NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - FAU VS MEMPHIS

March 16, 2023

Alex Lomax

Kendric Davis

DeAndre Williams

Penny Hardaway

Nationwide Arena

Memphis Tigers

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Memphis.

Q. Kendric, you talked about how much you wanted to get here. It's the number one reason why you came to Memphis. When you get here, how much are you allowing yourself to kind of soak in everything that comes with the experience, versus also making sure that you're locked in and have that killer instinct for tomorrow night?

KENDRIC DAVIS: Man, I just say the same routine all year. I mean, I've been soaking in being a Memphis Tiger all year. That's one of one. Many people can't put on this jersey. So just treating it like the same.

I know it's win or go home. So everybody is soaking it in right now. I just want to thank my brothers and the fan base, but also realize we're not done yet.

Q. Kendric, was there a moment where, we're here, you set out to get here? You're sitting up on the lectern. Was it one of those moments?

KENDRIC DAVIS: Yes right now. Joey (phonetic) was just saying, you're here. So just right now. We didn't do much yesterday. So I mean it's our first experience of March Madness. Right now, I'm like, I'm looking at the name tag, like, I'm here.

Q. Was there a moment that you didn't think you would get here with K.D.? You obviously helped him get here, get to the promised land. Was there a moment you didn't think that would happen or did you know that all the time?

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: No, we knew we had that belief we could make it here. We kept that same mindset all season. And we just went 1-0 every game.

ALEX LOMAX: We most definitely knew the whole time that was the main goal. Especially us getting here last year, but we had the player of the year in the conference with one of the greatest coaches in the country.

We knew this was going to be potentially be an end goal of ours just to make it. But like Kendric said, we've got work to do.

Q. Coach Hardaway went transfer heavy in the offseason. How different does that make a group as you begin the start of the season to now?

ALEX LOMAX: Basically it's a totally different team from last year. But the culture is still the same. The culture is still the same. Coaches are the same. Playing to personnel is something we do better this year, just with picking order and things like that.

But at the end of the day, we just go out there and play for the city, play as one. That's all that matters the most, just doing it together and doing it as one and having the same understanding.

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: Yeah, the culture is still the same. Adding those pieces like player of the year and Elijah McCadden and Keonte and all these different pieces just kind of put the puzzle together. And with Coach Hardaway being the leader that he is, and the winner he is, we just put it all together and got here.

Q. Does that experience help when you play in a league that you do, when you have goals to try and reach the postseason again like you did last year, how much did that experience help from the start?

ALEX LOMAX: The experience most definitely helps especially after being here last year and actually getting a win and then playing against the number one overall seed. So we can see what great talent looks like on the other side, playing against great coaching on the other side.

It's something they had us hungrier all summer and all season, just getting back to that feeling. And experience most definitely played a huge part because we know what it takes to get here and we know exactly what to do and who to listen to and how to execute things.

Q. What are your biggest takeaways from last year that you think could apply to this weekend and maybe beyond and help you guys go on a run like you did last year?

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: One of the biggest takes is the bright lights, that can get to you. But at the end of the day it's basketball. When that tilt happened, all the nerves go away. It's just team against team. And that's what I'm going to preach to my teammates -- just go out there, have fun, enjoy yourself and try to win.

ALEX LOMAX: Basically the same thing he said. We've been playing basketball our whole life, since we was at least 5 through 7 years old, I'm pretty sure that's when everybody probably picked up a basketball.

Just try to stay in tune with each other. Just stay one as a family. And don't be looking too much into everything else that's going on around us.

We've got one goal and it's just let's go 1-0 at a time. Once we just think like that, and me and DeAndre help initiate that with the guys just through experience, I feel like everything would be good.

Q. Kendric, they talked a lot about culture. When you're coming in as a transfer, how do you acclimate to that culture pretty quickly and what's that culture been like for you?

KENDRIC DAVIS: You follow their lead. I knew coming in what it was about. I played against them three years in a row. So I already had a feeling it wasn't like I was coming from another conference, not knowing nothing. I kind of had an idea already of what the culture was.

So it was always grit and grind. We're going to play hard every minute we're on the floor and we're not going to take nobody lightly. So coming in, I kind of already knew what it was just playing against Coach all them years and playing against A-Lo and DeAndre. That's why I chose here because I knew I fitted along.

Q. DeAndre, you mentioned knowing about Coach Hardaway as a winner. Guys my age know about him as the player. How much has he talked to you about his experience if at all, and how much did you guys know about him as the player?

