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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: WASHINGTON, D.C.March 19, 2008Dave BlissDennis FeltonSundiata GainesWASHINGTON, D.C. Q. For those of us who have never done it before, can you tell us a little bit about trying to play basketball twice in the same day and the problems it posts and just how you cope with that situation? DAVE BLISS: It's a little bit of a unique situation in college. Obviously it hadn't been done in awhile. I think we were prepared for it just because of the way we practice, pretty intense. Obviously when you're in high school you play in a lot of tournaments where you're playing a lot of tournaments a day. We kind of took it as a challenge and try to play our best two games. SUNDIATA GAINES: Definitely the team plays a big part and on the college level everybody's competitive. And the competition is really tough. Pretty much you've got a way to find rest and drink as much as you can. Every game is crucial coming down the stretch. Q. We've all read about the very strict academic requirements that have gone into effect there in the last year about class attendance and that sort of thing. How hard has it been on the players to balance those requirements with everything it takes to participate in basketball? DAVE BLISS: I think it's been a big challenge for all of our athletes, Georgia, not only our team, really eliminates the margin for error down to a very slim rate. A lot of times when you've been tired from practice or a lot of other things pulling on your time, it really makes you put your academic affairs first. And I think it's had a positive effect on a lot of our guys. Q. Do you feel like -- obviously you worked very hard to get here, but do you feel like you're on some sort of house money or what's your approach going into the tournament here? SUNDIATA GAINES: We just want to take it a game at a time. This is our first time, especially with this group of teammates, and Georgia hasn't been here in awhile. We're enjoying the moment. We just don't want to get overwhelmed by everything going on around us, we want to stay focused on what we have to do in our test. We want to come out and play like we did the SEC Tournament, not look too far forward, just one game at a time. DAVE BLISS: I think there's a notion of that, kind of having nothing to lose. We kind of felt that way going into the SEC Tournament, too. It took the pressure off of ourselves and just tried to play for each other and it turned out good for us, hopefully we can keep that going this weekend. Q. Georgia, I know, tried to get a game to New York for you for your senior year like they did with Dave in Wisconsin, but they weren't able to. Is this almost as good? Will there be a lot of New York family, and if there are, if you can identify who they are, or do you have any family in the DC area? SUNDIATA GAINES: You always want to play the game in your hometown, but unfortunately it hasn't worked out. Playing the NCAA tournament is something really special. I'd probably take this over anywhere else. I have a lot of my close family members coming down from New York. I have some family members in the DC area, as well. It's good for them to come out and see me, to get a chance to see me play live and in person. But we just want to keep it going as a team and get as many wins and get to the championship. Q. This is a two-part question. How many people do you think you're going to have here, for both players, you mentioned wanting to win for yourselves, but could you just allude to how much in your mind, if it was at all, about wanting to win for coach and his security and his status there and how much was that in your mind, if at all? SUNDIATA GAINES: I'm going to have probably around 20 people come down to see me. As far as us, you just want to have fun. But as far as the coach's standpoint, he started receiving a lot of heat from the media and the press; some within the Georgia program. Me and Dave Bliss, we definitely want to play for him, it's our last chance around. We don't want to lose and have it be our last game for the season. Winning the SEC championship made it good for him, as far as his job security, he was relieved. Players have less pressure on us, and we get to go out and perform at as high a level as we can. Q. Zac Swansey played a big part in the SEC tournament, did the team treat him differently? DAVE BLISS: I think we treat him like a freshman, too, because he's kind of a little kid to me and the seniors. He's actually very cute and definitely showed some maturity in that tournament with Sundiata fouling out in the two games and Zac was able to come in and lead our team as a point guard, and came up with that huge shot, obviously, against Kentucky. Q. Obviously you had a pretty whirlwind experience last weekend. Do you guys feel refreshed? Is it tough coming back to play your first game on Thursday, instead of, say, Friday? How do you guys feel physically? DAVE BLISS: I think we feel good. We're still kind of riding the emotion of last weekend. Practice has been really upbeat, a lot of enthusiasm and that type of thing. I just hope that the fatigue of four games in three days doesn't start catching up with us as we keep playing into this tournament. SUNDIATA GAINES: I think from the team's standpoint, I think we're going to be pretty well, because just playing four games in three days, just coming off, again, the rest we get now is really appreciated coming down the stretch at the end of the season. And I think we are pretty much refreshed now, mentally and physically. And we focus on what we have to do. Q. You said that you felt playing really well in the tournament, do you think you could have done that all year, and what was different in playing in the tournament as regards the rest of the year? SUNDIATA GAINES: Especially for me and Dave, playing in the tournament our last game, so we had a lot to play for, especially. But in the season we had a lot of games, we played down to the stretch where we couldn't finish out. A big part of that was due