NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - ARKANSAS VS UCONN

March 22, 2023

Eric Musselman

Kamani Johnson

Davonte Davis

T-Mobile Arena

Arkansas Razorbacks

Sweet 16 Pregame Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Arkansas.

COACH MUSSELMAN: We're really happy to be here. Guys have played well through two games. I think they're excited to play an excellent UConn team. And we had a good practice yesterday, a good practice today. Guys are in good spirits and looking forward to competing tomorrow.

Q. Multilayered question on Nick. He obviously has had some rough shooting games of late. How do you think he's doing emotionally, physically, mentally? What do you expect from him tomorrow, and how important is it for you guys to get him going offensively?

COACH MUSSELMAN: Nick's one of the most talented players in the country. And he's had some big games for us. He's been in a tough situation, in and out of the lineup with injuries. It's not easy for any player to do, let alone when a team's on a tournament run.

But, yeah, we'd certainly love Nick to have a big game. But like I said, he's been in and out of the lineup. It's hard to do for any player, let alone someone that's in their freshman year.

Q. How is he doing emotionally?

COACH MUSSELMAN: He's been great in practice. He was bouncing around the last two days. I think he's excited to get another opportunity to play, just as we all are.

Q. I read the story about your father (indiscernible) at one point managing the Padres and you going to games as a kid. Is there anything about spending that time with your father that you managed to incorporate into your coaching? And what did throwing out the first pitch at the Padres' game mean to you?

COACH MUSSELMAN: Throwing out the first pitch at the padre game is one of the greatest thing that happened to me because I have the MLB package and watch every game, which that's a long season. And there's a time difference. My wife is not happy that I love the Padres so much.

But for my dad, too much to remember. In San Diego, one of the first things that happened, when we moved there, is he met with Paul Brown, who is a former Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals coach/owner. And I remember them sitting at the dinner table talking for what seemed like, to me, a couple of hours.

And they were talking about the first meeting my dad was going to have with the San Diego Sails, which was an ABA team because my dad had been a college coach his whole life, and the importance of how an NBA player/NFL player, their antennas are up on everything you said and the preparation that was needed for every single meeting. So those are some of my early memories.

Q. How do you kind of analyze or size up Jordan Hawkins, particularly his shooting mechanics? What do you see when you've watched him on film?

COACH MUSSELMAN: One of the best pure shooters in college basketball. He's got a quick release. He's got a competent release. Doesn't need a bunch of dribbles. Can catch and shoot. Can also create a little off the bounce. You can't let him have separation. You've got to ID him as early as possible and try to not let him get any catch-and-shoot-right-away shots.

Coach Hurley does a great job of running multiple things for him off baseline, out-of-bound triple screens, staggered wheel action stuff. And the thing is he does a great job of constant moving. He's not a guy that's stationary. When the ball moves he moves. So he's a difficult cover because of all those reasons.

Q. How important has the transfer portal been for you building your roster over the past few years? Seems like you've done a very good job with that. You juxtapose that against UConn which certainly uses the portal but maybe not as much as other programs?

COACH MUSSELMAN: I promise I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for the transfer portal. I kind of felt like at Nevada we were at the forefront of the transfer portal. Really interesting because eight years ago when somebody was transferring, the process was a lot different.

You had to go through your compliance office and there was a lot of paperwork involved. And I can promise you there was not much competition. The competition now for transfers is as fierce as any recruiting landscape that you could be a part of. But it was not that way for three years, especially because guys had to sit out.

I know for a fact that I would never have been the coach at Arkansas if it wasn't for transfers and guys like Cody and Caleb Martin and Kendall Stephens and guys that had transferred from Power Five schools to the Mountain West.

And certainly UConn's done a really good job of being selective in who they take out of the transfer portal and having guys that they do get out of the portal that are integral parts of their roster management.

Q. At what point in your life did you become comfortable with taking your shirt off in public? And do you feel like this is now part of your signature that you're almost expected to do something crazy when you win a big game?

COACH MUSSELMAN: I'm going to go back to like when you live in San Diego, like, a lot of times you don't have your shirt on, especially if you grow up in Bird Rock or La Jolla and you're riding the boardwalk.

But in all seriousness, it happened at Nevada. I don't know how or why. I was not planning on doing it the other night. But one of our hosts was kind of begging me, even after the first game. He was one of the guys that walked us around.

And so, I mean, I guess my emotions got the best of me. My wife's not always happy about that. But it's not something that we plan on doing all the time. It just kind of -- emotions run through you. And I guess you get a certain age and you just kind of do it just because.