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: He talks about it a lot back in the day when he played. He always just tell us just to enjoy ourselves because this is the most exciting, fun time of the year, to be in March Madness.

And teams are already home, so to be here is a blessing. And we want to make some noise and shock the world.

Q. This tournament is about getting hot at the right time and winning six games. Given how perfectly last weekend went, do you think you guys are peaking at the right time going into this tournament?

KENDRIC DAVIS: I would say, yeah, but to a certain degree. FAU won their tournament too, so I'm pretty sure they're thinking the same thing. I'm sure there's a lot of teams in this tournament that won their tournament.

I'm sure everybody feels they're peaking at the right time. It's about being ready to play. We know every team that's here belongs here or they wouldn't be here. We've got to listen to Coach and follow the game plan and try and shock the world.

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: Basically what Kendric just said, it's just about being ready to play. And March Madness, we already know anybody can be beat in any given night. And so you just gotta enjoy every moment, every second, and go out there and make sure you're locked in with your teammates and just do what you've been doing all season. And that's trying to stack up wins.

ALEX LOMAX: Basically what those guys just said. It boils down to doing everything at the right time, just being locked in with each other, and not worrying about if other teams are peaking at the right time or if we.

We've just got to execute and be ourselves and it will show on its own. Just have the right mindset and do everything for each other. And I feel like we'll be able to handle business.

Q. K.D., you've talked about room to grow, getting better. Can you guys play better than you did last weekend?

KENDRIC DAVIS: We've got dudes getting healthier all year. It was one of our great moments. As a team you can always get better. Individually if you get better, your team gets better.

We looked at the drawing board and seen there was a bunch of things we can work on. And we just gotta be ready to fight because we know seniors here, don't nobody want to go home. Everybody fighting for their life. We've got to fight to the end and just try to shock the world.

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: Basically what he just said. We've always got room to grow, but it wasn't our best, I can say. We can play better for sure. And March Madness kind of brings that out of people with the bright lights and the good basketball that's happened in this tournament.

And so with us being together and coming off a championship, I feel like that can lead to that, and I truly believe in this team, I know we can make a run for sure.

ALEX LOMAX: What those two guys said. It's 40 minutes in college basketball, and we've yet to dominate and be ourselves for 40 minutes. Even if we have been for 30, it's not 40.

So until we complete that task for 40 minutes, in the Memphis way, then there won't be more room to grow. But until then there's always room to grow and we've yet to do it. Hopefully we go 1-0 at a time, and the goal of 1-0 is try to do it for 40 minutes. Coach Hardaway does a great job preaching that. We gotta go out there and execute it for 40 minutes.

Q. DeAndre, Kendric mentioned following your guys' lead when he came in as a transfer. The transfer portal is so crazy now. As a leader, is it any different trying to acclimate guys who have experience in college basketball than it is trying to help guys -- freshman acclimate to college? Is there any difference as a leader to help them acclimate?

DEANDRE WILLIAMS: It's definitely a smaller learning curve. Him being the player of the year he already had that firepower behind him. And he put that piece in our team together.

And just knowing how hard we play defensively and offensively he just brought his talent to the team. And it just all came together.

Q. Alex, I saw that you saw the T-shirt that was inspired by you. What are your thoughts on that?

ALEX LOMAX: We just gotta let them hang, everybody. We gotta let them hang, man. (Laughter).

Q. We know that FAU likes to shoot a lot of 3s. There are times this year you have struggled on the perimeter. You have kinks up your sleeve to counter that tomorrow night?

COACH HARDAWAY: I don't know if it's tricks up our sleeve but we do know we have to pay attention to those guys. They're really good at what they do.

Really impressed what Coach May does and how those guys are connected offensively and defensively. It's a beautiful thing to watch. I'm sitting there 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning just watching film, trying to figure these guys out. You're right, you have to guard the 3-point line, for sure.

Q. When you look at this team you assembled in the offseason to now, a lot of transfers. That was purposeful for you. What has that journey been like to see them come together when you look back on it?

COACH HARDAWAY: What's really amazing, when Kendric first went in the portal, I was talking to him every day. We actually tried to get guys that were in the portal, Kendric was trying to get guys that he knew, like 10 or 11 different guys. They all decided at the last minute to go somewhere else.

Then I'm talking to Lester Keonis (phonetic), and he's in the predraft and he talked about KO. And I'm talking to another friend, and an assistant coach of ours, one of the guys, Elijah gets into the portal. He starts to show film on Elijah, I'm, like, okay, pretty good player.

