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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: WASHINGTON, D.C.March 19, 2008Rick ByrdShane DansbyMatthew DotsonJustin HareWill PeeplesWASHINGTON, D.C. Q. Did the style with heavy emphasis on the three pointer, was that attractive or compelling to recruiting you to Belmont? SHANE DANSBY: I started out my career at Murray State University. I transferred there. Basically that was the reason, because we shoot a lot of 3's, and I like to shoot 3's. That was a key component in my decision to go to Belmont. MATTHEW DOTSON: Same for me, really. I've always kind of been a shooter. And Coach Byrd's style is to let all players on the court, whatever their size is. To be able to do that was appealing to me. JUSTIN HARE: I agree with these guys. Shooting 3 is a big part of our offense, having guys out there that can knock down the three. WILL PEEPLES: I don't really shoot a lot of 3's, so it's probably not a great question for me. But I think it bodes well for an up-tempo style of play that's enjoyable whether or not you're a shooter, per se. Q. When you guys play the up-tempo style, you talk about shooting a lot of 3 pointers. How often are you able to get the team playing out of their own game? Duke likes to play up-tempo, but they like to play under control. How often are you able to force a frenzy on the other team because you guys are shooting so quickly? JUSTIN HARE: Well, our style is up-tempo. We like to shoot a lot of 3's, and like to get the game going and we like to push the ball. We're not a very big team, but we like to push it and get easy scores in transition. We don't press a lot, but we like to push the ball in offense, and that's part of our tempo. Q. Is part of if to get the other team out of their game? JUSTIN HARE: Part of it is to try to get the other team when they're not set up on defense and get easy scores and when they're not ready. WILL PEEPLES: For us it's less about getting them out of their style of play as much as it is to leverage our depth. We feel like we're a pretty deep team. And we're going to try to get fresh legs on the court as much as possible, and try to catch the team when they're tired or have fewer players than us. Q. Given your style of play where you shoot a lot of 3's, do you think that helps in a situation where you're the decided underdog? MATTHEW DOTSON: We're definitely going to have to shoot the ball well. If we don't shoot well we have a very small chance of competing in the game. We're pretty solid up and down as far as shooting the ball. I think it works to our advantage, because if one or two people aren't hitting we have three or four others that can step up and hit the big shot. SHANE DANSBY: I agree with Matthew. Up and down anybody can shoot 3. Everybody shoots a pretty good percentage. We had games this year where our best shooters were off and out of the blue someone else steps up. So that's a big advantage for us. Q. Is there any relevance to the fact that you guys have been here before, you've been to the tournament twice before, not only been to the tournament but you played a couple other monolith programs in Georgetown and UCLA, any relevance to that tomorrow? WILL PEEPLES: I think we've joked a little bit, we're trying to play every storied team this country in this place. Next year might be Kentucky or Indiana at the rate we're going. After two years we've got a little more confidence. Your first two experiences are kind of shock and awe, you're trying to soak it up. We're going to be aggressive and be as confident as we can be tomorrow evening. JUSTIN HARE: I think it's great to have the experience against UCLA and Georgetown under your belt. You play on big stages like that, the first time is kind of a unique experience and now we're just trying to be more competitive and keep the game closer and compete. Q. Do you guys think that by making the tournament the last couple of years more people now have heard of Belmont than ever did ten years ago? What do you tell them when they ask you kind of about your school and about campus life, all that sort of stuff? JUSTIN HARE: Yeah, I think it's definitely helped for Belmont University for us making the tournament. I think it kind of put us on the map, per se, and the fact that nobody really knew about us in the first year. And going back the second year and now the third time, I think that helps in recognition of our athletics and men's basketball team. As far as campus life, we're a small school, 4,700 students with a good population and mix in Nashville, so it's a lot of fun there. MATTHEW DOTSON: I agree with Justin. This tournament, it's such a national thing that everybody knows and everybody is involved in it in some way. To have our name in the bracket for three consecutive years is a huge step at Belmont, as far as getting its name on the map. Q. When you guys won at Cincinnati, can you describe what that -- obviously it's the 9th of November, a long time ago, is there any relevance to that win and at Alabama for the season as you prepared for Duke? WILL PEEPLES: I think any time you have marquee wins like that in a program of our size and kind of stage of development, it does a couple of things. It gives us some exposure nationally and lets better players that we're recruiting know that we have the capability of winning big games. On any given night you can sneak up on bigger opponents. I think for us as a team it gave us confidence going forward that if we bought into what we're trying to do offensively and defensively, that this sport lends itself to underdogs being able to play on any given night with big competition in major conferences. So