NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - IONA VS UCONN

March 17, 2023

Rick Pitino

Daniss Jenkins

Berrick JeanLouis

Walter Clayton Jr.

MVP Arena

Iona Gaels

Media Conference

UConn - 87, Iona - 63

THE MODERATOR: Members of the media and folks watching on Zoom, we're joined by Iona University. Coach Rick Pitino and three students, Daniss Jenkins, Berrick JeanLouis, and Walter Clayton.

RICK PITINO: I want to congratulate Connecticut. They had a great second half. They physically dominated us at the five spot.

The first half was just about as well as we played all year, but the second half was about as poor as we'd played, but that's due to Connecticut's defense and offense. They've got all the metrics to win a National Championship.

They average 17 assists. They're plus 9 on the glass against great competition. They shoot 46 percent from the field. They shoot the three well. They're backup units are just as good as their starters. So they got it all.

I thought we had a legitimate chance of beating them going into the game, but we came out in the second half, and they just dominated us. So they deserve all the congratulations.

I'm very excited for these three guys. They had a helluva year and gave me everything they could give me. It's a great learning experience playing this competition. They were by far -- we played a really good schedule this year, and that was by far the best team we have faced.

Q. Berrick, you got off to a great start today. Second half was tough. What was different about the way Connecticut played in the second half?

BERRICK JEANLOUIS: I feel like they came out and wanted it more. They came out real aggressive on defense. We kind of stopped running our stuff, so we struggled a little bit.

Q. Walter and Berrick, early in the second half, they get that four point play, and it kind of starts them on a roll. Do you think that that play had any sort of significant lift for them?

BERRICK JEANLOUIS: I believe so. That play gave them all the momentum and got them going. And from there, we just couldn't get no stops. They got more aggressive and we couldn't get no stops.

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: To me, basketball is a game of runs and momentum. So coming out of the half, like he said, they just came out more aggressive. They gained all the momentum, and we could never get it back.

Q. Daniss, can you just kind of sum up how you feel about how the season went? 14 straight wins, MAC Championship. Obviously didn't end the way you wanted today, but what are your feelings about the way this team played this year?

DANISS JENKINS: I just told the guys I appreciate everybody that was a part of this season. We were on a 14-game winning streak. I mean, it's the next game.

We came out, we were executing our game plan the first half. The second half didn't come out the way we were supposed to, and they took off with the game.

So I just told the guys, you know, give all the credit to them. Like they stated before, they wanted it more. I mean, a loss hurts, but I told them don't hang their heads. A loss doesn't define us. We've just got to learn from it. That's all I told them.

I think we had a great season up until this game, so I just told them I appreciate them and I love them, and I thank everybody in the locker room. That's how I'm feeling at this moment.

Q. Daniss, can you talk about the impact Coach Pitino's had on your career and everything since you've come to play for him?

DANISS JENKINS: Coming into this year, when Coach P was recruiting me, he seen how me and Walt were going to fan out together in the backcourt, and we knew, if we were on the same page, we can get the team to run the right direction.

Coach P has just been big on, he taught me what it's all about to win and also handling adversity. I'm good when things are going good, but when things start to go left, sometimes I was shaky throughout the year, and Coach P just came to me every time and told me, son, you've got to do better with handling adversity.

So I tried to do that throughout the whole year. At times in games when I seen the team kind of getting down, I would try to step up and be that leader to keep everybody together. So to me, that was the two biggest things that impacted me the most, winning and handling adversity.

THE MODERATOR: Student-athletes, thank you for your time today.

We'll take questions for Coach Pitino.

Q. Coach, I know this is a delicate question after the game, but is this your last game coaching at Iona?

RICK PITINO: I really don't have an answer to it, to be honest with you. I have no idea if it is or isn't because I've focused everything on this game, trying to develop a plan to beat Connecticut. They just physically dominated us on the glass and in the low post.

It really taught me a lesson of what you need to compete at this level, and we didn't have the frontcourt that could compete at this level. So it taught me a lot much what Iona needs in the future.

Q. You look like you're getting emotional. Or are you just tired? I can't tell.

RICK PITINO: No, I'm not emotional at all.

Q. You looked like you were getting a little emotional there. Just what does it mean for what you've been able to accomplish here and the opportunity that you got from Iona, from the president, from the athletic director?

RICK PITINO: Well, first of all, I was totally exonerated because I was innocent of any -- I got two Level 2 violations of not being able to monitor. I got letters from every player I've coached, every assistant coach that's ever coached to send to them to say what a disciplinarian I am.

So I had to wait five years for them to basically stall my career out to finally get exonerated. It was exonerated by an impartial committee made up of legal people, legal people, not ADs and not people -- they hand pick. So for five years they put me in the outhouse because they couldn't get their stuff together.