to us having no young players, having been through it for the first time. But those games in the season prepared us for the postseason, the games we couldn't close out. Guys that didn't make the plays down the stretch, made the plays in the postseason. Q. You guys had a lot of turmoil right in the beginning of the season when coach had to dismiss a couple of your key players. When that happens, what were your feelings about how that would affect the rest of the season? Did you kind of feel at that point you might have some of the struggles that you did during the season? DAVE BLISS: I think everybody was a little bit worried about the season at that point. Obviously with two of our starters, two really major players leaving the team, the main thing that happened is everyone had to kind of change their role and we had to figure out who we were as a team again. We struggled with that process through most of the season. I think what you've seen now is the only guys we have left are guys that are really committed to this team. I think that's part of the reason why we were able to play so hard this weekend and that's what kind of carried us through the tournament. Q. Was there a turning point in your season when you guys -- where there was a bad thing that happened or a time when you looked around and realized you had a shot at making the tournament or surprising some people in the SEC tournament? SUNDIATA GAINES: I wouldn't necessarily say it was a big turning point, but I think I'd have to say if there was one it had to be, especially our senior night, me and Dave Bliss, that night was special for us and for us to get a win, that really meant a lot to us. Us growing up and going through this team, all the struggle we went through. And that probably translated into the postseason as far as the SEC tournament. That wasn't a good feeling for us. We just played our hearts out, especially me and Dave. We sat down and talked to the team and told them that everything is real crucial now and you want to play every game like it's our last. We did that and that's what we did, we fought a way to get down the stretch and we got the thing done. DAVE BLISS: I think I'd agree with that. We kind of went through a real tough stretch at the end of the year where we lost a lot of close games in conference play. And we just kind of talked to the guys and said that, we obviously didn't finish with the record that we wanted to in SEC play, but the season wasn't over and we still had a chance to prove ourselves in the tournament. COACH FELTON: Well, we're really thrilled to be here. As most of you know, we had to fight through a lot to get here and I think our players are about as excited as any group of players here in the tournament. We have a tremendous amount of respect for our first round opponent in Xavier. We know they are very, very tough, hard-nosed team that has been one of the hottest times in the country throughout the season. I think they play a lineup and a style in terms of how they share the ball and have so many different guys that can score. They offer some match-ups that are troublesome, just by the fact that they have so many guys that can score from three-point range on in. They don't have as much a true post game as they have versatility and mobility in all their players. We know we have our hands full with them, but we're very excited about the match-up and very much looking forward to the opportunity. Q. Would you talk to me about a couple of match-ups. One, what kind of problems does Lavender pose because of his quickness, and do you expect Burrell to match-up on Sunday, who do you think they'll put Burrell on. COACH FELTON: Well, obviously it's hard for me to know who they'll put on Sundiata Gaines. I think I've read a few comments that suggest that maybe Burrell is the guy and he's the guy that they consider to be a standout defender for their team. No matter who guards them I expect Sundiata to go under a lot of contention. That's something both Sundiata and our team are used to. Lavender -- well, it starts with he's a fifth-year senior. He has tremendous experience. I remember, it doesn't seem that long ago, when you had so much admiration for him as a high school player, he was one of the best pointguards coming out of high school. And we've compared him in a way to a player that we have tremendous amount of respect for and that's Nick Calathes, and a guy that's really special for making plays for his teammates, and a guy that makes his team go offensively. He's crafty. He's a tremendous deep shooter, so you have to guard him deep. He's got great judgment. He's a great creator. He does a great job with the ball screen. And they use a lot of ball screens and they do a lot with an open rim, which is troublesome. Just like Sundiata is a big key to our team, he's a very, very big key to their team. Q. You mentioned how excited your players must be to be here. I'm wondering for you, yourself, after five years of obviously hard work rebuilding, dealing with academic issues and that sort of thing, what does it mean to you to finally be sitting here at the NCAA tournament? COACH FELTON: Well, I've been here before and it's really, really good to be back. It's very gratifying. But I just can't separate how I feel away from the way it connects with our team and our program's accomplishments. This year we took a couple of hits as a team before the season even started and I know that it chipped away at our players' confidence in having the kind of year that we came into the season expecting, yet I've talked about this all year long, I've really enjoyed this team. I really appreciate the players that we had left because I thought they were the guys who really, really wanted to be here. And it's clear to see that we had our best chemistry this year, just from the standpoint of the players enjoying themselves and enjoying the process together more than any of the teams because I felt like they grew a confidence that at least they knew they could rely on each other, and no matter how tough things got they could rely on each other