NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - DRAKE VS MIAMI (FL)

March 16, 2023

Darian DeVries

Tucker DeVries

Roman Penn

Garrett Sturtz

D.J. Wilkins

MVP Arena

Drake Bulldogs

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have four Drake student-athletes here with us. We have sophomore forward Tucker DeVries. We have graduate guards Roman Penn, Garrett Sturtz, and D.J. Wilkins.

Q. Tucker, let me start by apologizing for asking a question that you probably answered a hundred times.

TUCKER DeVRIES: I know what it is (laughter).

Q. Go ahead.

TUCKER DeVRIES: How is it playing for my dad?

Q. No, see, I surprised you. You were recruited by some big time programs. Were you ever tempted, or were you going to play for your dad all along?

TUCKER DeVRIES: It depends on the day. Yeah, it was obviously a difficult decision. There's a lot of great coaches that had interest, but being as close as I was to these guys that have been here since my dad took the job, it was hard to say no to just home. It felt like home to be there, be with these guys that I knew so well and felt like I could fit in right away, and that's exactly what happened.

I was super happy to be able to do it with the group of guys that I'm with and to be able to do that with my dad as well.

Q. Just a follow-up. When did you realize that you could be as good a player as you've become so quickly? Was it during your freshman year, or was it this year?

TUCKER DeVRIES: I think the biggest thing just coming in, I was trying to do whatever I could to even get on the court. Coming in, there was a good possibility I was going to redshirt, and kind of coming to the fall, I felt comfortable out there enough to kind of throw me out there.

Then as I got more and more comfortable, things just kind of worked out the way they did.

I was never really worried about how well I'd play. I just stayed part of the course, and the result just kind of took care of itself.

Q. For any of you guys, obviously filling out the brackets, the 12-5 is always a popular upset pick, and you guys have been one of the teams a lot of people have been picking to pull the upset. Do you guys see any of that, and what do you think of having kind of that fan support?

TUCKER DeVRIES: Yeah, it's hard to not see it. You try to kind of block it out, but it comes across your eyes.

I think our group's really good at kind of handling our own business and taking care of what we can control and just kind of being us. I feel like we're ready to do that, just go out there tomorrow, just be ourselves, and we'll live with the result as long as we go out there and play to win, compete, and whatever happens, we'll live with.

ROMAN PENN: Like Tucker was saying, it comes across social media, but at the end of the day, they're a great team. They didn't come in first place for no reason, and they don't have a Player of the Year for no reason. They're a great team, and we've got to be ready to play.

GARRETT STURTZ: I think they said it all.

Q. Roman, how does it feel to be back here in Albany where your career started? Do you feel like you have an advantage being familiar with the arena?

ROMAN PENN: It's great to be in Albany. My team is tired of hearing me talk about it the last couple days. I'm excited to be back. I guess it's a little advantage being here in the arena. It's been a long time. I don't know how much of an advantage it really is, but I'm just super excited to be back in this area.

Q. Tucker, you've probably been asked this question, I don't know, 1,500 times in your life, but what's it like playing for your dad? Not only that, your family has, between your dad and your uncle, pretty good athleticism, I think would be a fair way to describe it. What's that been like? How has that helped you as you've kind of gone along with all of this?

TUCKER DeVRIES: First of all, I would like a little bit more of their athleticism. I wasn't really gifted all that.

It's been a lot of fun playing for my dad. There's obviously some good days, some bad days, but just kind of going through the day-to-day journey of just being around him, being able to learn from him.

Then the overall culture we have here, because a lot due in part to these guys we have here, what he's instilled in this program, and just being part of that has been a lot of fun. Just kind of being around it. Growing up, you're around it so much, and to finally live it out as part of that, it's definitely really special.

Q. D.J., for you, you've been part of this big defense for a while on this team. You look at Miami which has four starters who average in the double digits. How have you guys kind of prepared to shut them down on multiple aspects?

D.J. WILKINS: Just really going back to the basics we have in the summer, playing our standard defense. We really want to keep those guys in front of us. We know they have a lot of guys that can get going and really talented guys.

