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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: SPOKANE

March 15, 2007

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON

THE MODERATOR: Aaron Brooks is to my right. Also Bryce Taylor and Maarty Leunen. We'll start with questions for them.

Q. Aaron, a lot of people say in the NCAA tournament the guards kind of play a bigger role than usual. Will you be looking to kind of take more control as you go into this?
AARON BROOKS: I think we're going to try to keep the same game plans we had going into it. You definitely need leadership from the guard position because they have the ball most of the time.
I think we're probably going to keep the same flow going as we did in the tournament. However it plays out, we don't know. This is our first time here. But we definitely need great guard play.
BRYCE TAYLOR: That's one of the things you always hear about. The most important things is for the guards to take care of the ball. They initiate the offense and everything. We're not going to change how we play. It's pretty much an equal opportunity offense. Everybody gets their touches and everybody gets their shots. It's important for our guards to make sure we don't turn the ball over any more than we usually do.

Q. All three of you, if you can tell me, what have you learned about Miami of Ohio in the last five or six days?
AARON BROOKS: Before this I don't think I really knew that much about Miami. I know they have great big guys, freshman point guard, they look to get most of their points inside. We know we're going to have to play hard defense. We also know they tempo the ball kind of like a couple of teams we play in the past. They look to have good shots and they play good defense.
BRYCE TAYLOR: Like Aaron says they have strong post players inside. They slow the game down. They take advantage of all the possessions they have. I'm sure they'll try to do that against us, because we get up and down a lot.
Besides that defensively they try to clog out the middle and help off their man, try not to let you drive too much and try to force you to beat them from the outside. But they're pretty undersized inside.
We'll try to play our game plan or play how we typically play to just force the issue on them, try to force them to adjust to how we play.
MAARTY LEUNEN: Pretty much the same thing they said. One, control the tempo. They've got a pretty good inside presence and run most of their offense through him. It will be key locking that up. And just don't let the guards hurt us.

Q. Aaron, you guys have been on a roll. Do you have to guard against over confidence or anything like that at all? Has that even been a topic?
AARON BROOKS: No, not at all. I think we all know the value of this game. We're not going to overlook anything. We're happy to be here and it's going to show in the court our energy level. Being as this is our first tournament and how hard it was for us to get here in the first place, we can't allow anything to get by.
I think we're all going to have that focus going out to the game where we're not going to let a second go by where we're not playing hard, not on our job. I think that will definitely show.

Q. Question for Maarty. If you could indulge an off the wall topic. I have a brother named Martin and I went to a school named Martin. I've never seen Maarty spelled with two A's. Is that a family tradition, or is there a reason for that?
MAARTY LEUNEN: On my dad's side his parents are Dutch. His name is Maartin, too, with two A's. They passed it on to me. My real name is Maartin with two A's.

Q. M A A R T I N?
MAARTY LEUNEN: No. T E N. It's a Dutch thing, I guess.

Q. Bryce, as far as your dad having played in the NBA, what knowledge has he imparted to you about that whole experience? How has he helped your game, helped you develop in your game?
BRYCE TAYLOR: I started from a young age. He tried to teach me to play the right way. He taught me how to shoot the ball. Just a lot of little things that go along with learning how to play basketball. He pretty much watches all my games on TV. He'll just give me a call afterwards and let me know some of the things I need to work on and where he saw my weaknesses were.
In the off-season he works out with me a lot. He tries to help me improve to become as good of a player as I can be.

Q. What areas has he critiqued you on maybe in the last year or two?
BRYCE TAYLOR: As far as when I drive to the basket, using the extra dribble, I try to take it all the way instead of pulling up. Instead of trying to shoot a floater shot, he makes sure I don't settle for too many outside jumpers and use my athletiscm to try to get around people.
Just little things like holding my follow through and using pump fakes. Just all basketball stuff where he sees that I can take advantage of the opportunities that I have on the floor.

