NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - ARKANSAS VS KANSAS

March 18, 2023

Eric Musselman

Davonte Davis

Ricky Council IV

Wells Fargo Arena

Arkansas Razorbacks

Media Conference

Arkansas - 72, Kansas - 71

THE MODERATOR: Pleased to have with us the victorious Arkansas Razorbacks, headed to the Sweet 16. Welcome Head Coach Eric Musselman, and student-athletes, Ricky Council and Davonte Davis. Congratulations Coach. Your thoughts on the game?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: We're celebrating back there because we have such incredible respect for Kansas, defending champions, MVP of their league in No. 10, Jalen Wilson. They are a hard, hard, hard team to prepare for. Didn't play defense as well as we normally do but we wanted to create more pace in the second half and certainly did that scoring 45 points and then the clutch free throw shooting by Ricky, 10 of 11 in the game, the second-chance points was a big part of our win today. Kamani, 6 offensive rebounds, 10 rebounds, and then the play of Devo Davis taking the ball to the basket and middle pick-and-roll, his defense all game and then once he fouled out we were able to, you know, win! The offensive rebound off the missed free throw was incredible.

Q. Coach, yesterday you mentioned that you wanted to have someone attached to Gradey Dick the whole time. He was a nonfactor scoring wise, he did well at the boards, but how would you assess your defense's effort in stopping him?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: We just wanted to give no air space obviously to No. 4, Gradey Dick. He's an incredible shooter, one of the best shooters in college basketball.

The general philosophy was not to allow three point attempts. That was the biggest thing, is to stay attached. That's also why they did a good job, I thought, of exploiting us hugging up on him by their middle pick-and-roll and their flip screen because Adams got some easy baskets inside and we fouled him a few times off that roll, but we just did not have a tag man because we didn't want Grady to see any daylight. We felt like if we could hold him to four or five three-ball attempts they would play to our advantage.

Q. Eric, you alluded to that crazy play, you don't want Ricky to miss a free throw, but turns out you get it back and he hits 2. Could you elaborate on that? And Ricky could you go through it? You miss it, but get the ball and get two more free throws.

RICKY COUNCIL: Yeah, obviously I didn't want to miss, spinned off. I think Jordan hustled, got a tip and I remember it tipping off of Jalen Wilson and it coming right to me and I was like, either I can attack this, because I was literally at the free throw line when I got it or I could pull it out. I just decided to attack. I knew worst-case scenario I was probably going to get fouled. I made both of those so I think it was up 3 after that.

Q. (No microphone.)

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Yeah, I would have to go back, Bob, and watch the tape because I was thinking about what we needed to do at the defensive end whether Ricky made it or missed it. That was going through my mind. I called a couple of the guys that were not lined up on the free throw line to explain what we wanted to do as far as switching on dribble hand-offs, switching on pick-and-roll coverage. And I think it was Jordan or Kamani, one of those guys, kept the thing alive. And we talk all the time about pursuing loose balls like a defensive back in football and you have to wrestle it away from a wide receiver and that was kind of a scrum and we did an incredible job of willing and squeezing the ball.

Q. The second straight year Arkansas has knocked off a number one seed. I think before that 0-10. That's hard to do, obviously. What does it mean to you? What was the key today?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I've been coaching a long time, that's as great of a win as I've ever been a part of. Again, because of the history of Kansas, because of some of the their veteran players that were part of a championship team last year. A lot of people didn't think we were going to win our first-round game.

I've continued to tell the guys internally and I've continued to tell the staff that we are a team that continues to get better. That just doesn't happen this time of year, but because of all the circumstances that have happened, we're still evolving, we're still adding offensive plays, we're still adding defensive coverages. We're an evolving basketball team and I feel fortunate these guys buy into the prep. We went hard preparation wise. These guys didn't have hardly anytime off between our last game and I didn't want to come shoot today. Not many teams shot today, they gave up their practice time. So I told them, hey, guys, let's do a walk-through and film and I can walk you through what we need to and Ricky and Devo stood up and said no, Coach, we want to go to the gym and I said I was worried about legs and they said, nope. It wasn't my decision. It was their decision. We used all our allotment time today in shootaround. I think that really helped us.

DAVONTE DAVIS: Like Coach said, wonderful win, feels unreal right now. I don't know how to react, you know, but I know it does feel good and I know the guys that be haven't been a part of something like this, I know we feel like we're at the top of the world and we want to continue and get better. Like Coach Mus was saying, we not done yet and I think we can continue to get better as the season continues to go on.

Q. Coach, you guys made it to the Sweet 16, but your shirt didn't make it. What can you say about the celebration that you had with the fans and just the emotion that goes through you knowing that you have these guys on the team?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Well, I would love to lie and say that I felt composed, but this -- we only led for 1:43. This has been as challenging and up and down season as I've ever been apart of. For these guys to be rewarded for sticking with it and being able to go to Las Vegas and participate with only 16 teams still standing, it's really hard to make this tournament. It really hard to win a game in this tournament. It's really hard to beat defending champions, No. 1 seed. We did it, proud of us. We will get on this plane tonight and start prepping tomorrow, I think the game is at 5:15, the team that we will play, and we will start prepping for that tomorrow night as a staff, and see what happens.

