NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - ARKANSAS VS GONZAGA

March 23, 2022

Eric Musselman

Jaylin Williams

J.D. Notae

Au'Diese Toney

Chase Center

Arkansas Razorbacks

Sweet 16 Media Conference

ERIC MUSSELMAN: First of all, I'm surprised my picture is not up on the wall anywhere in here. Just kidding. (Laughing).

We're totally excited about being here and being a part of the Sweet 16. Had two games that we really had to compete and play at a high level. Excited to the challenge of playing tomorrow night. Have incredible respect for Gonzaga, obviously, and we have one more day of prep the rest of the afternoon, and then we're playing.

Q. Coach, I think back to some of the handwritten letters that you shared with us from your mom from some different games since you've coached at Arkansas, and now that she's going to be here in person and see you coach the Razorbacks for the first time, do you anticipate some one-on-one chalk talk with her?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Hopefully not at halftime. No, but it will be really cool to coach a game in front of my mom. She was able to come to, obviously, games in Sacramento and here living in San Diego, but it has not been the case to get to Fayetteville, and so I'm looking forward to it. She's flying in today, and it will be awesome to be able to coach in front of her, and my son is flying up with her from San Diego. That's a really cool personal thing, although it's way more about the players and student-athletes and their experience playing in the Sweet 16.

Q. Obviously, a lot of attention put on Holmgren and Timme, but I'm curious your thoughts on their back court and the impact they've made this season?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: We can't just focus on one. Obviously, their point guard Nembhard, he is such a special player. He has great size. We played against him at Nevada when he was at Florida. We actually recruited him hard when he transferred. He has great court vision. He does a great job of catching deep, long outlet passes. He is incredible pitch-ahead passes to shooters like Bolton on the wing.

Gonzaga just presents a lot of problems, and that's why they're being talked about as far as being a team that's going to advance beyond this. There's been not much talk about Arkansas, which they deserve it. They're the No. 1 ranked team in this tournament, and so we have to play our "A" game to beat a team that is seeded No. 1 in the entire field.

Q. I know we've talked about this before, but you had such an amicable parting from the Warriors. It seems that people there still talk very highly of you. Why was your parting so amicable? Why do you have such a good feeling about the Warriors, and then how much better a coach, as good as you were then, how much better do you think you are now? How have you evolved as a coach?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I know I'm a lot better. I probably knew 1/100th of what I know now, but just the experience in the Bay Area. The crowds for the Warriors, even then when we were a non-playoff team was incredible.

After I got fired from Sacramento I came right back here to be a dad and live in Danville. It's kind of funny, but I would go to 24-Hour Fitness in San Ramon and wear my Warriors gear even though I had been let go. A few years before Raymond Ridder, Eric Housen, a lot of the people that are new even, you know, I'm friends with. Whenever there's management change in the NBA, fortunately for me I got to live it with my father, and so there was management change and then soon to follow is going to be the coach.

I still talk to Garry St. Jean. Actually, one of the houses we bought in Danville, his wife, M.J., sold it to us. Even though Chris Mullin was the one that took over for Garry St. Jean, our sons were always playing against each other in AAU ball. My youngest son, Matthew, at the University of San Diego, that's where Mully's daughter went, first year their freshman year they hung out all the time.

I think just understanding that maybe it wasn't completely the wins and losses, and there was new management, and they wanted new direction, but certainly the first year with the Warriors was as gratifying coaching that I had. I had fun, loved the guys. When Gilbert Arenas is young, there's always going to be some wacky stuff go on. But it was a great experience, and I feel fortunate to have coached an NBA team at such a young age.

Q. Eric, sort of following up on that, just can you talk about what it's like for you to be able to come back to the Bay Area?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think it's difficult with tickets. One of my cousins, Chris Anderson, that I basically grew up with, he has been one of my best friends. I had to send him the link to the Arkansas ticket office, and he is, like, what are you talking about? I'm not one of the guys that just gets a ticket from you?

It's been really cool. I have a bunch of people coming to the hotel later this afternoon when we have downtime at 4:00 today. Just so many friends. To come back and be able to play here is -- the day that I was either fired from the Kings or the Warriors to think that I would be coaching in a Sweet 16 in the Bay Area, if anybody would have asked me that at that particular time I would have told them there was zero chance. Not 5%, not 10%, literally zero chance of that happening. I guess the world has a funny way of working itself out. It's a cool experience for my whole family. Especially my two sons.

