatever they asked of me to do, I was going to do it, and today they asked of me to go down there and knock down some pretty big free-throws, so I was ready for the moment, and that's all it is sometimes, just being ready.

Q. Hey, Coach, congratulations. Just maybe start with a big picture kind of question. You've had two opportunities to take Arkansas to a tournament since you've been here, advance to the Sweet 16 both times. What does that mean to you personally, and how does it make you feel about where you have this program headed?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Like what the players said, we grind so hard in the offseason, and we don't take our summers lightly. I mean, we have a goal that when school starts for the regular school that we have everything in that we need to have in, meaning, you know, all of our baseline package zone offense. We're squeezing it all in in a limited amount of time, but we don't just come in and just shoot.

I mean, it's a culture of work. It's a culture of trying to get maximum effort every day, but to make two Sweet 16s back-to-back, it's not easy. There's very few teams that are able to do it. We felt when we got together at the beginning of the summer, the transfers, we talked to them about this. You know, this is the goal.

If you want to come here, there's going to be expectations, but we have enough talent to do this, and I'm just so happy for the guys that haven't been on this stage because they committed to us with a dream and a vision.

Q. Eric, I saw you nodding your head when Jaylin was talking about Devo's defense in this game. First, I wanted to get your thoughts on that bounce pass he made to Au'Diese with the dunk to cap that run, and what did Devo do on the defensive end that stood out to you?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I thought Devo and J.D., we had a primary defensive package for number 0, Teddy Allen, and then we had a secondary package for Rice, number 10. We wanted to pressure him, and we wanted to bother him. We wanted to stab at the ball. I mean, J.D. has eight steals. That's a lot of steals.

Then when J.D. went out or when he wasn't on the floor, Devo was doing a great job. I thought it forced them playing some guys that were not really on our scouting report, to be honest with you. With 12, Cotton, when he checked in the game, and, obviously, that was for shooting, and then we felt like McKinney played a little bit more than maybe what we felt because maybe it added ball handling with the pressure that both Devo and J.D. put on Rice.

Bounce pass was incredible. I mean, the thing with Devo, he has such great court vision. He thrives on making homerun plays. Sometimes you want guys to just look for a single, but he has -- we see it all the time. He has this dramatic -- something about having flare to his game, but he does have great vision. He is unique with his ability to take chances both off the dribble and then also from a passing standpoint.

Q. We've talked a lot about Au'Diese's defense lately, but I wonder where you feel like this performance kind of fits in with what else he has been able to do this year in other games he's had?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: He has been great all year. He sacrifices -- when you think about the energy that it takes to guard the best player every night, so it probably sacrifices some of his offense, quite frankly. He is a guy sometimes that I want him to rest a little bit offensively because of the energy, and tonight's scheme was a little bit more complicated than we've had when you are changing stuff during time-outs on which way you're forcing a guy and which way the help is coming from.

I mean, it's a little bit how we used to play Kobe Bryant. I didn't know if we were giving him too much, meaning the entire team. I was worried about it today at the team meal even as late as 4:00. Did we try to squeeze too much in? When you demand a lot, it's amazing what people can retain.

Q. Eric, what did you think of your field goal shooting? It was a season low. Not many teams shoot 27 to win a NCAA tournament game. You had 22 out of 25 field goals and killed it from the free-throw line. What did you think about the field goal struggles, and then you made up for it with the free-throws?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I would say -- I think Hunter is still here. I'm glad I still have a job, after that offensive performance, I could have walked off the floor, and he could have said he was looking for a new coach. I'll put a lot of that on me maybe offensively because we spent the entire -- and it was really short turnaround, but I probably spent too much time defensively on what we were going to do and maybe didn't spend enough time offensively and tweaking some of our offensive sets.

I did think that we missed some easy baskets around the rim. That was a little bit uncharacteristic of us, but we've been a great free-throw shooting team all year, Bob. Like the guys said, we literally work on it every day, and it's not easy the drill that we do. I've talked about it. I mean, a lot of times we are holding the plane up when we're leaving town, and some of the coaches will say, hey, Skip, perfect free-throw. We have to get out of here. The plane is leaving. Sometimes a drill takes 22 minutes. It's taxing, but I think what it does is it puts guys under game pressure in a closed practice setting, which is hard to create.

Q. Good-ugly win. Defense and free-throws. Just care to talk about how resilient your guys played out there today?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think New Mexico State is really well-coached. They're really tough. They pride themselves on offensive rebounds, and they pride themselves on getting loose balls. They pride themselves on toughness. You know, we pride ourselves on toughness too. We just -- maybe some people overlook that part of us, but we feel like from a toughness standpoint that we can go toe to toe and anything that happened tonight where we got exploited, I didn't spend enough time on our post defense.

You know, normally we front the post, and they hurt us in the second half going inside, but we felt like if we could hold Allen or the goal was ten or under, and he got two over that, but we felt like if we could just focus on that one aspect, that would afford us an opportunity to win.

Q. Absolutely. Just care to talk about your overall experience here being in Buffalo.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I got to come back, I guess, in the summer because I had a blast. Had great meals. I loved visiting the Bills. All the people over there were awesome, so I definitely want to try to come to a Bills game, without a question.

I've been to a few of these, and this was probably the funnest experience that I've had. You know, we were able to do some stuff with the guys, Niagara Falls and so on. And the weather was incredible for the two days we had off, so it was awesome.

Q. How fitting was it given how hard Toney worked to get that dunk in the way that really seemed to really raise and cap that run, and, secondly, have the benefits of being an NBA coach and having played -- defended against Kobe Bryant and you talked about this is how we defended Kobe Bryant, and is there a benefit to that for your team and for your experience to go up against a guy like Teddy Allen?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Yeah, I don't think there's any question because, I mean, when we knew we were playing them after our game, you know, I went back and I still have all my notes in my email so, I opened up my emails and went through because I keep all my post game notes, and I thought we did a pretty good job except for maybe one or two games against Bryant.

You know, what that philosophy is maybe forcing him right for a quarter and then forcing him left for a quarter, bringing an extra defender, which you saw tonight we did a lot, and then when you bring the extra defender, sometimes on the catch, sometimes on the second dribble. I didn't know if a college team was going to be able to do that, but I think there's a huge benefit, to be honest with you, with coaching in the NBA because there's 82 games, and you have to -- every night -- I can tell you what we did with Alan Iverson. It might not have worked every night because my record should have been better. I wouldn't have gotten fired so much. I still got the experience of trying to -- even as an assistant coach for my dad and game planning against Kareem Abdul. I've seen every position, a great player, and been a part of a game plan. I think it definitely helps for sure, and what was the first part?

Q. (Off microphone)

ERIC MUSSELMAN: That was perfect. He has been an opportunistic scorer for us all year. He comes up with huge basket cuts or huge offensive rebounds. For him to be rewarded with basically the exclamation point after everything that he had done defensively and then I'm kind of letting him chill a little bit offensively, and then even when Allen went out, I took Au'Diese out for him to rest for that minute and a half or whatever. I thought it was a perfect exclamation point.

Thanks.