Q. I want you to talk about the fan base. That electricity in the arena with your fan base was out of control, something I haven't seen in a long time. Talk about what that fan base means to you and how many people traveled to Des Moines to cheer you on, really cheer you on to that last second!

RICKY COUNCIL: Yeah, to be honest, I really saw a lot of Kansas fans. I saw our section on the right side, on the court, but I really just -- it was like our section and then it was blue all the way around them, but they were loud, though, and I noticed that we had more fans when we was leaving the hotel to come to the gym. They were supporting us leaving the hotel, and I'm glad they came out and I hope they come out to Vegas, too.

DAVONTE DAVIS: It's amazing seeing all the fans come out. My mom wasn't even going to come and I told her, I said, come on down. She drove down. It was like 7 hours. She came down, glad she got to experience this. Just right there with all the other fans, I'm glad they call came down and it's important to us. It's exciting, like I've been saying to the team as well, everybody don't get this opportunity so let's take full advantage. And I think the fans are doing it as well, by coming and traveling and using their money and things like that to be able to come and support us 100%. I'm glad and thankful for them to come and I know the rest of the team is and I'm speaking for all of us and I want to thank the fans as well.

Q. Davonte you had 21 in the second half. A lot of them were contested shots, maybe all of 'em were. The way you were struggling to score in the first half, did you feel like you needed to take the game over at that point?

DAVONTE DAVIS: Not really, just playing within the flow because Coach Mus said get downhill. He was talking within the entire group.

RICKY COUNCIL: He needed to take over.

DAVONTE DAVIS: I feel like we all did something to help us win and I'm glad we did that. Ricky knocked down big free throws, we had Nick come in and play really good defense at the end of the game. Everybody contributed, Coach Mus even subbed the right way and things like that to help us. Even the coaches and the team contributed in some type of way to help us win.

Q. Ricky, once Devo fouled out you took over the mantle. Kamani had a nice fade-away, but sort of made all the other points after that, I believe. Did you feel you needed to step up once he wasn't in the game?

RICKY COUNCIL: Yeah, Devo pretty much had the second half. I was on the first half and Devo had the second half, and I was in the corner ready to rebound if he missed and he wasn't missing. And Coach, when he fouled out, looked at me and he wanted me to take the role that Devo had. I was just trying to make the right play and I think I only missed one shot out of that and Kamani got that rebound and put it back up. Other than that, I was getting fouled. I was just glad he had the confidence in me and we pulled through.

Q. 21 for 26, what's that John Daly text going to look like when you get back to the locker room?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: He tried calling me, got a couple of texts already. Before we hit the plane, I will try to call John. He's been texting me drills. Like he wanted our guys to get a putter out and hit a ball into a cup. We haven't tried it yet, luckily we've been making foul shots, but I know that the state of Arkansas is on fire right now. I know John Daly is pretty umped up, too.

Q. What do you think about Devo's game? He's had a lot of good games for you, but to do it on this stage. You guys were down by 10 in the first half. What did you think of his game and how he came through?

And then Ricky, like this guy said, he really took over, I think he scored 7 of your last 9 and Kamani -- Kamani's tip, kind of like the San Diego State game but maybe even bigger. Just the impact of that?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Kamani has an incredible nose for the basketball and comes up big in clutch situations. There has been good match-ups, you know. We've stuck with the same lineup the last two games. I think he had a really good match-up with his reaction and nose for the ball. We were disappointed in the first half. We didn't go to the basket. We didn't get downhill, we settled. We took five threes in the first three-and-a-half minutes. That was not the game plan but sometimes when you're open you gotta take those. We ran a middle pick-and-roll with Devo predominantly in the second half and then Ricky took over. Much like Ricky did in Maui. We got away from it a little bit, but he had 4 assists tonight, too. So I think his point guard ball handling skills are underrated when we have put him in pick-and-rolls, he's been extremely effective. And Devo with his snake dribble, going right, coming back left, swinging hook shot, off the wrong foot, pretty amazing, but he does it all the time.

Q. Eric, three straight Sweet 16's, a chance to get to three Elite Eights in a row. What is the common thread? Why has this program become so good in March?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Really good players. You can't win at any level, CYO, grade school, high school, college, pro, G-League, national team, unless you have really good players. And we have really good players. We have guys that have insane buy-in, incredible buy-in. Like I said, we're still practicing today with the short turnaround and an early game and guys have played a lot of minutes but, you know, they felt like going on the floor today would help them or put them in a better position to win.

I feel fortunate to coach this team, last year's team, high character guys that hate to lose and really compete. Start of conference play didn't look good for us and we kinda hung around and won some big games and lost some really tough games against some really good competition. We told everybody, don't listen to the noise. Worry about what's going on internally in this locker room and let's just keep getting better. Like I said, I thought our Illinois game was as good of a game we played. I thought tonight in the second half we played as good of a game as we have all year.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, guys. Best of luck in the Regional.