it was just a confidence boost for us and it let us know that -- it wasn't inflating as to how good we were, because we still have a lot to work on that point, but it let us know that we were capable if we bought into what we're trying to do this year. COACH BYRD: Well, first I'd like to say we're certainly happy to be here. Fortunately for us it's our third straight trip. I think our young men have -- a lot of guys that have played in a couple of these. I think they're more comfortable. This is a daunting task to play Duke, anyway, but we've got guys that have played a great UCLA team and a great Georgetown team over the last couple of years. I think you have a better chance of playing like you normally play if you're comfortable and you've been there before. It certainly is, if it's the right word, a privilege to play a program like Duke's. It's the model for so many of us, kind of in my generation, of coaching to watch what Coach Krzyzewski has done over the years and the kind of men he's done it with over the years. It's more easy for me to see than ever before as I've watched their teams play to prepare for this game. I've watched him as a fan to a long time, admired him. But to see how many things they do so well when you're preparing to play them, to see how sound they are and how few mistakes they make, sometimes you play someone with a -- and you know you can get some out-of-bounds play and score because their guys aren't going to be focused and their guys are focused every possession. Like I said, it's an honor, privilege to be here, to represent Belmont and we're certainly hopeful to make improvements over the last couple of years. Q. When the institution made the move to NCAA Division I, was it a conscious attempt because it might be an attractive element in recruiting? COACH BYRD: To some degree, yes. As we looked at the move, we had maybe four or five years we could not play in the NCAA tournament. So we had to make a decision about what kind of player can we recruit when we can't out-recruit anybody. No one wants to go to school and play Division I basketball, really, if they can't be in the tournament. So the type of player that I think gets under- recruited to some degree are young men with skills that know how to play the game, they can shoot the ball well, pass the ball well. As we tried to find good players that were like that, we just -- we were relatively successful early and we just continued. Now I think we have players that are both skilled, shoot it well, but are bigger, stronger, more athletic by far than the ones we were able to recruit ten years ago. Q. As a current coach and a former AD and a graduate of a school in Tennessee, can you give me an idea of -- I don't know if it's fair to call it the renaissance of Tennessee basketball, but fantastic all-across-the-board play of the state teams this year? COACH BYRD: I've been asked that a lot over the last ten days or so. As you guys know, you're on a bunch of talk shows throughout the country, and almost everyone asked a question about Tennessee basketball. I don't know that across the board it's significantly better than it's ever been. You can look back, there's been storied NCAA wins by Austin Peay and Middle Tennessee State and East Tennessee State in Chattanooga. Memphis State certainly had its days against the UCLA teams, that particular team, but a lot of good teams back then. When I went to Tennessee Ray Mears was the coach there and he had a lot of great teams, and you've got to remember only one team from the SEC made it back in the day. So there's just not as -- but I do think it's fair to say that the rise of the two prominent programs, the job Bruce Pearl has been, being No. 1 all year long, and that game being front and center across the country, really brought everybody's attention to it. Certainly at that level it's the best it's ever been. Vanderbilt, they've done a great job there, too. I don't know if it's happenstance this year that all of it came together. Some of those programs don't have all Tennessee kids on it, so I don't think it's about Tennessee's basketball players becoming better. It's been exciting and certainly good for all our programs. We've had a lot of residual -- during those games, Austin Peay is leading the OAC and one of them is leading the Atlantic Sun, that kind of thing. Q. One thing that no one seems to appreciate, really, is to have to play as the front runner all year in a one big league. Can you explain the pressure associated with that and what it feels like on the morning of your conference championship. COACH BYRD: Well, you know, that actually is not -- my dad was a sports writer, not that I think anybody wouldn't ask an intelligent question. That one -- there is a lot of pressure when you lead a conference and you win it outright and then you go to the tournament. So we all feel pressure when expectations are high and you think, Well, now all we can do is mess it up. Now all we can do is mess it up. And I think our first game against Campbell showed a lot of that. We were playing tentative. We were playing not to lose instead of to win. They cut an 18- point lead of ours down to four with a few minutes to go. We shot the ball very poorly against Tennessee State, but it was a hard-fought, tough basketball game. I actually felt a lot better on the championship day. I felt we sort of got one out of the way. We were very fortunate to beat Tennessee State. And for the second straight year we came out and shot it and played about as well as we could play. The last two championship games to shoot the ball like we had and have the kind of leads we've had, practically 30-point leads in