NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - VCU VS SAINT MARY'S

March 16, 2023

Mike Rhoades

Ace Baldwin Jr.

Brandon Johns Jr.

Jayden Nunn

MVP Arena

VCU Rams

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: Our first stop today is the Atlantic 10 Champions VCU Rams. We have Ace Baldwin Jr., Brandon Johns Jr. and Jayden Nunn with us.

Q. You've seen film on St. Mary's. What have you been able to ascertain about your opponents tomorrow?

BRANDON JOHNS JR.: We know they're a really physical team. They're one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country. We know that's a big emphasis for us.

Just to keep them off the glass, be solid defensively.

JAYDEN NUNN: Also, like, our defense is going to be a big key for tomorrow's game. We've got to be very physical with them. They're a very good offensive rebounding team as well.

Q. Ace, this is for you. You're the only guy left over from 2021. What's it like being back here and hopefully getting the chance to play?

ACE BALDWIN JR.: It's a good experience. Freshman year, it was kind of hurtful we couldn't play due to COVID. Now that we're back, we've got to make a run and let everybody know who we are.

Q. For all three of you, just what can you guys do to maybe speed things up tomorrow? It seems like you guys want to play fast. They're going to want to slow things down. What things can you do to get the game to your tempo?

ACE BALDWIN JR.: I'd say play outside the play, be aggressive on defense, and just do what we do. Like on defense, like, stay 94 feet. Like I said, be aggressive.

JAYDEN NUNN: Pressure the ball handler the full game. Try to get the tempo of the game to where we want to play at.

BRANDON JOHNS JR.: Just to go off what they say, we know they want to play slow, and our style of play is much faster. We know we can kind of cause hectic chaos for teams.

So we definitely want to speed the game up, get them out of their comfort zone. That could potentially be successful for us.

Q. Towards that end, is there anybody you faced either in nonconference or Big Ten this year that reminds you of them a little bit or anyone that had that same style where they wanted to slow it down and you wanted to speed them up? Anything you can take from those games you might be able to apply to tomorrow?

JAYDEN NUNN: One team from A-10 is Davidson. They play very disciplined. Davidson is a very disciplined team, and St. Mary's is a very disciplined team as well.

What we did is just pressured the ball and made chaos with our offense as well. I feel like that's going to help tomorrow, watching film on both of those games.

Q. Brandon for you -- and all three of you guys -- what's this experience like? The whole NCAA Tournament. You guys are up here on the dais in front of that back drop you've seen your entire lives growing up. Now that you've experienced it in real life, talk about your thoughts and what it's been like.

ACE BALDWIN JR.: It's like a dream come true. Every team doesn't get invited here. It's a great feeling. I can't wait to play tomorrow.

BRANDON JOHNS JR.: I agree. I feel like we really earned our spot here. I know we're definitely going to enjoy it while we can, and we're going to play our hardest every game that we possibly can.

We're not going to let up easy at all. We want to be here as long as possible.

JAYDEN NUNN: For sure this is a dream come true for me. I remember as a kid just watching March Madness and all the stuff that happened. To finally be playing in March Madness is a very great feeling as well.

Q. Jayden and Ace, you had a chance to play in the conference tournament in Brooklyn. Did that help you in terms of getting accustomed to a big arena and the shooting depth and those sort of things?

ACE BALDWIN JR.: It doesn't matter where we play at. I think we're just going to be us.

JAYDEN NUNN: I feel like it helped because we played at Brooklyn -- that was our second time playing there. It really didn't make that big of an impact on us. We already played there before, so we got used to the arena for sure.

Q. Brandon, you obviously were at Michigan before. So you've been in this type of environment in some ways. Do you take from that experience, and do you allow yourself to think back to that experience at all? Or do you just kind of not use that?

BRANDON JOHNS JR.: No, I definitely of course use it. It is our past experiences that are of course going to be helpful in the future.

So this is something that I feel like I'm comfortable with, playing in these big stages, playing in these big arenas. I try not to let it get the best of me and try not to add too much pressure to ourselves because the more pressure we add, the more stress it's going to cause, and we're just out of our comfort zone.

We want to be, but we want to be comfortable doing it. I really enjoy stuff like this. I feel like we're built for this. And I think it's just about enjoying it really and taking it all in and embracing it.

THE MODERATOR: Welcome back. We are joined by VCU Head Coach Mike Rhoades.

VCU Head Coach Mike Rhoades. We'll open it to any questions.

Q. Mike, can you go through what happened two years ago? I mean, obviously you're in Indiana. You're ready to play. Had you practiced? What happened that led to the COVID.

