MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 23, 2022

Wes Miller

David DeJulius

Cincinnati Bearcats

Postgame Press Conference

Cincinnati - 81, Louisville - 62

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

WES MILLER: I was really proud of how they handled today. It wasn't easy early. It could have been a little frustrating early and we just kind of stayed together and stuck with it and it was good to see it kind of happen for us in the second half.

Kenny's done a really nice job over the last couple weeks with this team. They're getting better and better. You saw on the tape, they played Arkansas, who is done really well here, obviously, this week. They played Arkansas really well for about 28 minutes. You're sitting there going, they're going to win one here pretty soon against somebody good, but you just don't want it to be you.

I thought they played well early, but our guys handled it really well. It's really good, a couple things, Jeremiah Davenport takes three charges. Our team needs to embrace the defensive end of the floor for 40 minutes. We need to put our body on the ball. We talked about that a lot last night. I thought Jeremiah really set a tone taking three charges.

Mika Adams-Woods has had a really good weak. He's starting to find himself at the point guard position for us, which is really important for our team. And this guy to my left, Dave DeJulius, the basket opened up for him a little bit.

And we got to do a better job as a staff and as coaches putting these guys in the right position to make plays and do what they do well. We'll do that as we get back and get some practice time. But it hasn't been an easy stretch here, and the guy here to my left just finally got it going a little bit, and we got to do a better job so he can do that more consistently because he's certainly capable.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Questions for David?

Q. As coach said, you found it tonight. What changed between, it's a quick turnaround that you felt like today was the day where you just kind of get it going this week?

DAVID DEJULIUS: As you said, it's a quick turnaround, so you don't really got much time to sit and sulk about a loss or how you played. But more importantly than that, we had a pretty close to flawless game plan heading into a great team. My teammates was incredible. Jeremiah Davenport took three charges. That ignited our team. Ody came in, gave us a great effort. It was a collective effort and we have a team that plays collectively like that that allows guys like me, my job to be a lot easier.

Q. The first half of the game was really close. It was a one-point difference at half. What adjustments were made in the second half by you or the team to create that gap and come out with the win today?

DAVID DEJULIUS: As much as I would love to answer your question, I'm going to pass that one to coach.

WES MILLER: We didn't really make any strategic adjustments, but I thought the guys shared the ball a lot better. Like, I thought it was sticking a little bit in the first half.

Give Louisville credit. They were getting out and denying passes, which you hadn't seen a lot from them on tape. But I thought the ball popped around a little bit more. We made the extra pass and that always gives you some energy and you look down and you're doing that and you shoot 61 percent in the second half.

We have a team that can be really prolific offensively. We scored 63 against Arizona in the second half. Look down today, we scored 50 in the second half. When the ball pops around, it makes it a little easier on everybody.

DAVID DEJULIUS: What he said.

(Smiling.)

WES MILLER: I got more practice doing it.

(Smiling.)

Q. You've seen, played a lot of basketball, your time at Michigan and here. What is it about this team that you're seeing that you think can help as you guys move forward and learning from this week?

DAVID DEJULIUS: We have an experienced group, which is vital in today's college basketball. You have a group of guys that's been through some adversity and just want to win. I feel like that's the recipe for winning. I feel like we're the kind of team that we will only continue to get better as time grows, so we'll be a better team in a couple weeks than we were now, and then we'll be a better team a month from now than we were then.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much, David. We'll take a few more questions for coach.

Q. Coming into the week, you already knew this was going to be one of those blenders and everything else, and you were hoping for a lot of things. What did you learn this week in terms about this team? And then what are like one or two things that you want to do as you move forward coming out of this week that you recognize that you think you really want to work on?

WES MILLER: I got more than one or two. It's more like a hundred for each question. But you knew this was going to be an absolute grinder of a week. It's the type of week that you could be riding on cloud nine, you know, if we win against Arizona Monday night, we're probably thinking we're on top of the world, and it's the type of week that you can play well and be down in the dumps.

So going into it, it was just about making sure that we don't let this week define us either way. It's November still. So I thought we got down in the dumps a little bit but tried to approach it the right way and, again, it worked out today.

I tell you what I learned, that I can speak to at least publicly. We have some guys that can make some plays. Landers Nolley, Dave DeJulius, Jeremiah Davenport, Mika Adams-Woods, Vik Lakhin, and there's others. Daniel Skillings is a young player. We got some guys that can make some offensive plays. Like we're going to be a good team. We have to be a consistent defensive team. Right now we're, we have good defensive possessions, but we're not a consistent defensive team. And we're not a consistent enough offensive team. It always starts, to me, on the defensive end.

So if we can get more consistent there we'll get better offensively as we go because we'll figure our team out better. They will get better playing together. But we got to really quickly become a team that just guards every single possession.

Q. Wondering how this week as a coach for you leading a team into this tournament compared to your playing experience here in 2004, I want to say?

WES MILLER: 18 years I think it's been. How different it was? Oh, it's very different. (Laughing.) I mean, it's extremely different. Number one, I don't remember all the details as well. We obviously won it.

In 2004 I was a part of the team that was, we were No. 1 in the country going into the tournament or into that year. We lost to Santa Clara on the way out here in Oakland at the old Oakland Coliseum. And all I remember is Coach Williams telling us that we weren't really in Maui until he said we were in Maui.

And we had the hardest practice of my college career here in Maui the Saturday before the tournament. I remember a couple guys going to the trash cans. It was so dang hard.

Then I remember that we won every game going away. That team ended up winning the National Championship that spring in 2005. So that was a heck of a memory and a heck of an experience.

It didn't feel quite as good as a coach here on Monday and Tuesday night. But it felt pretty good today to get a win and to see our guys kind of have that same experience of this, being in this tournament and experiencing a win and feeling good leaving Maui and we'll feel a lot better flying home off a win than we would have otherwise.