Q. What do you feel, all three of you, what do you feel the strengths are for the Ducks going into this tournament?
MAARTY LEUNEN: Well, obviously we've really improved our defense. Our defense keys our offense. We like to take advantage of our mismatches on the other end. We just create problems for them defensively. So we try to find the open player, be unselfish and be able to shoot the ball extremely well.
BRYCE TAYLOR: I would say the same thing because you have to honor all five players on the floor, it's tough to guard. It's tough to match-up. We bring the post players out to the perimeter to try to make you defend players like Maarty and Aaron and myself and Malik up off the floor.
So it's tough match-ups for other teams. We've been shooting the ball extremely well coming into this point. As Maarty said you can't always control shooting a ball at that high a level. You make defensive your focal point and allow that to lead to easy transition and fast break points, continue to play at the high level where we don't let too many possessions get by where we don't have any slip-ups or breakdowns. We take advantage of the opportunity. Like Aaron said earlier, we waited and worked a lot to get to this point. So we will seize this moment.

Q. You guys have loads of talent. You're going to see teams that have as much talent as you have later in the tournament possibly. What do you make of experience, and what's that worth? You don't have anybody on this roster who has played a single minute in an NCAA tournament game. Is that worth anything or not worth anything?
BRYCE TAYLOR: Not really. To me it's a big stage and a lot of hype and a lot of people, but it still comes down to playing basketball. We've all played against teams with talented players. We've played against the number one team in the country at the time. Arizona probably has as much talent as anybody else in the country.
For us our main worry is just how we play because we control ourselves. Of course we always respect our opponents, but we're more worried about playing Oregon basketball than other situations. With the tournament, I'm sure the level probably gets raised a little bit, but it's still going to be as competitive as games have been earlier in the year. When it comes down to it, it's just a basketball game, and we've all been in those situations before.
AARON BROOKS: I think our conference play has been pretty tough this year. Having them close games has been hard, and I think it's prepared us for this. I know it's not the same. Like Bryce said, it's basketball when it comes down to it. You know, big players have to rise up and play in these big games. And I believe that we have them on our team.
A lot of people have been working very hard to get here. I don't see them backing off and not being ready for the challenge. I'm just looking forward to see how we respond in this game.

Q. Aaron, you guys talked about what you think your strengths are. What do you think Miami's strengths are?
AARON BROOKS: I think their strength is in tempo of the ball. They play great defenders. I think they allow 59 points a game. They're very smart, heady players. They work hard for their coach. I think their strength is definitely inside, in posting up. I think that's going to be -- we're going to have to do a really good job of locking up. I think if we lock up their post guys, then they're going to have a tough time scoring.
I think their strength on offense is post, and on defense they really help out a lot and they like to clog up the middle, don't let in any easy layups. They make you win from the outside, and that's hard to do most of the time.

Q. There were high expectations for team last year. What was the reason for being able to fulfill the potential this year?
AARON BROOKS: I think we just all held each other accountable. Last year I feel like we expected to be good, but we didn't do the steps that needed to be taken to be a good team before the season started. So we kind of just hit the floor and thought, all right, we're juniors and seniors, we're going to be good now.
I think this year we put in the time in the summer to become a great basketball team. Now it's paying off. I think it all started with our summer work-outs on the track and becoming accountable and just holding each other accountable not as much as the coaches, but as much as the team holding each other accountable. Our leadership, I think our leadership has definitely improved. Myself, Maarty, Malik and Bryce, we've definitely been mentors to the underclassmen. I think that's been the biggest change in this.
THE MODERATOR: Oregon Coach Ernie Kent. We'll have him open up with a couple minutes here of opening comments.
COACH ERNIE KENT: What a wonderful place to hold this portion of the tournament here in Spokane. I think it's a great basketball environment with Gonzaga being up here, you've got very very very knowledgeable basketball fans.
So far the city has been very kind and very friendly everywhere we have been. We're really looking forward to just playing and giving people up here just a firsthand look of who we are in our program. Obviously there's going to be some excellent, excellent basketball games with the teams that are in this region.
THE MODERATOR: Open up for questions.

