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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 18, 2009Niccaeus DoaksKevin GoffneyStephen McDowellJohn ShulmanPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Chattanooga student-athletes. We'll go ahead and open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. When you started 1-7, seems like NCAA was probably the furthest thing from your mind. Can you talk about the turnaround, how much fun it's been these last couple months. STEPHEN McDOWELL: Actually, that's been our focus from the beginning of the season. Even though we were one seven, we never lost focus of our ultimate goal, which was to reach the NCAA tournament. NICCHAEUS DOAKS: We never lost confidence, even though we started off slow. We knew the potential this team had. We knew we was a good team and we had to, would out things, get better every day in practice. We started focusing more. We ended up with the final goal of us getting here. Q. Kevin, what was it like when you were sitting there and you see UConn come up? What gives you confidence that you can be the first 16 seed to win? KEVIN GOFFNEY: When we seen that we got UConn, I mean, we was happy to be up there on the board. Coming here, we believed we can be one of the teams in history, to make history and beat UConn. It's all about believing in the system, believing in yourself. When you toss up that ball, anybody can win. Ain't just 'cause they UConn it's a lock. It's a basketball game. Both teams we got to play, they just like us. Q. Talk about the challenge of facing a guy like Hasheem and Adrien. NICCHAEUS DOAKS: It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun playing against them tomorrow. Probably going to be NBA draft picks next year. Going to be fun playing against them. But they're human just like I am. I think I can be an NBA draft next year, just like Kevin, I got the same dreams, same ambitions as they do. I'm going to go out there and do the same things they do. Just because they're UConn, doesn't mean they're invincible action can't be beat. We're going to play as hard as we can against them. Show them that we're from Chattanooga, we can play ball, too. Q. Can you talk about, was there a moment or something that happened that turned the season around, that got you guys on track. NICCHAEUS DOAKS: I can't even say it was one moment or something that defined our season and made it turn it around. Early in the year, we didn't have Kevin Goffney. He was hurt. We also didn't have Chris Early, guys like that. We had the new guys getting adjusted to the system. Then we all started buying into coach, started listening to coach, focusing on defending and rebounding, then the wins started turning around. We started off 0-3 in conference. We weren't believing in coach yet. We started focusing more in practice, started being dedicated to coach's philosophy, then it started to work. Q. Kevin, the last time UConn played in Philadelphia, they were a 1 seed. Albany, they played, was tied with them. Have you brought that game up at all? Has that come up in conversation at all in any way? KEVIN GOFFNEY: No. But I read that somewhere. I seen that. I mean, you can't be scared. You got to have confidence going into the game. I mean, 'cause that's big-time. If you go in thinking maybe you can beat them, we maybe can do this and that. I mean, they can run away because they're real talented. You got to go in there knowing you can beat the team. Q. Coach talked about how you have the green light, can take unlimited shots without getting in trouble with him. Talk about having that freedom on the court. STEPHEN McDOWELL: It's definitely a great feeling to have. Most important thing is my teammates have confidence in me. That's the ultimate feeling. If I don't take a shot, they get on me for not taking shots. It's hard to explain how much confidence that gives me. You know what I'm saying, when you have guys that believe in you and are backing you like that. Q. Did you expect to be the 16 seed? Did you look at that as a surprise? How did you think about it when you saw it? NICCHAEUS DOAKS: No, but looking at our record, some folks probably thought we should be playing the opening round game. Pretty much everybody was thinking that. We knew we're way better than our record shows. 