Just trying to make them uncomfortable and just try to keep everything in front of us and make them make tough shots.

Q. To kind of add on to the question to Roman, is this kind of a full circle moment for you because you weren't able to play in the tournament in 2021 and you're doing it here?

ROMAN PENN: Definitely a full circle moment, just coming back here in the last year. Just happy to be back in Albany. Now playing the first time in the tournament, it's a great moment, full circle moment, but just excited to play in general in the tournament against a great ACC team.

Q. For any of the four of you, do you guys ever hear much about the '69 Drake team?

GARRETT STURTZ: I'd say, yeah, we hear a lot about them, and also there's guys that come back from the '69 team and talk to us and everything. That's a joy. They're around campus. They're big supporters of us too.

They are as much fans of us as we are of them.

D.J. WILKINS: Me personally, just having Dolph Pulliam, he's from my hometown, just being able to have that connection and being able to have a conversation with him, sometimes in Indiana, sometimes back in Iowa, but just being able to learn from him, learning what his life course was like, a good history lesson that a lot of people didn't know about Drake.

I really enjoy them and appreciate those guys for always being available to us.

ROMAN PENN: Kind of what they said. Been great to have them back on campus. They come around a lot. Just seeing them from the 1969 team playing against Lew Alcindor, that's a historic moment and making it to the Final Four. It's a great history for Drake, and they've given us a lot of confidence to try and replicate that as close as we can.

Q. It was posed earlier that you guys are sort of looked at as an underdog, but I'm wondering for the guys that have been in this tournament before, do you take a look at yourselves as underdogs, and what do you do to sort of get the guys who haven't played in this tournament before sort of up to speed at what it is -- of how it might be different than a normal game?

GARRETT STURTZ: As playing the first time around, we played in the tournament a couple of years ago, some of these guys like Roman was unfortunately not able to play in that tournament, and Tucker hasn't played in one yet. But these guys have played a lot of games already and they've got a lot of experience under their belt. Kind of the same with the other parts of the team.

It's just, for them, my message would be it's just another game. It's a big stage. It's a different feeling, but it's just another game. We've just got to execute our game plan.

Q. Garrett, you come into this as the program's all time leading rebounder. You're also 6'3". How do you, looking at Miami's obvious height advantage, how do you kind of expect to still be able to play your game in this match-up?

GARRETT STURTZ: They obviously have great length, and they have guys that can rebound the ball tremendously. It's going to be a team effort, especially on the defensive end. I'm going to try to stay true to my game and do the best I can.

THE MODERATOR: Welcome back. We have Head Coach Darian DeVries with us.

Q. Darian, relatively speaking, compared to Miami's coach, you're still very new to the coaching game. Can you just talk about this coaching match-up going up against a guy like Coach L?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, I'm like 700 wins behind him, I think. I have tremendous respect for him and his career and what he's done, specifically what he's done with Miami and the year they've had. ACC Champs, incredible team. Great run last year as well. A lot of respect for his longevity and the career he's had.

Q. I'll apologize to you, as I did to your son, for asking a question you've heard a million times, but were you concerned, given that he was recruited by a lot of big time programs, that he might be tempted? And what do you think ultimately sold him on playing for you? He said it's good days and bad days.

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, we were very adamant that we let it be his decision. He had some great opportunities, specifically with people he really respected and knew growing up in the business. There were schools, there were times when I was a little nervous about what he might say or the choice he might come up with.

I'm thankful he decided to come play for me, play for Drake, and the opportunity we've had to share moments like this together.

Q. He mentioned that there was a possibility of him redshirting as a freshman. Is he better than you expected him to be? Because he's pretty damn good.

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, coming into his freshman year, we had a veteran group back. So I wasn't sure how ready he was going to be. Then you throw in that dynamic, the father-son dynamic and things just to make sure, if you're going to play, you need to be ready.