Q. I think in Des Moines you guys were a plus-8 for those two games, average. I think you were a plus-16 versus Illinois and Kansas. And then UConn's like a plus-9.3 on the season. I think they're the top rebounding team margin-wise left in the tournament. How do you see the rebounding matchup between you and UConn?

COACH MUSSELMAN: They're relentless on the glass, for sure. I think that our teams had nights where we're really, really good defensive rebounding because that's obviously the key, is to try to keep them off the offensive glass. That's one of the defensive themes that we're trying to create with our team.

So you've got to be physical. They're a physical team. They send four to the glass almost every time. A lot of teams will send three to the glass and two back. But they, almost every possession they're sending four to the glass.

So we've got to do a good job defensive rebounding, and then we'll see how that affects our transition offense as well. But obviously they're the best rebounding team we played all year and we played against some really good rebounding teams. Texas A&M's a phenomenal rebounding team. Kentucky, with Tshiebwe, is a great rebounding team. Auburn can rebound the basketball.

But everyone says UConn is the best rebounding team in the country. And they have two centers that, in my opinion, is the best center combination basically in all of basketball. They basically have a backup that's a starter on almost every team in a country and is a freshman and had a great year.

Q. You guys obviously got off to a great start, the game against Creighton. Then you got into an SEC schedule that was difficult. Can you reflect on the way that your team has transformed over the season and the things they've dealt with in terms of injuries and things like that?

COACH MUSSELMAN: One of college basketball's most talented players, Trevon Brazile, is out with a knee injury. I truly think he was one of the most versatile players in all of college basketball. We kind of built our team around him. And obviously with Nick Smith being in and out of the lineup, this team has dealt with a lot.

But we were fairly healthy the two prior years and it was the same kind of theme where maybe we didn't start SEC play really like we would have liked to have. But we just kept kind of grinding and looking at the next game on our schedule and trying to have belief. And here we are again. But it's a resilient team that's overcome a lot for sure.

But I do think the SEC schedule, it's hard. I think in my opinion it's the best college basketball and college football and college baseball and gymnastics and softball, but certainly in basketball it's probably underrated a little bit.

Q. This one's on the European tour you took this summer, with having such a new roster, how beneficial was that? And how much were you able to look back during the season and kind of point the moments from that tour that you're kind of able to build off of?

COACH MUSSELMAN: I thought it was really beneficial when we started the year because we got out to a great start. But then the injuries kind of hit. But I think anytime you can take those foreign tours, if you do them right, they can really build chemistry. They can build bonding.

The players get to see the coaching staff in a different light. So I do think that buy-in and trust, you can kind of get a headstart if it's handled correctly. So I don't think there's any doubt that that time -- especially with so many transfers, and not just the transfers but out of our 12 players that will suit up tomorrow six of them are freshmen. So the freshmen along with the transfers, it did give us a little bit of a headstart on bonding, for sure.

Q. Getting back to your father, what would you say is maybe the greatest lesson you learned from him in all the years of practices and games and all that?

COACH MUSSELMAN: A lot. But competing, like everything that happened in our household was competition. The pickup games growing up at La Jolla Rec were legendary with my dad just because if we lost a pickup game and had an hour and a half wait on Saturday or Sunday morning, he wasn't real pleasant to be around. But everything that happened with my dad and I, whenever I was around him, being a competitor was kind of beyond belief.

But he wrote on my lunch bag, my brown paper sack that I would take, "effort, energy, enthusiasm." He wrote that every day when he was home and not out recruiting or not on a road trip. So that's what I went to school with.

And to be able to work with him with the Timberwolves and watch his preparation, watch how he conducted practice, his attention to detail, I was lucky to watch him meet with so many other coaches in different sports. He was really good friends with Billy Martin, the former Yankee manager. And I was exposed to a lot of stuff that a normal kid wouldn't be exposed to -- going on road trips when he was an NBA coach, being a ball boy and working the opposing team's locker room when he was the Cavs coach, and rebounding for people like Larry Bird. I was just exposed to a whole different lifestyle than everybody else that I grew up with.

Q. When you came in from Reno, why do you think you were so quickly able to put your mark on this program? And what do you want the image of your program to be from the outside?

COACH MUSSELMAN: I guess from an image standpoint, I want it to be a program that people think wins. I hope that our offensive style of play is one that if a player watches, he would want to play in; if you're a fan, you would want to watch. Although, this year we go through some scoring droughts and maybe not offensively as pleasing as maybe some other teams. But we do play with pretty good pace.

I just think that like any program you go in with a plan, a short-term plan and a long-term plan and then you try to think about how you can have sustainability in today's college landscape, whether it's a football program or a women's basketball program, you can build quickly because of the portal.

