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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: ANAHEIMMarch 19, 2008Larry CoxJames GreenCarl LucasStanford SpeechANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We'll open the floor up to questions. Q. Larry, can you talk about UCLA's front court, what sorts of problems they present, what you have seen from them on film. LARRY COX: Yeah, they're all big, fast, something we usually don't see in our conference. But, we're going to be up for the task tomorrow. Q. Stanford, I'm just wondering from your perspective, you kind of had to know going in you were going to get a tough draw. Does it really matter to you who specifically you ended up drawing for this game? STANFORD SPEECH: Well, it really didn't matter, because out of a lot of top teams like North Carolina, Memphis, they're all tough. But when we found out who we were playing, I talked to one of my teammates and laughed a little bit saying, "We're going to Disneyland." But we didn't come out here to go to Disneyland. We came out here to play a game. And we just want to be the best 16 seed in the tournament. Q. It's a question for all of you guys. The problem for the 16's, none of them have ever won. Why could you guys be the first? THE MODERATOR: Carl, why don't you take that first. CARL LUCAS: Well, I think if we come out and play the kind of game that we've been playing the last ten games and play together, play as hard as we can, we can probably give ourselves a chance. Because, you know, we're the number 16 seed, and they're number 1. That's all we can do, is come out and play hard and give all the effort that we have. I have faith in that. LARRY COX: I have trust in my teammates and the coaching staff. They prepared us good enough to come play hard. We've been doing that all year. We're not going to change anything. We're going to go play our game like we've been doing all year. STANFORD SPEECH: I just want to say, do you guys remember Appalachian State? How many of you guys picked them to beat Michigan? They say college basketball, the parity level is going up and we just want to go out and give ourselves a chance to win the game. Q. Stanford, what happened against Washington State? STANFORD SPEECH: Well, you know, it was a little bit, you know, we kind of tried to go with the game, coach gave us a game plan, and we tried to follow it. You know, we didn't make shots and, you know, that's what happens when you play a top team. They were bigger. We didn't have any size. There's a lot of things you can see happened, but we just didn't play as well as we should have. Q. Are you confident this outcome could be a little different than that, and why will this be different than what happened up there? STANFORD SPEECH: We're not the same team at the end of the season. We didn't have Larry and we're playing better now. So, of course I think we should have a better chance than we did then. Q. This is for Stanford. You guys will on a national stage tomorrow. A lot of people might not know much about Mississippi Valley State. What will you hope they learn after tomorrow's game, win or lose? STANFORD SPEECH: Well, you know, I just want them, after the game, to know that Mississippi Valley State is a group of guys who are going to play hard, play together, and, you know, just, you know, a defensive-minded team, you know, love playing basketball, all the good things you want to know about a team. I want the fans that came out to see that we think we can win, you know. We're not looking at this game -- we know the odds and we're going to go out and give it the best shot we can. THE MODERATOR: Any further questions? All right. Seeing none, we'll excuse the student-athletes. Gentlemen, thank you for coming up. Coach Green. COACH GREEN: Obviously we're excited to be in the NCAA tournament. I'm very proud of our guys. I think they worked very hard to earn it and have an opportunity to come out and compete. I heard you ask questions about which number one seed, and obviously in this part of the country if you got a chance to play a team like UCLA with all the tradition, it's something that our kids will be able to remember for a long, long time. And obviously we need to be thinking about playing basketball and try not to be in awe of playing against them. And that's not an easy thing to do, but that would have to be our goal in order to have a chance to play against them. Q. I know you have a friendship with Tim Floyd that goes back, and I know he said he gave you a call. Just wondered, has he given you any little background on playing UCLA, any help that way? COACH GREEN: No. No. You know, I think -- he called and just congratulated me after we played our tournament. And, obviously, he's busy worrying about himself. So, you know, he did call after we played on Saturday in the tournament and congratulated us on making the tournament. Q. You guys are on a nice little winning streak right now. What's maybe been there that was absent before in terms of the play way you're playing? COACH GREEN: I think we had a lot of new players coming into the mix. After our first semester, we added Larry Cox back who had been out with an injury during the first part of our season. And Chris Watson is a player that became eligible at semester. And I think if you combine that with playing a lot of players that had not been in the program, I think it just took some time for them to come together as a group. I think we were competitive. I think we lost five of our six games within the league by four points or less. We started off 0 and 2 and was somewhat up and down emotionally. Played well in some games, then not as well as we needed to in some games. And I think one of the things that really helped this group was playing an in-state rivalry on their home court against Elkhorn and getting beat on a last-second shot in overtime from three-quarter lengths of the court really did something for us. And we were able to win four out of six on the road to finish up our conference season, and go into the conference tournament and play three