Q. How did you get your hands on all those hats? Did you have an assist from an equipment guy, maybe somebody almost as great as Eric Housen, to get your hands on all those hats that you had the kids wear? What sort of sparked that idea?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I can't divulge my resources, but we -- when we went to Buffalo, I wanted to talk to the guys about some of the stuff. Like we went to Niagara Falls, and I went to the Bills facility, and we actually talked about NHL hockey when we were in Buffalo. We talked about a particular goalie that played there. Just trying to have fun, educate the guys.

One of the players didn't know that the Oakland baseball team was actually called the Athletics, and wanted to know what that meant and how it turned into the A's. So I went into a history lesson about Charlie Finley and went into a history lesson about the uniforms and the colors. Billy Martin managing them. I don't know if they listened or heard anything I said, but I think that's part of our job is we're going to have a little tour later today of the city and get on a trolley, and I think that's part of the experience.

I've said it in past interviews, it also helps me from overloading them. If we're touring the city, it's one less film session, one less putting pressure on the guys, and so I think it's healthy for us to be able to do stuff like that.

Q. Very few teams have played as well in one half as well as Memphis did against Gonzaga. Is that a set of film that you put an extra eye on or pick up something they were trying to do for success against your match-up with them?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Certainly we've watched not just Gonzaga's first two games, but we've watched a lot of games, talked a lot of people on the phone. Weirdly enough, I went to San Diego, which is in the same conference. So I watch this conference whenever I can. If they're ever on TV, it's always Gonzaga. It's not San Diego, Santa Clara. I promise you that. Gonzaga is always on playing somebody in that conference. I have seen them play throughout the year a lot.

What Memphis -- every team has different strengths and weaknesses. We saw what Memphis did, but they, like I said, have a little bit different personnel than us, and every game takes on a different theme and has its own story line. I don't think that we can actually, other than looking at a few things and maybe changing a few wrinkles on things, which we've tried to do, we have to kind of be who we are too.

Q. You guys' transition defense was pretty solid in Buffalo, but given the pace that, I guess, Gonzaga plays, where do you place the importance of getting back defensively, communicating, and doing your best not to get cross-matched?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: It can't be pretty good. It better be great or we have no chance. The pace that they play at is incredible. Their wings run hard. They have a rim-runner. They have a great trail guy, so all those factors become important. You have to guard the three-point line on the catch, maybe before the catch because of the pitch ahead, because of the deep outlets.

You have to be physical on the rim-runs. You have to be physical on the trail man. So there's a lot of important factors.

Communication becomes really important for any team that runs, and any team that plays with great pace. Point and picking and finding your man because it becomes of the utmost importance. There's always going to be cross-matches whenever you play a team that runs like they do, which puts a further importance on the defensive communication.

Q. You talked about the fact that not a lot of people are talking about you guys in terms of this match-up. Do you talk to your team about that? Do you kind of let them marinate in it? What do you say about that?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: When we do a film session, there's stuff spliced in on what people have said, 1,000%. I don't mind conveying that.

We understand the respect factor for us in this particular game is kind of nonexistent from a national perspective. Yeah, our guys are going to see it, hear it, all the way up until tip-off. Again, the respect that we have for Gonzaga is through the roof, but we have a 40-minute game that we've got to try to figure out how we can play with them and give ourselves an opportunity.

Q. Do you sit down dreaming, thinking that one day this team is going to just light it up shooting, you know, to the point where you really struggle, but you do enough to win, but it's going to be that day that they aren't just kind of a poor shooting team?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I just dream we make one sometimes. For us right now toughness, defense, and really we have made shots when we've had to. It's been a really unique team in that aspect that when we need to go on a 6-0 scoring spurt and make two deep threes, we kind of found a way to do that. Obviously, being 17-3 in our last 20 games, and you look at the competition that we've played against, when you play against Kentucky and Auburn and at Tennessee and at Alabama and two of the three losses have come by a combined five points.

We've talked all year to our team about how do you win the race from November to March, meaning how do you win the race of being an improved basketball team? I think we've improved and won that race as much as anybody based on who we've played down the stretch of the season.

Now it's a 40-minute game, and certainly making shots suddenly becomes extremely important. Not just for us, but every team in the tournament that's left. You have to have shot-making ability in order to advance when you are down to 16 teams.

Q. Muss, you are talking about kind of touring and having fun with your players. A lot of coaches come in here and talk about this should be a business trip and yadda, yadda. Is that a you decision how you would treat any team or do you do that specific to this team because it will work for them to ease off the pedal a little bit?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I do it based on experience. If anybody thinks that they sit up here and say it's a business trip and that they think they're preparing more than us, watching more film than us or having more intense practice session than us, then they're fooling themselves.