Then Keonte signed with Vanderbilt. And then he gets a scholarship taken back. Then he goes back into the portal. We get Keonte and then Damaria. I'm like, man all this happened without me recruiting each kid and understanding who they were.

I got all these guys, I didn't know where it was going. I was like, with their individual talent we can come together with the guys from last year, and we can do something special. But I didn't know it would be this good.

The chemistry, the guys being connected and allowing DeAndre and Kendric to be who they are has been a real blessing this year.

Q. How much do you use the lessons used from the '92, '93 runs you used in tournament? And I asked those guys how much you talk about playing experience in this tournament. How much does that factor and how much do you use with these guys?

COACH HARDAWAY: I spoke about it, I spoke on my experiences yesterday. I talked about my team being together and watching film on each team. We didn't need the coaches, we did it ourselves because they were already talking about watching the film on FAU as a team without us. And I thought that was pretty special.

But just the run we made and how fun it was just to continue to advance, and we had a tough schedule. We played Pepperdine, who had Doug Christie. Then we played Arkansas. Then we played Georgia Tech. That was three really good teams.

It was all about defense and staying connected with my team. This team really reminds me of that because very similar. We had myself and David Vaughn and the rest of the team just kind of surrounded us. And we have DeAndre and Kendric.

Q. When you compare this year's team to last year, year was obviously talented, but felt like you caught lightning in a bottle in the last six weeks of the season to make that run there. This team it feels like they were made for this other than some minor blips in the road. How much more confident are you going into this weekend with this group compared to last year?

COACH HARDAWAY: Yes, it's a lot smoother this year. We had a lot of things going on on last year's team. Like you said, we had lightning in a bottle. We went on a major run the last six weeks of the season and we thought that we could come into this tournament and make some noise.

We had a great first half. Beat a great Boise team and then had a great first half against the No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga out in Portland. Couldn't hold it together. It was just the youth.

And also just got the chemistry going a little late and couldn't pull it out.

And this year, with the way the guys are, the team is more together, more connected from day one versus kind of catching a stride later on.

Q. When you have a team that's so experienced from the beginning, does that change how you coach when you have experience from the beginning as opposed to when you have a bunch of freshmen you're trying to coach up and bring along with your culture?

COACH HARDAWAY: It's twofold. The first side of it is you can't teach older players new tricks. They are who they are. You have to be careful with that. But the other side is they have to learn our system. They have to learn how I thought.

And I put a lot of -- I would say more defensive pressure on them than offensive pressure, because I felt we could just space the floor, and Kendric and his greatness and DeAndre and Alex, Alex Lomax, they could create shots for guys.

But defensively I called on them and pushed and pushed, and they didn't like it. But it's for this reason why we're here now because of the defensive end.

Q. As you go through that journey, you try and learn who you can push. What did you learn about yourself as a coach that maybe you didn't know in previous years?

COACH HARDAWAY: I learned that I have supernatural patience (laughter). I mean, seriously, you have to have a ton of patience. You have to understand where guys are. Because if I want to push this guy really hard but I know he's not ready for it, I've got to work around it.

And other guys I can push I push because they have to bring the rest of the teammates up. It has to be player led. It can't come from me. And that's what I looked for from my guys from last year.

Q. You experimented with some smaller lineups I guess down the stretch of the season. Do you think that's something you might employ tomorrow night against them with their 3-point shooting?

COACH HARDAWAY: There's a possibility we might go small with Chandler being at the 5 or DeAndre being at the 5 and having four guards. They almost make you play like that because they're so dynamic in how they play. It definitely might happen.

Q. How much more, even compared to last year but just in general, how much more comfortable do you feel just in terms of in terms of what you think the way to be a good basketball team, if that makes any sense? How much more comfortable do you feel with your philosophy now compared to the past couple of years given what you've done over the past couple of years?

COACH HARDAWAY: I'm much more comfortable this year because the guys have been buying in all year and I can see the work kind of progress. Whereas last year it was just a lot of mayhem going on early, for the first two or three months, and then we finally clicked the last six weeks.

But this year you could just tell from Kendric's leadership, from DeAndre wanting to get back to this position and Alex wanting to get back to this position, that everyone was buying in from the start and never questioning anything. Feel much more comfortable with this team coming to this year's tournament.

Q. Did you ever waver in terms of whether it was 2019, '20 when things were out of your control in certain ways, 2021 where you missed the tournament last year? Did you ever waver in your beliefs in terms of how you think basketball should be played?