18-16, there were some games we know, if we had KG and Chris Early, how our team was in the conference tournament, our record wouldn't be like that. Don't let the record and the 16 seed fool you. We're a good basketball team. Just like our conference is a very good conference. We also have teams like Davidson and College of Charleston. We knew we're a good team. We're just going to have to come here and prove it tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Joining us now from Chattanooga is John Shulman. Coach, we'll ask that you make an opening statement. COACH SHULMAN: Yeah, don't ask any Jimmy Fallon questions (laughter). That's what I've been asked all day. We're really excited to be in Philadelphia. Didn't know if we would be playing in the NCAA tournament two weeks ago. But really excited. Playing really good basketball. Really looking forward to a challenge that has never been accomplished. So we're excited about it. I guess as excited as you can be, getting ready to do what we're about to do (smiling). Q. How important is it for McDowell to play important in this tournament? COACH SHULMAN: It's really important. You got to be able to score the ball. They're very difficult. I don't see a whole lot of people scoring the ball inside against them. We've played a really good schedule. We were able to play with Memphis. You know, I think our best player, you just saw him, I think our best player is Kevin Goffney, even though he doesn't get all the stats and all the public attention, all the all conference stuff. He got hurt. He didn't play against Memphis, eight games early. We played against Memphis because we could defend and we rebounded and McDowell made a boat load of threes. That's kind of our form. If we're going to do something pretty neat, that's what we'd have to do. Q. How could you get your team believing that it can beat UConn? Do you have any sort of inspirational pep talks stored up for tomorrow? COACH SHULMAN: I'm a dreamer. I was a JV basketball coach 24 years ago. No one thought I could be a Division I head basketball coach. So I'm a dreamer. We've got two words up in our locker room: dream and believe. I just told them, if you can't dream it, you can't believe it, don't show up tomorrow, don't go. Fake an injury. Got a hamstring pull, your back hurts, something. You know, last time I checked, the score would be 0-0. If they make the first shot, they're not going to be up 20-0, they may be up 2 or 3. But believe. If you don't believe, why play the game? This is not football. Football, the strongest blocks to the right, you block to the left, give him the ball, he runs through the hole. Very few upsets in football. This, you screen and you're still going to have to make a shot from 20 in a tight situation. I've said many times, regular season, two balls fit through that hoop. In the post-season, those little orange Nerf balls sometime versus a tough time going in, not for the 16 seed, but for the 1 seed. We're going to have to rely on that a little bit, too. Q. I guess along the same lines, being the team that no one expects to win, do you sense your kids are looser for that? Are they relishing the situation they're in? Are they having more fun with it or is it more pressure? COACH SHULMAN: It's not more pressure. But I don't want loosey. I don't want them up here having fun, just enjoying the moment. We can enjoy the moment in two weeks. We'll all look back and enjoy the moment. This is not time to enjoy the moment. I want to be loose, but I want to be competitive. We've played Tennessee. We've played Missouri. We've played Southern Cal. We've played Alabama. We've played Memphis. Davidson, out of our league. We've got a pretty good league. Our league representative last year was a shot away from the Final Four. All of a sudden we're the 16 seed, everybody kind of looking at us funny. But our league's pretty good. We played pretty good people. We got to get used to the surroundings and here. I certainly hope we're not absolutely intimidated of the surroundings and the situation tomorrow. Q. The last time UConn was here in '06, Albany was tied with them about eight minutes to go. Have you brought that up to your kids at all? Are you using it, if so? Are you surprised at this point in the tournament's history that a 16 has never beaten a 1? COACH SHULMAN: You know, yes, I'm using that Albany tape. We've talked about it. We talked about 2:30 in the morning, our coaches. I said, "We got to get that tape quickly." (Smiling). I am a little surprised. I think it's getting closer. I was sitting in my office last week and one of my assistants came flying down. He said, I'm listening to the Colin Cowherd Show. Jim Calhoun just said something nice about Chattanooga. Gosh, I just watched Chattanooga play, they're pretty good, might be a 16 seed. I think things are changing a little bit. I know East Tennessee State is getting ready to play Pitt. East Tennessee is very, very good. I know we're much better than our 18-16 record. You know, I'm just going to tell you, it's going to happen sometime. Might as well happen tomorrow, I guess, since we're all here. We might as well let it happen tomorrow. But it's going to happen sometime. You got to believe and you got to dream and you got to play pretty close to perfect. Q. Could