NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - CLEMSON VS BAYLOR

March 23, 2024

Scott Drew

Jayden Nunn

Yves Missi

FedExForum

Baylor Bears

Media Conference

Q. Yves, how are you feeling? Do you fully expect to be good to go for tomorrow?

YVES MISSI: I feel way better since yesterday. We've been working on my back. I had treatment, and I should be ready to go tomorrow.

Q. Jayden, that was your first NCAA Tournament win, correct?

JAYDEN NUNN: Yes.

Q. How exciting was that, especially the way y'all were able to hit a lot of 3s and kind of everybody getting in on the act?

JAYDEN NUNN: It was good to see everybody with a smile on their face. Last year I got put out first round, (indiscernible) going home. Lost to Saint Mary's in the first round. It just feels good to get the first win under my belt.

Q. Yves, you talked about how excited you've been for this moment. What was it like to be out there in the spotlight?

YVES MISSI: It was really great. Obviously we got the win and everyone was happy. It was a great experience. I never experienced it before, so I'm real happy for it.

Q. Coach talked about you just started playing basketball a few years ago. What was your knowledge of the NCAA Tournament coming into this experience? And how did it kind of match or live up to it?

YVES MISSI: (Indiscernible), but I just watched it on TV. Right now it's my first time. I'm discovering it every day. And just to see how it is, very amazing.

Q. Jayden, what have you guys seen on Clemson in terms of your scouting? Obviously it's been a quick turnaround.

JAYDEN NUNN: They have very big guards. They've got very physical bigs, so we're going to emphasize front-up posts and just trying to be physical all game with the bigs, boxing out and doing whatever we've got to do to keep them off their game.

Q. How good did it feel to see the ball go through, because this seemed like a glimpse of what this team can be, hitting 16 3-pointers?

JAYDEN NUNN: It feels great. Everybody had an input on that game. When everybody is playing like that, I feel we're really hard to beat. And I feel we're capable of playing that every game, really. So we're hard to beat when we play like that.

Q. Yves, how much has it helped you having JTT, from Cameroon, and even Josh just to help acclimate you to this whole experience in America?

YVES MISSI: It's great. I'm taking advice every day from John and Josh. And Johnny is my roommate, so we talk a lot. He gives me advice about the game and about life in general. He's definitely a great mentor.

Q. As I was walking through the corridor I heard the team practicing to "Stomp" by Kirk Franklin, which is an incredible hype song. Is gospel music, practicing to that, a regular thing. And who is in charge of making the playlist?

JAYDEN NUNN: It's a regular thing. Shiv (phonetic), our basketball manager, is in charge of making our playlist and Nurse (phonetic) as well. But we listen to gospel music every day. And I've got a gospel playlist as well that helps me out. Coming to Baylor has helped me get closer to God.

Q. Yves, Josh had some nice plays in that game yesterday, including a steal and breakaway dunk. When he comes in as your backup and plays like that, are you really excited for him?

YVES MISSI: Oh, yeah, I'm very excited whenever I see Josh or John playing good. They're just like my brothers, so every time I see them make a great play I'm really excited for them. I'll cheer for them.

Q. Yves, what have you seen looking at Clemson's bigs? Obviously I would imagine the assumption is you will see quite a bit of PJ Hall, but Ian Schieffelin, and Jack Clark, RJ Godfrey, what are your impressions of Clemson's bigs?

YVES MISSI: They have a lot of good bigs. We can post up. They're very physical. Have to match their physicality, and to be physical and front on the post, try to make them uncomfortable.

Q. Yves, how difficult was that to do last night or yesterday when the back's hurting and things like that? They're trying to be physical. They obviously had their way at times down low. How difficult or did that affect your play, your back and stuff?

YVES MISSI: It definitely affected me, but regardless of how you're feeling, you just have to play through it and give it all to the team, either on the court or bench, cheer for your teammates, be happy for them.

Q. Jayden, obviously not on the team last year, but back-to-back years, departing in the second round, has that been the talk in the locker room, just trying to get over the hump?

JAYDEN NUNN: I haven't been a part of that. But I've been watching college basketball so I know they got put out in the second round the past couple of years. I'm just looking to help them get over the hump and do whatever I can to get this win because I want to go to the Sweet 16. I want to go as far as we possibly can.

Q. Jayden, when Clemson's got in trouble, it's usually teams having pretty hot shooting nights beyond the arc. That's part of your identity. How much do you think the 3-point line will be crucial to the game tomorrow?

JAYDEN NUNN: It's going to be very crucial. I feel if we just make shots like we normally do, we'll have no problem winning this game. And just defending bigs on the post and be physical with them, and I'll help Yves out there do whatever I have to do, go down there, help the bigs, which will be all right.