Q. 24 hours away from the first game. Can you get a feel for your team's mood? Are they extra excited, nervous? ?
COACH ERNIE KENT: I feel like in every sense going into the conference tournament and coming out of it, they've been pretty grounded. They're not a team that gets too up or too down. They just allow us to get them ready. Their focus is really good right now. We had two really good days of practice yesterday. Today is a prep day. There's a lot going on obviously with the media. So they're probably unsure what the next move is. Come game time tomorrow, especially having put the day behind us, they'll be ready to go. I think they're pretty grounded and excited to be here. I think the opportunity to be on center stage will get them at another level just in terms of their readiness and everything, too.

Q. Can you compare this to your last trip into the tournament? Are there any comparisons between this Miami team and Utah or the style of play?
COACH ERNIE KENT: Probably the biggest difference would be I thought we were a fatigued basketball team our last opportunity to go out on the road, as evident as when you look back at the shooting percentages, James Davis, those were really good shooters who were getting a lot of great looks and the ball wasn't going in. This team has really been energized coming down the stretch. Almost like the next challenge is taking their energy to another level. I would expect them to play real, real, real hard.
When you look at styles of play, Miami plays more like Washington State. I think Rick's teams at Utah were bigger, bigger post guys, better shooters out on the perimeter. When you look at Miami, they really control the tempo of the game with their defense. They kind of sag and take away your driving lanes. They play real smart at the defensive end of the floor, real tougher. Very, very, very similar to Washington State if we look at them on tape. It's really important for us to defend them.
The difference for us coming down the stretch has been this team has really started to defend, particularly the last six ball games.

Q. Do you know Charlie Coles well at all? Do you have any sort of relationship with him?
COACH ERNIE KENT: No. In fact, I don't think I've ever met him. He might be one of the few coaches out there in college basketball that I've not met. I know his teams are very well coached, and I know they play tough. And I know he is a competitive basketball coach. He is. The good thing for us is we've been in a conference with -- I've heard so many times how UCLA has been the toughest defensive team in the country. Obviously Washington State is an excellent defensive team too. The Pac-10, it has you ready for this tournament here. There's every kind of style you can imagine in that tournament, in the Pac-10 conference I should say, and actually has been on our schedule as well, too. There will be no surprises there. I know his team is going to be tough, well prepared, and well coached.

Q. Has your team been shown much film? Have they seen any film in the last five or six days on Miami? What's the value of that?
COACH ERNIE KENT: I think the important thing for us right now over the course of the last few days is to get them rested and ready for the trip, get them organized, and have good practices doing what we do best: Defending, shooting and running and playing with great confidence and great toughness on the other end of the floor. And we've done those things.
The preparation for Miami started for this team today. And we watched a lot of film this morning, about 45 minutes of film this morning before breakfast. We did all of our walk through and preparation stuff this morning already at Gonzaga. We'll do a little bit more here today of review. And then tonight after dinner we will look at film again and walk through again everything we're going to do. And then we'll get up again and do it tomorrow morning again prior to game time, have another walk through over at Gonzaga.

Q. What triggered that kind of increase in intensity on defense? That you talked about the last six games. Where did that come from, and why now?
COACH ERNIE KENT: We've been pretty good defensively all year long. I think we changed some things coming into the year where we've been really aggressive with our defense. If you go back to our preseason, we were really tough in terms in being able to run offense. Even early on in conference play, I remember back, UCLA had a tough time running offense there. Cal started to change things and get away from us a little bit. As we looked at tape during our slump there the thing that we noticed we got away from playing that tough minded defenders. We talked to the team. We showed tape. We broke things down. We went back to work. And with Washington State I feel like I had a team that had come home, had reenergized, and when we went back on that floor against them, we were really good in man-to-man and we played about eight minutes of match-up zone in that game that they struggled with. Washington two nights later we played half the game man to man, and we played 15 minutes of matchup zone that I thought really controlled the game at the defensive end, even though they scored 85 points. At Oregon State we switched up again and went to a trapping defense.
I thought our energy was so good in that game that it made it very difficult to run offense. From Arizona State on this team had just stepped it up another notch, another notch, just in terms of their intensity and toughness. We've just played so hard against Arizona, Cal, and U.S.C. and running the things that we've talked to them all year long defensively. So again they're a team that they know what to do. If they bring their energy to the floor and do what they taught to do, they're going to be fine, and they're a pretty good basketball team.