COACH HARDAWAY: Not really. I have a lot of faith in God, honestly. And I thank him for just giving me the peace of mind to understand who I am. And I just have to get my culture set to where how I think the game -- I've had some unbelievable assistant coaches that have helped me out along the way.

But for me, it has to be my thinking and that's what happened is just kind of put more my touch and who I am as a person on the game. And it just shifted. It shifted in a really good direction.

That's the confidence I had coming to the college level because it worked on every level I coached in. And I was so confident coming into this level and it's worked now.

Q. When you recruit players at high school, you might know them two, three, four years, sometimes even longer if you know where they're from. And sometimes players you bring in from the portal, those recruitments can be so accelerated it can be a week, two or three days, sometimes. What's it like to welcome guys into your program when you know them for a few years versus when you only know them a week or so after they enter their name in the portal?

COACH HARDAWAY: Obviously life is all about relationships, how you build relationships. It's the same as sports. It kind of parallels to me.

I'm going to be closer to the guys I know the most, those that I've recruited for three years. For the guys that is such a short amount of time to get to know them before they actually sign, with you like -- I have four guys like that, you build the relationship as the season goes.

You keep learning them. They keep learning you. You try to spend extra time in film sessions to kind of let them know how you are. And I think you get their hearts when they know that you care. I try to let them know that I care right away.

Q. Given how perfectly last weekend went, do you feel like you guys are going into this weekend playing your best ball of the year? If so, do you think you have yet another year that you guys can grab?

COACH HARDAWAY: I would hope that would be the case. But I look at every preseason, regular season, conference tournament as three different quarters. And now it's the NCAA Tournament. You want that momentum from the tournament. But every level is different to me. You have to go another level every step of the way.

And I like what I see. I like what I see in practice on how the guys are locked in on what we're doing. So, yeah, there is another level that you can always go to because individually guys can still get better skill-wise. They can get better with game planning.

And you just are happy as a coach when you see your guys connected because they're willing to do whatever it takes to get a win.

Q. You have a lot of guys that are here for the first time. While you have some veterans coming back, you've been in the NCAA Tournament, how important is this next 40 minutes when you're taking them into an arena they don't know, it's an NHL arena, but to lock in, whether it's the rims or sight lines, getting them locked in to what it's going to be 8:00, 9:00 tomorrow here?

COACH HARDAWAY: I don't know if I'll be able to get them to that point ready for the 8:00 as far as mental. I'll try to downplay it as much as possible: this is our shoot-around. Let's get our shots up and go through our routine, because I think routine and preparation takes the nerves away. Most of the nerves away, not all of them, because if you're a college player, you've been waiting for this and this is your first time you've been waiting this your whole entire basketball career, you'll have some nerves.

I think preparation, I think routine definitely helps with that. That's what we're going to try to get into today. Not saying we need to get ready for the game right now. That will be tomorrow.

Q. Kendric says he wants to be remembered as one of the Memphis greats. How important is it to his legacy what happens next? If you look at the history of D-Rose, Memphis greats have done it in the tournament. How important is it, what comes next?

COACH HARDAWAY: I'm kind of in between on that because what he's done in the regular season and in the AAC tournament has been nothing short of greatness. And you do get judged harder because of the postseason like where we are now.

And I would hope that he could take us to the level that Gross took the 2018 team, Keith Lee took the '85 team or even when I took our '93 team, that's an extra level. But I don't know if that will be the judgment on him because of how great he's played. But that would definitely put the icing on the cake if we make a run in the NCAA Tournament.

Q. You talk about K.D. and DeAndre as leaders. What's the key for them to get others involved and you guys find balance as a team?

COACH HARDAWAY: I think the key to them to get guys involved is to understand how the other team is playing them. And just be unselfish. Pick their spots. Don't try to go in and win the game in the first couple of minutes because you're in the NCAA Tournament. You still have to trust your teammates and get those guys involved, because the teams are going to load up on DeAndre and load up on Kendric. They'll see right in front of them what they really need to do and they need to stick to that and trust.

Q. Have you coached a player that you feel more confident going into a big game with than Kendric given his resumé this season?

COACH HARDAWAY: I have not. I have not had a guy with that much history in the game, leading scorer of our conference, leading in assists, leading in 3-point percentage, has had a lot of big games under his belt. Has not made the NCAA Tournament, but just to be able to take over a game in any moment and close a game, I have not coached that. Everyone I've had that could have done that has been so young as a freshman that they've been one-and-done and gone. But to have a fifth-year guy with that experience is a great thing to have.