Q. Jayden, RayJ's played a lot of minutes especially in Big 12 play. There was that moment in the first half where he gets his third foul, you've got to take over the point guard spot. Are you completely comfortable in that role? You look like you were.

JAYDEN NUNN: All summer I played against RayJ, and I had to play the 1 for the opposing team that I was playing against him with. Scrimmaging, I had to play the 1 all summer. Doing things like that all summer helped me get comfortable. I'll take little things from RayJ because he's a great point guard. I try to learn from the best.

SCOTT DREW: It was a great day yesterday for the Drew family. The only thing I wish was my brother got done playing a little bit earlier. It was past my bedtime.

Other than that, really excited to have a chance to play against a really good Clemson team. Very well coached, very disciplined, a lot of players that play the right way. And obviously for all those that saw them yesterday know how good they are.

Q. Yves mentioned that he fully expects to be out there tomorrow. How important will that be to have all your bullets against a team like Clemson with the bigs that they have?

SCOTT DREW: Definitely want a healthy interior because you're going to need them all. Clemson's as deep in the frontline as you're going to find in college basketball. Most college teams, they're lucky if they have one guy who can play in the post. They've got three, four, five guys they can run in there.

With us, I know Yves did a great job trying to fight through the other night. Hopefully he'll be in better shape physically. Dave Snyder, our trainer, does a great job, and Charlie Melton, our strength coach. And Yves is a tough kid.

Q. Did you stay up in time to -- did you watch all of Bryce's game?

SCOTT DREW: At the end of the game I had to stay up because they were shooting awful quick.

Q. You talked about it before, but what was Homer's travel plans? Where did he go and where will he be tomorrow?

SCOTT DREW: He's probably somewhere over Oklahoma right now. I think he gets in tonight about 9:00. I told him he should just stay in Spokane because, as we all know, it's three-day travel to get here.

Anyway, he wanted to be here. So he'll be here tonight. So excited to see him. I'm sure he'll have his notes for me when he arrives.

Q. Your players have talked a lot about your positivity the past couple of days. Where does that come from for you?

SCOTT DREW: My dad, he's a real positive man. Great coach, better father. And just that's how he approaches life. Everybody's got different strengths, weaknesses. I know my wife says my positivity bothers her at times. But I tend to look at the glass half full.

Q. I saw Danny Hurley asked about this a lot, but in terms of repeating, you've been a champion, is it more difficult in this environment or is it just the same as it was?

SCOTT DREW: Well, let's start with this. How many teams have won a game in the last how many years?

THE MODERATOR: That would be four in the last five tournaments.

SCOTT DREW: You typically think that there's probably 15 great programs that are getting to the Sweet 16 every year. And I mean it's hard to get to the tournament. It's hard to win a game in the tournament. And I think when you look at national championships you probably look back and say, God really blessed us.

For example, the year after we won it, the next year, we were 15-0 and we had already lost Langston Love for the season with an ACL. And then we lose L.J. Cryer and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua. And then we lost to North Carolina, who went to the championship game.

My point is you have to have a lot of things go your way to win a national championship. And it's hard enough to do it with getting a team back that's talented enough and is on the same page enough to win it all, but then also dealing with everybody's best shot and the added pressure that goes in.

But most of all you've got to stay injury-free. And that's hard to do in today's game as well.

Q. How is your dad traveling, commercial, charter? Because of the challenge between --

SCOTT DREW: He's on bus. I'm joking (laughter). He's on commercial.

Q. Secondly, your game tips an hour before Bryce's game in Spokane. I mean, do you even want to try to get updates during your game? Or just keep your focus on that, let him handle his business tomorrow? And I'm presuming the family may have split screens somewhere.

SCOTT DREW: You're the first person who told me the game time. So thanks for sharing that. Him and I are both always locked in with our own teams. I'll be honest, it's too emotional. The last thing I would want to know is how they're doing because if they're up I'm worried, if they're down I'm upset.

After our game is over, then I'll find out or watch it. But I mean coaches have their routine. When I'm watching my brother play, if the right chair is not working, I'm standing, I'm moving around.

I've got too many things to worry about than that. I'll say a prayer for him and let the good Lord decide the rest.

Q. You champion for the Big 12 Conference on the basketball scale and how much talent there is in it, any chance you get. With that in mind, when you get a chance to go up against a team whose coach might have said there was some manipulation by the Big 12 Conference for NET purposes, do you see it as an opportunity to not only advance, but also to show up for the Big 12 and (indiscernible) say, look good for us tomorrow?