Nobody prepares harder than what we do. More importantly, than our players do. You could quiz them on anything, and they know every opponent inside-out. They know every option offensively that a team is going to run. It doesn't mean that we can stop them.

Through experience at Nevada, I thought I put way too much pressure on our team the last year. I look back at it. I regret it. We didn't celebrate wins. We were ranked in the top ten for 17 straight weeks. We got to the NCAA Tournament and played Florida, and I thought that one of the most regrettable years I've ever had. I tell the Martin twins that all the time. I wish we would have had more fun. I wish we would have embraced being in the Tournament. My wife reminds me all the time because I would come home after wins and be miserable because we only won by ten points, and our fans thought we should have won by 15.

This team has had an incredible year, so we are going to celebrate. We are going to make it a business trip as well, but while we're doing it, we're going to make it enjoyable as well. Again, just based off experience.

Q. We touched on some of the emotion of being back here, but how aware are people that there's a state championship in your family as well from this part of the world?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Well, Joe, just to look out and see so many familiar faces like you, after a lot of years, is -- yeah, there is a state championship in the family with Michael Musselman and Monte Vista winning a huge game and, obviously, Matthew playing at Monte Vista, and, like I mentioned, the familiarity with Mully's kids being a part of it. I spent three years starting an AAU program, and those same kids that won that state championship, I had them from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Really, really cool experience to be able to go out.

After being a two-time NBA head coach, which my wife said, I thought I married an NBA coach, and she's retrieving basketballs at Sycamore Park for sixth-graders. I don't think when we got married she thought that would be in the cards for her. I would never trade hanging out with my sons on a daily basis and then being able to coach them.

The funniest story of that, we were 71-0, and we lost a game against the Sacramento Yellow Jackets, and I looked at the father who was my assistant coach, Dean Salinas, when we lost that game in Sacramento, and I said that's the last time I'm coaching an AAU game, and that's a true story. We lost a game, and I never coached that group of young men again.

Q. Have you ever been in this building, first of all? Then, unrelated question, what did you learn about yourself as a coach last year with that Elite 8 run?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I have never been in the building. I told our team this is probably -- as we walked in, this is probably the best arena in the world. I was able to, obviously, went in the weight room behind us. I've looked at suites with our athletic director. I mean, this building, it plays incredible on TV when you are watching a game. I'm sure the enthusiasm in the building tomorrow will be maybe unmatched from a tournament standpoint. Everything about this place is insanely positive.

And then as far as what I've learned from last year, last year was the same type. If you look at the timeline of our particular team, we got blown out at LSU. We had incredible two practices before we went to Alabama. Probably based on our practices, we got blown out at Alabama, but it was kind of a turning point for us.

Starting off conference play 0-3, it was the same thing. We were able to kind of regroup and tell our team that last year we kept talking about we felt we could be a Final Four team, and we still feel that way. I mean, if I talk to Moses Moody, he would probably say if we didn't play Baylor, we might have still been playing.

We played Baylor better than anybody in the Tournament last year, if you look at the 40-minute game that we played against Baylor. Nobody came close to the way that we played against them. We just ran into a team that was better than us, and we ran into a team that last year was the best team in the country.

You look at the teams that are here right now, the three teams, take away us, all three of them could win a national championship. That's how good this particular pod is or region, whatever. I mean, there's three teams are really, really good, which is why it's going to be awesome for the fans here to watch the level of competition that's here.

Thanks.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. I guess this is for each guy. I don't know if Eric told you this, but his mom is going to be able to see him coach at Arkansas for the first time, because it's harder for her to travel to Arkansas. You guys obviously made that possible by winning in Buffalo. I just wondered maybe what each of you think about helping Eric's mom be able to see him coach at Arkansas in person?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I think that's really cool just being able to get his mom to the game. I know for me my parents come to each of our home games because we're so close to where I'm from. It's cool we were able to make that happen for him.

J.D. NOTAE: Just any time you have your family at the game, that's always a blessing, so for us to be able to play out here to get his mom to the game is a blessing.

AU'DIESE TONEY: It's a blessing for him to be able to come back home and have his mom to come to his game instead of watching on TV. I know the struggle of how it feels to watch a game on TV.

Q. Has Moses Moody told you at all about playing in this building? And Eric said coming in here he said, this is one of the best arenas in the world. Maybe the best arena in the world. What is it like kind of walking in and getting acclimated here?

J.D. NOTAE: It felt amazing, honestly. I watch a lot of the Warriors games, so just seeing the arena on TV, it looks crazy. So just being in there it feels amazing.