The transition went really smoothly that summer. The guys were awesome to him. Like I always tell people, it's not just the father-son relationship, it's a whole group of guys in that locker room that have to make it work too.

They're just an awesome group, and the whole process has just been a blast for us, even if maybe there is a moment or two where he gets mad at me. I love it, getting this opportunity to spend this time with him. As coaches, you miss out on a lot of that stuff when they're growing up. You miss a lot of tournaments and things. So to get some of that back here at the college level has been really an enjoyment for me.

Q. Following on this train of questioning, what's the best piece of advice that maybe both you and your brother gave to your son when he started college?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I don't know if I gave him a ton of advice. I know from my standpoint, it's like you be a college kid and talk bad about me in the locker room. If they're mad at me, you can be mad at me too. That's okay. That's just part of it.

But that was the biggest thing just for both of us was just I'm going to coach you, and then I'll be dad when I need to be dad and vice versa, and go play. Just be yourself, and it's okay -- people know I'm your dad, so you don't have to hide from it either. But just to give him his space was the biggest thing and let him continue to be like everybody else.

Q. Does Jared in some ways become a sounding board for him? Obviously there's a little bit of a buffer maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'm reaching.

DARIAN DeVRIES: I don't know. Maybe Jared gave him some advice, and he just didn't tell me about it. He gave him better advice than I did probably.

Q. What has Roman Penn meant to this program and your career considering he's been with this program for as long as he has?

DARIAN DeVRIES: He's been incredible for us. His first year, he had to sit out. So he was a redshirt our first year. But even in that year, I thought he was a difference maker for our team in what he brought every day from a leadership standpoint.

Then the following year when he actually got out on the floor and all these years following that, you can't ask for a better person to be the leader of our program. On the floor, off the floor, he does it right every day. Incredibly committed and competitive.

We're obviously going to miss having him around and what he's done for our team and our program.

Q. Do you think it helps he has a little familiarity with this building considering he played here a few years ago?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I don't think it's a bad thing having a little bit of comfort, like a home floor for him. I certainly think there's a comfort level just being here in general. He knows his way around and stuff. Hopefully that means a really good game for him.

Q. How important is it for your best players to be your best players tomorrow, especially Roman and Tucker?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think you're always -- when your best players can play well in these games, in any game really, that's a good thing, but it's not all on them either. It can be anybody. That's why you have a team. That's why you are what you are.

I felt like throughout the year we've had games where one or both of them have had tough nights, but we've had plenty of other guys on our roster that can fill the void.

We don't care how it plays out tomorrow. It's just about us trying to play well and collectively figure out a way to try to win a game.

Q. There's some question about how -- whether Omier will play for Miami and how well he could play if he does play. How important is he to that team?

DARIAN DeVRIES: He's a really good player. He brings some physicality. The rebounding, he's elite at. Like I said, they're still a really good team whether he plays or not, but he does bring a dimension that is really good for them, and he's been good for them all year.

Q. So Iowa State played Miami in last year's Sweet 16. Obviously T.J. has his own tournament to prepare for. But did you guys or any of your assistant coaches get a chance to compare notes before this?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think we've reached out to everybody in the country to get every note that we can. I don't know that there's any more to get.

When you're trying to prepare for nonconference games early in the season and now postseason, you scramble for as much information as you can get your hands on and try to get different opinions on what works and what do they do best.

The team we're playing is doing the same thing. So it's about getting as much as you can and then going out and playing.

Q. The Valley's had Final Four teams in 2013 and 2018. How underrated do you think the conference is nationally? Not out where you live, but nationally. And what makes the Valley, I think -- you can disagree with me -- uniquely tough?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think the competitive balance of the Valley is something that I think on a national level it's why sometimes it's really hard for teams to go through a league schedule and be 17-1 or 16-2 with a 20-game schedule because there are so many teams that can get you on any night.

And that balance, I think nationally, is what people maybe don't have much of an appreciation for. There's not a you big talent gap from the top team to the bottom team. It's all very, very similar each year, and that's why it can be tough at times because we kind of beat up on one another.