the games, is something a coach doesn't really expect to dream of. Q. It's been awhile since you played, because your conference tournament was so early. Advantages or disadvantages there? COACH BYRD: The positive part of this, I don't know if it's at all an advantage in playing the game, but the positive part is that we get to enjoy the period right after earning the bid. And I think you can relax a little bit. You certainly still practice, but you're not immediately preparing for the next opponent. That's where it just all adds up. And every other day it seems like you're watching hours and hours of -- it's not tape anymore, what is it, digital stuff. You're watching hours of digital stuff. And you just -- we had time to relax, enjoy it, and still practice and work on our game, which we did last week. A plus was that we weren't on spring break this year. The last two seasons as soon as we won our tournament the students were all gone, our guys weren't in class. I couldn't decide how long to let them have. I wanted to let them enjoy a little bit of it. We didn't practice well. We weren't on a regular routine. But you play two or three games a week all year long, it seems, and then all of a sudden you don't play a real game. And I don't think anyone would choose that. Now, I'm sure that anybody that just won their conference championship would say, Boy, I wish we had a few days to back off and relax, as well, and had to play Georgia tomorrow. They even get the first day, you know, after what they just went through. And that's got to be difficult. But I wish it was somewhere in between. Long answer to a short question. Q. In light of the fact that you guys were a 15 seed each of the two previous years and had a comparable record, now that you've had a week off to think about it, did you use that week to sort of make an educated guess as to what sort of teams you might be playing? COACH BYRD: We certainly looked at the possibilities, but we could have been 14. There were 12 teams that we had a better RPI, and if we had just gone RPI, we would have been a four team. All the teams that can be a three, all the teams that can be a two, and you've got too many to even try to narrow it down. One thing was for sure, they were going to be good. Another thing was pretty sure in the way the games were played anymore, they were going to use ball screens and drive it. I don't know anybody that's good that doesn't do that. We practiced on that. We concentrated on Belmont until we found out who we were going to play. And then we started practicing for Duke, unfortunately. Q. I know it's hard to compare players and some coaches don't like to, but in terms of Justin Hare do you consider him to be one of the smartest players you've had in your long coaching career and one of best clutch shooters you've had in your career? COACH BYRD: If I can speak for the coaches that came before me, and that's 22 years now, I don't think there's any question he's the most clutch player. There weren't enough huge wins in that period of time frankly, that he doesn't already have far and away the most clutch game winning and tying shots in the history of our program, or any, really. So he's certainly the most clutch player. He's academically as smart as -- we had a great student athlete named Adam Mark, he was the first team All- American, and a great player for us, so those two young men have been the top of the line there. And that's one thing that we take a lot of pride in and we've got a team -- a bunch of real college students, 3.0 over the last seven years, and it makes that group fun to coach, for sure. Q. From being in the tournament the last two years, is there a different mindset at all entering it this time again as a 15? COACH BYRD: I hope there's higher expectations. I think in any athletic competition you look back over the years there's so many examples of either individuals or teams that had to get there first, maybe get waxed pretty good, come back again, get a little closer, come back again and get closer. Now we've still got to play a really good Duke team. I've had a lot of advice over the last 10 or 12 days, and it almost all is, if you believe -- if you really believe you can win, you can win. And like I've told a couple of people, if I really believed I could beat Tiger Woods, he'd beat me by about 25 shots. Even if I really believed that I could. So it's both about that, because that's essential, that you believe that you can do it, but it's also the fact that we're playing a great team and a great program and we can believe it all we want, but the odds are stacked against us. It's not impossible, for sure it's not impossible. But it's not just, okay, you think you can win and you can, that's a great team. There's about 800-something folks that thought they could beat Coach Krzyzewski and they didn't. Q. You said your father was a sports writer? COACH BYRD: Yes. Q. What did he do? COACH BYRD: Wrote about sports. He was the sports editor of the Knoxville Journal for over 40 years. He covered Tennessee basketball was his beat. Back in the days when I was eight or nine or ten, before they had all the fancy signage on the press row, I'd sell programs until tip-off. I was allowed to quit right at tip-off and I'd run down and sit underneath his feet at the edge of the court and watch Tennessee play great Kentucky teams, good Tennessee teams played great teams. Then he covered a lot of great SEC football. He covered the Masters for 30-plus years, Olympics, Sports Writer of the Year in the state, I don't know, five or six times, I guess. Ben Byrd is his name. End of FastScripts |
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