to hang in there with each other and stick together and keep fighting and that's what happened. No matter how big the challenges got this season, we just kept coming back and working hard and practicing hard and with tremendous enthusiasm to try to get better and win the next game. No doubt that was led by our two seniors, Sundiata and David. I'm sure when you spoke with them you picked up on some of their conviction. If they don't sit down and talk with their teammates on their terms, going into the SEC tournament, then the championship probably doesn't happen. All successful teams have leadership from within the ranks. If the coach is the one having to do all the leading, then you're only going to get so far. And I think ultimately with the group that we had left it made us able to develop that leadership from within the ranks. So we've taken some steps in that direction and obviously it culminated in a championship in Atlanta. And we're very excited about our future and continue to move forward. Q. Has the enormity of last weekend sunk in yet or is that something you can only really appreciate after all this is done? COACH FELTON: I knew before we accomplished it, what a miraculous accomplishment it would be. When the schedule got reworked and I knew we were going to have to win two games in one day, and that second day against a fresh team playing only one game, before we even accomplished it, I knew that if we did it would be an historical event in college basketball. So, yeah, it sunk in with me. I knew that somehow, some way if we could do it, it would be extremely significant. But on the other hand, once we achieved it it put us in this position. It put us in position to continue playing and had the chance to win another championship. So we haven't spent much time dwelling on it. We got right to work and started focusing our attention on our next goal, and that's to somehow find a way to advance in this tournament. Q. Could you talk a little bit, you mentioned the schedule getting reworked and the whole tournament getting thrown up in the air. Could you talk a little bit about some of the things that might have been going through your head when you looked at the possibility of playing two games and how you spent the time during those two games to get your team ready to play again. COACH FELTON: Right. That's just the thing, there really wasn't much time. We knew that we wanted to get out of the gym as quickly as possible after the first game, and that included not fulfilling our normal obligations with the media because we just wanted to get back to the hotel, off of our feet and start to replenish with fluids and nutrition. And then in terms of preparing for the game, we weren't going to be able to get close to doing what we would normally do to prepare for an opponent, so I felt like the best alternative was to try to keep it really simple and focus most of our attention on continuing to play the kind of basketball that we were playing in order to get to that semifinal game and convince our players that they really could control the outcome and not have to worry about succumbing to fatigue or those issues. So we just talked about being really, really tough mentally and physically, continuing to move forward without being distracted and understanding that we simply -- there was no alternative, we had to play as hard and as aggressive as we possibly could every possession, not worrying about any tomorrows, because the alternative was there would be no tomorrow for this team if we don't succeed. So we just did the best we could to rest and replenish and just stay in that groove that we were in and stay in attack mode and we were able to do that. I think one of the things that really helped us was we were able to get off to good starts in every game and feed off of that. We were able to remain confident because of the kind of starts we got off to. Q. Zac Swansey hit a big shot against Kentucky, what do you think that does for him? And are we going to see more of him in the tournament? COACH FELTON: Zac has been -- he's played a much, much more significant role on this year's team than anyone thought going into the season, because of the players we lost. And then in the tournament he had to step up in a major way because the player that we can least afford to lose we lost for about 13 minutes of the quarterfinal game and about 7, 8 minutes or five or six minutes of the semifinal game. We wouldn't be here had it not been, No. 1, for just the consistent performance by Zac and to allow us to continue play with purpose without Sundiata Gaines, our leader on the court. And obviously we wouldn't be here if he didn't hit the great shot. I'm not shocked that he hit the shot -- he actually hit the shot before that, too. He scored the last five points, he had a floater in the lane before the game- winning 3. But I'm not surprised he'd hit it because Zac is a freshman and freshmen, you know freshmen are typical in some ways, but Zac is extremely competitive. He's a guy who doesn't have a problem losing himself in the competition. When you're an athlete that has the ability to lose yourself in the competition, then you're a guy who has that unique and valuable ability to step up and make a big play because you're so lost in competition you don't have time to be worried or nervous or not confident and those things. Zac will continue to play a major role on our team for as long as we can keep our season going. And when I put him in the game I put him in the game with a lot of confidence. But on the other hand we like to keep Sundiata on the floor as much as possible, too. And one thing that we have had success with this season, too, is having them on the floor together, because now we have two pointguards on the floor. Zac has a valuable ability for our team for making our offense go. Our offense flows well when he's in the game because he gives up the ball. He keeps the ball moving, he doesn't dominate the ball, and he is a clever and willing passer. End of FastScripts |
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