you talk for a second about Keyron and the impact he's had on the program. COACH SHULMAN: Keyron is a winner. He's always been a winner. He won the national championship in junior college. Ranked No. 1 almost the entire year, his sophomore year. He comes to us and he actually had a freak injury, had a dislocated collarbone. It was like a car wreck injury that happened in a basketball game. So last year he tried to play, but he couldn't use his left arm, which is tough to play. But he really helped us win a regular-season championship last year. He came in and struggled early, as we all did, with our schedule. He's just come into his own now. If you quizzed our kids, and hopefully I wasn't out here when our kids were talking, they truly believe. I mean, they truly believe that we can do something tomorrow. And if they don't, and if I'm not preparing them to do that, then I've done a poor job as a coach. So I'm just gonna tell you, we believe we can do it. I know you've had many people stand up here and say that. And that's okay, too, because I like those people. If you don't believe, we shouldn't be here. If we're up here just to have fun, I'm in the wrong profession. Q. When your players were up here, they said in the beginning of the season they didn't quite believe, they were still getting used to all that. What did you do or how did it all change so they did come to this belief down the stretch? COACH SHULMAN: We quit playing Tennessee, Memphis, Missouri and Southern Cal, number one. We quit playing all those people. We got Goffney back. Goffney is kind of our glue. Goffney and Keyron are kind of our guys. They don't get the pub that the rest of those guys get, but they get the Ws, to tell you the truth. We got Goffney back. Goffney missed eight games. He's the guy. In our league, he's a tough matchup. All of a sudden we don't have 6'9" small forwards, we got 6'5" small forwards like Goffney, he's a tough matchup in our league. Those guys, we got Goffney back. We were thinking about redshirting Goffney. He came back after Christmas. All of a sudden he said, "Coach, I want to do it, I want to finish out with these seniors." We also started out 0-3 in the league. We got back right defensively and we won five in a row, then we lost a couple, then we won six out of seven, secured our bye, secured our first place in the north, opposite of Davidson. Then we lost three in a row. But they didn't kill us. Our guys always kind of had that belief late. Also, like I said, playing BCS schools is not a lot of fun. Q. When we mentioned to Stephen that he had a green light to shoot, he got a smile on his face. Does he have that freedom or are there times you cringe? COACH SHULMAN: I cringe a lot, my personality. I stress about everything. But we got him for a reason. Actually his junior year, he shot 19 threes in a game against East Tennessee State. He had shot 35 for his career at South Carolina in one year. He shot 19 in a game. But he struggled shooting it that night and he passed one up. I took him out. I said, Listen, you're not out there for your looks, you're not out there for your ball handling, D, shoot the ball. That's what he does. He's got to make some shots for us. We have struggled when he hasn't. He's not a huge guy either. He says he's six foot. He's maybe six foot. That's about it. But he can really, really shoot that basketball. He's not Steph Curry. He's Steph McDowell, and that's good enough for us. Q. Wondering your impressions of Hasheem and his shot-blocking abilities. COACH SHULMAN: I was so depressed. I was asking the pilots to turn the plane back around yesterday. I watched the Seton Hall game. We played in a tournament, Seton Hall, down in Puerto Rico. It was a joke. I mean, he had nine blocks. He altered like 13 other shots. He dominated the game. He dominates the game on the defensive end. We're not used to that. I got an unbelievable play sheet here on everything we can run. Half of it I got to throw out because it doesn't work against a 7'3" guy standing two inches front of the bucket. We got to be smart. We can't back down, but we got to be smart. We're not going to sit there and challenge him all night long at the basket. A lot of people tried that. If it don't work for some of the Big East people, trust me, it don't work no Chattanooga. We have to make sure he goes this way, away from the basket, make him defend a little bit away from the basket. But he's phenomenal. He's great. Plays with a grin, a smile. He smiles all the time. I don't like that. He looks like he's having a little bit too much fun blocking everybody's shot. I don't like that part. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. COACH SHULMAN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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