So it's just the breaks of the game. You can't look back. The past, it's always cherished. You learn from it, you cherish the past. I've been to seven Final Fours, two championships, and I cherish that. I also learn from the mistakes that were made.

The present is where we're at right now, and it's disappointing for my guys because they're a great group of kids. In the future, I have really no idea what the future may bring because I've got to look at the grand scheme of things about winning, and winning is very important because we all work so hard, every coach works so hard.

We played almost a perfect game. We played the best half of the season, and then they -- you know, the one thing, 24 assists in a game and getting beat on the glass 45-29, we've been a weak backboard team the whole year because we lost our starting power forward, our power forward was a center, backup center, and he weighs 194 pounds. So it's always been our Achilles heel.

But I'm so proud of those guys because, no matter who went down, somebody else stepped up. In the first half tonight, I thought we had a chance of getting them, but they just wore us down. They were the much better team in the second half and a team that can go very far.

Q. Back to the game, Coach. I thought they won it in the second half in the first two minutes, and you called a timeout to try to stem the tide on that. Coach Hurley mentioned that they pulled Sanogo aside at halftime and said they needed more from him. He was definitely the difference in this game. Was there anything you could have done to have beaten them in this game?

RICK PITINO: Well, we had their best player 0 for 6 on the perimeter in the first half. When they ran that curl play, that stagger play, our five man didn't hedge out, and we worked on that all week, and that was a big play. And you're right about the two minutes.

Nelly is just learning the game. He's just learning about scouting and how important just a simple cross screen beat him tonight, and that should never beat a player. But he's learning. He's a good basketball player that's learning the game.

Most of the guys that I coach and bring over, they start with soccer, and they're great kids, great students, and they just learn it and get better and better and better, like Gorgui Dieng did at Louisville. So Nelly is going to get better. He's going to improve, and this will be a good learning experience tonight.

Q. You talked before, and you said you don't have an answer right now. Do you have an idea in your head timeline-wise, of when you'd like to make a decision of whatever it is you're going to do?

RICK PITINO: Not really. You know, I really haven't put any thought into it at all. I hear the question from you, and I think when you start thinking ahead, you always fail.

We put a lot of effort into this game. I don't know. I don't know if it's right for me, another job. I don't know that. It's something, like I said before, I know you're all alluding to St. John's, but I've never seen St. John's. Somebody sent me a clip. If you go on YouTube, one of the funniest games of all time was 1987. There's a loose ball out of bounds, we're up one, and it goes out of bounds, and Louie's going crazy saying there's one second on the clock, one second on the clock.

Probably was, I got my team. I threw Billy Donovan in the shower. He said, Coach, my shoes are on. I said, turn the water on and get in the shower. The referee comes and says, one second, and I said, my guys are in the shower, we're not coming out. And we never came out, and the referee said, game over.

That was the last thing I remember about being at St. John's. That was 1987, guys. 1987. So I don't remember too much about it, to tell you the truth, to be perfectly transparent.

You don't buy houses without looking at the garage and the upstairs and the kitchen and everything. You don't just buy a house.

Q. I just want to ask you about the leadership of the three players who were next to you, Walter Clayton, Berrick JeanLouis, and Daniss Jenkins, how they grew. You were working with Berrick throughout the season, really his three years here. How do you feel they grew into leaders?

RICK PITINO: They all played really well this season. When we substituted, we really dropped off. One of the keys of having a great basketball team is when you sub, either foul trouble or fatigue, you don't drop off that much, and that's what Connecticut has.

We have a major dropoff when we substitute. Cruz Davis wasn't -- this was the first time he even suited up and wanted to play, but he wasn't the same Cruz Davis. Those three guys -- and Nelly had a bad night tonight, but he had a terrific season. We only had four or five players that were ready for this level.

Then because Quinn Slazinski getting hurt, that put a monkey wrench in us.

Look, this is going to sound strange to you, but if we were at Kennesaw State right now, I'd be more disappointed. I can look at this game and say UConn was much better. It's not going to make me smile, but I can say, hey, they were the better basketball team, as a lot of my teams have been many nights.

If you lose at the buzzer, you play everything over in your mind a hundred times. So now all I'll do is look back and cherish what these guys have done for me.

When I talk about basketball culture, when I was at Louisville with all of their problems, we had the Number 1 academic record in the ACC and the Big East. Every one of my guys always went to class. We're here at Iona, there's a rule, you don't miss class at all. I don't even have to check up on them. They check. We had a 3.1 grade point average two years in a row, besides these guys going 42 minutes of player development in the morning, weight lifting, practice.

They gave me everything they could give me. So Iona's a special, special place, and it doesn't -- this loss, I mean, we're building this program to a level right now that's pretty damn good. You witnessed that in the first half. I've just got to make sure that we're deeper than that.

A lot of times I had to take players in COVID that I never even saw them play except on film.