teams that we've played the last three games of our season at their place. And to be able to do that and then win those games again in the conference tournament, I think was something very good for our players. But I think overall it was just a determination, became a lot stronger after that shot at Elkhorn. Not that we weren't making progress throughout the season, but I think that really elevated us to a new level of intensity. And I think we just decided whatever it would take, no matter whether it looked good or didn't look good, that we just needed to try to find a way to win games. Q. Coach, quick question. One of the things that Coach Howland brought up was the fact they were able to get video of you fairly quickly. What video have you watch on UCLA and what do you think of the Bruins? COACH GREEN: Well, we watched a game against Washington. We watched some film, different games. They played against Memphis, which is in our area, games that we could pick up. And they're very good. They're very tough. I mean, they're players that play for UCLA. That's the number one seed. And, you know, they're quick. Obviously, Collison [] is very tough up front, and Love inside. Their size and strength and their determination on the defensive end is something that will be very tough for us to match up against. But we have to try to do the fundamental things of team basketball in order to have a chance to play against them. And that's basically pass and catch, and if we have layups, be able to make layups. If you get free throws, make your free throws, make sure we understand the shot selection, try to get back and not give them easy shots, things of that nature. Q. Coach, your players mentioned it, and I think everyone around this game has, the fact that 16 seeds are 0-92 in this match-up with a number one? COACH GREEN: That's encouraging isn't it (laughing). Q. How do you approach that subject with your players? COACH GREEN: Well, one of the things that, again, we go back to the first people that we have to compete against is ourselves, and make sure that we're determined to go and do the best that we can. Hopefully, people will be able to recognize us as a team regardless. Of the difference in the levels of the two conferences or two teams, that we try to go out and do the things that it takes to play basketball. But we've got to try to be the best number 16 seed that's ever played in the tournament. You know, and even if we do that, even if each one of our players played the best game that they've ever played in their life, and we played the best game that we played all season long, the odds are still against us. But at least at that point, we'll be able to see where we are within the game if we could have those things happen. But that's the type of effort that it takes, and that's the type of motivation I want our guys to have. If, for some reason, it doesn't happen that way, then I don't want them to consider themselves as losers, because they earned this opportunity. Not in the game that we're going to play, but the things we were able to do down the stretch. Q. Coach, in the overall scheme of things, what does it mean to Mississippi Valley basketball program to make the tournament and also play UCLA tomorrow night? COACH GREEN: Well, I think obviously it means quite a deal to our university which is a fine university. You know, most people know us as the school that Jerry Rice attended. But at the same time, I think it gives us something as a university, as a community, as alumni and fans, to be very proud of. That we're a small school, our budgets are not nearly the same, but at the same time, here we are in a situation that we're represented, like a lot of other people will be represented in this tournament. And, you know, from this day on, there's going to be -- how many teams play, 64? After that first round there will only be 32. So those teams are going to get the publicity until you're out. So that's something that we can't pay for at Mississippi Valley. And I think it gives our players a lot of pride in what we try to do. Q. Coach, how did you get the team to, I guess, kind of recover and respond after the Washington State loss? COACH GREEN: You know, we try to keep those games in perspective. Obviously, that was a tough situation for us. Again, we're playing with two different players that we didn't have at that time. It was very, very early in our non-conference. I thought they played very well. Their size was a huge factor in us not being able to score the ball around the basket and we didn't shoot it well from the perimeter. But when you play as many guarantee games, as we call them in the coaching profession, as we have to play, you have to put all of those games behind you once you play them. We go into those games trying to learn, trying to get better, trying to have an opportunity for our guys to play against some of the best players around the country. So our goals in those games - obviously, we want to win the game. Don't have no mistake about that - is that we're playing, we prepare to try to win. But we try to be realistic. And that's something that's -- there's a fine line between being realistic and believing that you can win. But we believe that if we do certain things, that we'll have an opportunity. Now, physically, or from the standpoint of God-given ability, sometimes we can't get those things done. And so we were able to put that behind us and move on to the next game and find some things that we did positive in that game. And obviously, we realize that that can happen to us. So we're a little bit more guarded against that. Q. By any chance have you heard from Jerry Rice since this all came about? COACH GREEN: I have not personally heard from him. But, you know, we've been fairly busy. I think he possibly may have made contact with someone at the university. But not myself personally. THE MODERATOR: Do we have any further questions? All right. Thank you, Coach. Good luck tomorrow. COACH GREEN: Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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