And you're seeing first-time coaches do that this year that have had great success through the portal. But then the key is how can you have sustainability. You've got to have, like I said, a short-term plan and a long-term plan. And although, obviously, the most important thing right now is to get ready for UConn, I would be lying to say that we're not also recruiting today and didn't recruit last night and didn't recruit this morning and won't recruit tonight, because, I mean, I don't know what it is what it is, but the portal is open while teams are still playing. So you've got to worry about two things. Obviously the most important thing is UConn. But there is still recruiting going on right now as well.

Q. Davonte, what is it like playing for Coach Musselman and how would you describe him to somebody who hasn't met him?

DAVONTE DAVIS: It's fun playing for him. His intensity throughout the entire day, it could change, but most of the time it's high. But my intensity of life and expectations and things like that is high as well. So it's fun.

And if you haven't met him, you probably would be scared because you don't know how he's going to come at you. You never know. He come at you like this or you never know. But it's fun and it's exciting. This journey has been really exciting with him. And I'm glad I got to experience it with him.

KAMANI JOHNSON: Mostly just intense. He's crazy, if you haven't met him -- what you see on TV, that's him for sure, shirt off, jumping around. He like that at 8:00 in the morning when he's on the treadmill. That's just Muss, high energy. But I can't say enough about the journey I've been on with him since I've played for him. It's been really, really fun.

Q. Having Nick Smith back, how valuable is that? And obviously his minutes went down in this tournament so far, any words of encouragement for him as far as, that you've provided to him?

KAMANI JOHNSON: It's always good when you can have a top-10 draft pick come back and be on your team. You know he's been dealing with injuries this year. But we know who he is as a player. He knows who he is as a player. That's all the encouragement.

We don't have to give him too much encouragement. He's a dog, we know he's a dog, and we know what he can do. We're excited to have him back. It's a new city, close a chapter on the old one. And I can't wait to see what he does when he performs tomorrow.

Q. Davonte, you saw his emotions in the locker room after the last game. What was it like seeing what a player's gone through so much this season and see that come out of him?

DAVONTE DAVIS: I don't know if a lot of people know, but me and Nick have been knowing each other -- we're from the same place since we've been playing at the Boys & Girls Club. And that's about 6 and 7. What he went through, like I know myself, because we all went through something before.

And he's human, and we always comforted him and we know how he feels to be in a position he's in and have all the pressure that everybody's putting on him. For him to come back, that's amazing. And he's a young man that a lot of people can't faze. And it's tough to be in his world today and to be able to take on the things he's taking on.

And I'm glad he's able to take on the way he is. And I appreciate that and I know other guys do as well. For him to be able to cry in that locker room, feel those emotions, even after not having the best game, and being there for us and we being there for him, we being there for each other, it's just amazing. And he knows I love him. And he'll be fine. Like Kamani said, it's a new city. We're in Vegas. He told me earlier today he felt good. We're ready.

Q. Given the history of the program, how important is it to know the heritage -- the 40 minutes of hell, the national championship, everything that came with the program before to adapt to today's game?

DAVONTE DAVIS: I think I would say coming in my first year, hearing things like that, like, should we have pressure on ourselves? Coming into like postseason, it's a lot of, they can win it. Do they have the chance?

We think about it but we try to put it to the side because that's the past and we want to think about now. And so coming into this year, it wasn't no intention of looking at that. But we do see it and think about it and stuff like that.

But we don't put it on our shoulders because this is an entire new team, entire new staff, a whole new decade. It's, like, we focussed now. And I think that is amazing just to have that history. Of course we want to try to do it again. So, try to focus on this year, you know.

KAMANI JOHNSON: I mean, obviously you know the history of our program and that championship. And I've been talking to some of the guys from that team and what it means to them and just being alumni from our program, like everybody's tuned in, giving us encouragement.

But just like Vo said, we know the opportunity we have in front of us, but we've got to take it one game at a time. And we're focused on UConn and winning that game. But we're definitely aware of what we have in front of us, but we kind of got tunnel vision right now.

Q. Kamani, you lost four of your last five before the NCAA and now you've won two straight including knocking off the top seed. What has changed in those two games from the prior five?

KAMANI JOHNSON: I mean, my mom always told me, you're only as good as your last game. So I have short-term memory loss when it comes to losing games or winning games. And you always gotta put on your best performance when you step on the court.

So every new game is a new 40 minutes to grow and be better. And I think that's kind of been the difference, just not holding your head on the past and especially in March because every game could be your last game. So I think our team has done a good job of preparing and treating every game like it's our championship game.

Q. Going back, you talked about Muss taking his shirt off. What do you think when he does that and running around crazy?

KAMANI JOHNSON: I always say a happy Muss is a happy us. More shirt off is good for us.