MIKE RHOADES: That's two years ago. I'm trying to remember two days ago.

We went to practice. We had a great practice and then the shootaround, and we went back to our -- the testing came back, and they put us on hold to hang out in our hotel room. I think we were on the 16th floor of the JW Marriott. They just said there was a positive test. We went to that player, kept him in the room.

They put us in a hold. We all went down and retested. We came back up. They brought the pregame meal, the team meal, up on the floor. We ate it in the middle of the floor, and we were in a holding pattern.

Then a couple other things came back positives, and then it was -- I guess there was some secret meetings. We were all stuck up on the 16th floor, and we just waited. My AD Ed McLaughlin, he called me and said that they're going to shut us down. I'm pretty sure the term was a cluster positive test, and they couldn't risk it.

To be honest with you, we just moved on from it. I understand the question. We've moved on from it. We really have. The one thing, we had to deal with it like so many other people.

We only lost the basketball game. We lost the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately, we're the only team ever to get kicked out of the NCAA Tournament for something that was out of our control. But like I told our guys, we just missed an opportunity to play a basketball game. That's it. A lot of people lost a lot of other things and a lot worse off than us.

So that's how we've handled it, and it was devastating at the time because we're college coaches and college basketball players, and that's what you dream of. But that's part of life.

The one thing -- and I've said this, because this is what my mom used to say to me all the time and my brother and sister, life's not always fair. Get over it. Move on. When you're a little kid and you hear that, oh, here they go, but that's exactly the approach we took. Life's not fair. You've got to deal with it, and we're going to move on, and we moved on together. And here we are.

Q. I'm curious, each of the past few years you guys have struggled a little bit in the nonconference when Ace has been out. Turning on A-10 play this year, I think you finished like 22-3 down the stretch. What can you say about the impact that Ace has on winning every single day?

MIKE RHOADES: He's the head of our snake. He's the competitive leader in our program. He's that type of point guard that he makes an impact.

I've always said that from a long time ago, the best players, not because of their stat line, are the ones that impact winning in so many ways. The greatest compliment you can get in a team sport is you make those around you better. That's Ace on a daily basis.

His competitive spirit, his competitive fire. He doesn't like to lose. He's emotional in a good way, and he pulls guys along. I think the one thing that Ace does better than everyone that we know is he gives out confidence to his teammates, competitive confidence to his teammates that, as much as a coach you want to pump your players up, when a teammate, when the best player on the team is giving out that confidence to their teammates, everybody plays better. Everybody plays hard. Everybody plays the right way.

You can't quit. He won't let guys quit. That's just who he is. He was always like that. St. Frances Academy is a great high school program. He's a point guard from Baltimore. We've seen a lot of those guys do well in college basketball and beyond that. Ace is one of those guys.

Q. The guys likened St. Mary's to Davidson in their deliberateness. Do you see that on film? And do you see things that you have been able to do this season to speed up opponents that might help you tomorrow?

MIKE RHOADES: It's definitely a clash of styles for sure. We're going to be us. We're going to be us because that's what got us here. But they're going to be them. They're going to do what they do. I think defensively they're very similar to UVA and Coach Bennett, Tony Bennett's teams.

They are very positional. They try to keep you in front. They use their size and their physicality to keep you away from the rim and not get downhill.

On the other side, they run a different offense than Davidson, but you're exactly right, how deliberate they are and getting the shot that they want and the opportunities that they want. If that means they'll go all the way down to the end of the shot clock, they will do that without shooting.

We want the game to be higher possessions, and we want to be able to cause problems the way we play. So something's got to give, as I told our guys, and the way we've been playing, the guys know we've got to pressure, and we've got to play full court. On the other end, we've got to get a great shot down every time against them.

But we also understand there will be some possessions that will be long, and that's where you've got to dig in and have great discipline. We could be flying around, and we could have this mentality of how we want to play, but we've still got to have great discipline playing against a great St. Mary's team.

Q. How much of Mahanoy City is going to come up this weekend?

MIKE RHOADES: They'll be here. St. Paddy's Day, probably not, but it's a couple days before. They will be here. I got a text message from one of my high school teammates and said, we've got four cars leaving in the morning. We'll see you. And that was just one. I got a lot more others like that.

So a lot of neat things. The one thing about where I'm from, everybody's got each other's back. When somebody's doing well from our area, everybody celebrates it. To be able to be in the NCAA Tournament and share with all the people back home in the region of Schuylkill County, I love it. They'll be here.