SCOTT DREW: I think first and foremost you're in the NCAA Tournament. You don't need any added motivation. Right now you're completely focused on controlling what you can control and being locked in with that. I mean, every coach, whatever league they're in, believes their league's tough and the best league.

If you watch college basketball and the parity, it's hard to win in any league. I know we have enough to be focused about starting with a really well-coached team and great players.

Q. When Clemson's gotten into trouble this year, it's typically been not defending the 3-point arc well. That's obviously central to your identity, the 3 ball. Curious your thoughts on that particular aspect of the match-up.

SCOTT DREW: One of the last things you control as a coach is if the ball goes in or not from 3. You pray it does. I think we're going to run our offense how we run it. As long as we're getting high-percentage shots, we'll live with the results. And hopefully we do a good job getting offensive rebounds when we miss.

But Clemson's a great program. You don't win at Alabama, you don't win at Carolina, you don't have a chance to beat Duke at Duke unless you're a really good team.

Again, it starts with the great coaching staff and then a bunch of guys that are fourth-, fifth-year guys that have a lot of experience and they're really fundamentally sound and great players.

Q. The mix of players you have on your roster -- you have some freshmen, first-year transfers, guys who have been with you for a few years -- how do you make that all work and be successful?

SCOTT DREW: I think there's no exact science. If there was, every one of us coaches would have the same routine. What I love about coaching, I joke with our staff, it's like getting a four. Five minus one is four, two plus two is four, three plus one, there's a million ways to get there.

You can play man, you can play zone, you can press. I think with us it's really who fits our culture. And the more they like one another, the more they're going to compete for each other. They've got to be coachable. People we want to be around. They're going to represent our program and university the right way.

And with us, we have some freshmen that don't play like freshmen, especially this time of year. I mean, they're sophomores with the minutes they've logged.

Q. We've talked about the family and everything. How much in your head are those voices coming through to you as you're coaching a game, whether it's your dad or even conversations you've had with your brother?

SCOTT DREW: Honestly, I try to keep out all the voices in my head during the game. A lot of times people are yelling things I don't want to hear.

But as far as -- I learned under my dad. My brother learned under my dad. And how he did things is basically -- everyone's different. And one of the best things he taught us was always adjust to what you do to the personnel and the players you have. As a coach you're a servant leader. You serve them.

And with that I think the fundamentally sound values that I have as a coach, they're from him and how we run a program, how we do things. And then I hear his voice after the game on what we should have done.

Q. We've seen him just kind of go like this all season, with his development. How much does he have the green light when he's facing a guy up now because I mean that little right-hand runner, left-hand runner, it's become a pretty good weapon for him?

SCOTT DREW: One thing about Yves, you look at him only playing basketball for, like, three years and in high school at Prolific Prep, they had a great program but he was their second-best big as far as scoring options.

And where he's come now he has a great capacity to learn and learn quickly. And that's something that as a coach you're just blessed.

I think as parents, we all want to have kids, when we say at one time, they do it, and we're blessed when they listen. He's one of those guys that really learns quick.

Q. Your national championship team really preached sharing the sugar. In this first round game, they really were doing that. Do you feel like that's when this group is at their best?

SCOTT DREW: No question. I think every coach in this tournament would hope that their team is sharing the ball and getting assists and playing the right way. At the same time, you're always taking what the defense gives you. With us, we've got a lot of guys that are capable of scoring and knocking down shots, and that tension is always between do I get someone else's shot or do I take a shot.

I know when we're taking the best shot we can get, we're a much better team like everybody else.

Q. You always talk about shot selection. You all shot 30 from 3. Are you okay with that as long as they are good shot selections? And how did you feel about your shot selection last night?

SCOTT DREW: When we make 16, I love it. When we make five, we've gotta do something else. But I think everything you adjust to. If you're getting great looks but they're not going in, you probably need to mix in more of the paint and getting to the free-throw line. If you're getting good shots and they're going in, you're continuing to let it fly.

I don't think we're ever telling a player to turn down an open shot and a good shot. But as a player, I think you always know, if I miss four 3s in a row hopefully I'm doing something different.

Q. Especially in the past month, you guys have been so good in the second half, adjusting to whatever happened in the first 20 minutes. Is there some Scott special stuff, like out of "Space Jam," you have the players take at halftime? Or what's the key to the adjustment for you?

SCOTT DREW: If we had that, we would have won every game this year. So there's definitely no special sauce. But we have a great coaching staff. They bring a lot of great ideas to our guys to help them be in position to be successful. And then I think our guys, as shown, as the game settles, as they settle into the game, they've been able to raise their level of play when it's needed most. Not every team can do that. So that's been a blessing.