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: For sure. It's really cool. I'm actually going to text Moses after this to talk to him, but it is cool being in the arena. Me and J.D. were talking and laughing like we were ten feet behind the three-point line, and we were like, Curry be pulling up from here. We're talking and laughing about stuff like that, but it's really awesome to be in this arena.

Q. I actually spoke to Moses on Monday, and so this is for all of you guys. He said one of the things he likes about this team is that everyone does the dirty work. Nothing is too big for you guys. Do you agree with that sentiment, and is that something you guys carry with you as a strength?

J.D. NOTAE: Yes. I feel like each and every one of us have each other's back. We're going to go out there and leave it on the floor, whether that's getting 50/50 balls, passing it to open teammate. Having his back if they get beat. I feel like all of us just connected.

Q. Can you describe where you kind of learned how to be so good at taking charges, and just kind of how that -- I don't know if it was here or before you got to college? Is there one out that sticks in your mind as being particularly painful?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: Really my dad was the person that taught me how to take charges. He taught me how to be in the right position, and I've just really been taking them my whole life from as long as I can remember back in AAU basketball, Boys and Girls Club basketball.

I've been doing it, but now, of course, it's on a bigger stage, so people are starting to see it. I wouldn't really say they hurt. I'm kind of used to them by now. It's just something I do.

Q. Au'Diese, first, you get tough defensive assignments just about each game. I'm pretty sure it's probably not hard to get amped up for a game, but is there anything in particular or anyone in particular who maybe fuels your fire a little bit before the game?

AU'DIESE TONEY: No, not really. I just have that mindset coming into every game. You have to give it your all no matter what. Any possession can cost the game. I try to lock in as many possessions as I can to get the W.

Q. You are taking on Gonzaga tomorrow. What is one thing you have to do to control that game so you can knock off Gonzaga and move on to the Elite 8?

J.D. NOTAE: We have to get back in transition. They're one of the fastest teams in the country. Well, the fastest team in the country. They score most of their points in the transition, so if we don't get back, then we really don't have a chance. I feel like we have to get back in transition.

Q. I know you guys have a couple of games hopefully ahead of you that you are focusing on, but now that this is the first year that there's NIL and after the tournament we're fast approaching April 15th and tax-filing deadlines. Is that something that you guys have thought about at all, or have you filed taxes for your NIL deals?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: It's something that we have to do, but right now I'm focused on the game that's going to be ahead of us, so yeah.

Q. Do you even know what sort of forms you need to get?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I have people -- I talked to my mom about it, and I have people that's going to help me with mine.

Q. This is for Jaylin: Obviously, Gonzaga's back court is pretty well talked about. Just what is it like for you to go into a match-up and know you're going to be facing two of the best posts in the nation?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: They have two good guys playing at their big spots, and it's a challenge, of course, but I'm ready for it. It's great to be able to play on this stage against those great guys, and it's a challenge I've been looking forward to, and I'm ready for it.

Q. Eric was just up here saying that during his time at Nevada he didn't necessarily enjoy things, even a ten-point win he wished it had been a 15-point win or along those lines. Going around and touring cities like you did to Niagara Falls and going on a trolley car today, how much does that balance out the basketball pressures? He said it takes away an hour of film that he could be making you do.

AU'DIESE TONEY: (Laughing) It's nice to deal with things off the court, just to get your mind off the game and basketball in general. We always, like he said, we're always doing film. Always doing something involving basketball. He has tried to balance it out enough for us to just relax rejuvenate, get back, regroup. It's amazing to do things like that to get your mind off.

Q. Last game where you won, Au'Diese, Coach gave you the plaque to put on the board. Can you take me back to that moment especially given this is your first tournament and what was that was like for you?

AU'DIESE TONEY: It was amazing. It felt like no other. I always see growing up watching other team members and stuff like that putting their name on the plaque. Just for me to be able to do that for my first time, it was amazing. Just a moment I won't forget.

Q. This is for each guy since this is the last one: Eric was just in here talking about everybody is focusing on Gonzaga. They were in the title game. They're the No. 1 team in the country and all that. You guys aren't getting a lot of respect nationally. How do you feel about all that? Does that put a little extra fuel in your fire, or just how do you feel about that?

JAYLIN WILLIAMS: I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for the whole team when I say this, we've been going against this the whole year. We started off the season not great, and we kind of just fought back throughout the whole year. We played against the No. 1 ranked team in the country and played against great teams all year, and we've kind of been that team that kept fighting and kept proving people wrong. So I feel like we're at the same stage and we're going to do the same thing, and we're just going to keep fighting regardless.

J.D. NOTAE: He kind of summed it up.