Q. Three years ago you hired Kenny Paine. He had a lot of basketball experience obviously, but no coaching experience. What he has he brought to your program, and what has he meant? This is his first appearance as a coach in the tournament.
COACH ERNIE KENT: When I hired Kenny, it was on the heels of losing Donny Newman to the pros, Greg Graham to a head coaching job. I lost John Cooper what went back and worked for his friend back at Auburn where he's an associate head coach and got that job there. Each one of those guys was kind of a guy that really did a good job. I felt like behind the scenes with your players and things, Kenny did an exceptional job in that area. I felt like he was a guy that had a lot of connection in terms of recruiting. With the NBA experience behind him, with having to go away to the NBA, go overseas, comes back and go back to Louisville and get his degree, I thought he had a wonderful story to tell the guys about the value of education and how difficult it was for him to come back and get it done. I felt like when I sat down and visited with him and educated myself on Kenny, not only did I feel like I was getting a guy that was a tremendous basketball mind, but that the loyalty was going to be there. He was a great person with a tremendous heart, but he had a wonderful, wonderful story that is the dream of every student athlete in that locker room. To play at the NBA level, what it took to get him there, here is a guy that played it, went overseas and played, his knees went out on him, and then he came back and got his education. He's been unbelievable what he's meant to this program behind the scenes.

Q. You talked earlier about these guys being on center stage. Is there a certain level of concern about the fact that none of these guys have played in a tournament game and you're playing the type of team that can cause frustration as the game wears on?
COACH ERNIE KENT: No. I think in this day and age with players and particularly players at this level that are recruited at this level. They're put in situation where's they've played so much basketball. It's so different when you're going through the summer league, T.P. played against O.J. Mayo, they played against Oldham during the summer and all those great players. There's a stage here that they have to adjust and deal with. And then they come to this level. And the majority of these guys are two and three years into this now. And coming through a grueling Pac-10 conference race and being on that stage and playing the UCLA's of the world and Arizona at home and away, those are all tough environments to play and tough games. All that coming down to the Pac-10 tournament. Not only last year, but this year on that stage with that competition and the job they did this year, they're ready for this. This is still a neutral court on this stage. We're going to have a good number of fans here. And it's still basketball. It's still the ability to come in here and have an opportunity to play and show what you're capable of doing.
Players look forward to this type of environment. They thrive off of this type of environment. A guy like Tajuan Porter and Bryce and Aaron Brooks, Maarty, they should really step up in this environment where they have an opportunity to show exactly who they are and what they're capable of getting done. I think the nervousness will be there early on maybe parts of both of these teams, but seasons they start to get into the flow of the game and the adjustments to make, get out to the loose balls, then it becomes basketball and they start to play.
Having played in Washington again and playing Arizona State who frustrates the heck out of you with their zone defense and match-up zone, they're ready for a team that's going to try to control the tempo of the game if that's the case and everything. That shouldn't be a situation where it just overly frustrates them. If anything, it might be a situation where we have to make some adjustments and speed up and make some corrections that away.

Q. Talk about Miami's defense how they like to take the drive away. Does that make you more likely to go for the jump shot at least early?
COACH ERNIE KENT: No. What it does is it makes us run some particular things that will attack maybe their weaknesses and what they don't want to do. And again we play Washington State two different ways this year and had success. In fact, we've had a lot of success against them. And they've played that way for a very long time ever since Dick has gotten there, they've really crowded driving lanes and sagged in and have been great at help side. They played behind in the post. They do a good job of keeping you off the boards. It's not something that we've seen. Ours is a quickness thing and a shooting thing which we're very good in those two areas. We want to take advantage of those two areas. It's a matter of running the type of offense that will give us an opportunity to maybe exploit some of their weaknesses and things they don't like to do on the defensive end.

End of FastScripts

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