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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: PROVIDENCEMarch 17, 2010Kevin AndersonRyan ButlerDan GeriotDavid GonzalezChris MooneyPROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We're now joined by Richmond student-athletes David Gonzalvez, Kevin Anderson, Dan Geriot and Ryan Butler. Do we have any questions for the student-athletes? Q. As the 7th seed, is it realistic to think that you guys can win this tournament? DAVID GONZALVEZ: Yeah, I mean, I think we're one of the best teams in the country. I think once tip off starts any team can win. That's what it's about, is about big upsets and close games. And the games that get on the ESPN Classic. And, yeah, I mean I think we have a good team. The way our defense is and the way we play I think it will be tough for teams to guard us with little preparation. KEVIN ANDERSON: We definitely have a good team to win it. We feel we can win it, if we didn't believe that, if any team here don't believe they can win it they shouldn't be here. We're 7th seed for a reason. We have a great shot at it. I'm ready and the team is ready to play. DAN GERIOT: We're ready. We know teams, they have trouble preparing for us. And we know our style of play and our Veteran leadership could definitely get us a win here. RYAN BUTLER: I think they covered it. Q. Kevin, is it difficult to get a handle on what you're going to see from St. Mary's because of the lack of common opponents and really no way to tell how good they are compared to teams you play? KEVIN ANDERSON: We haven't played them, but we feel prepared for them. The coach always has a great practice schedule going for us with any team, St. Mary's or any team. Of course it's easier to scout teams in our conference that are similar to us that we know how to play. We don't know how to play them, but that's why we have some of the greatest coaches in college basketball. They've got us prepared. We're going to be ready to play. Q. Two questions for any of the guys, one, is there anybody, now that you've seen St. Mary's, I assume, on video quite a bit, is there anybody in the Atlantic 10 you compare the Gaels. And Kyle Smith, the assistant coach worked at your head coach at Air Force. He said your head coach is really intense off the court but kind of a teddy bear off of it, is that a fair assessment? DAVID GONZALVEZ: Easy with the teddy bear -- I wouldn't say teddy bear off the court. But, I mean, he is, you know, a caring individual. I wouldn't call him a teddy bear. But he's right back there, right behind me. He's a big guy, you know what I mean? No, but when we're on the court it's about business and we know he's trying to get us better. He comes to work and he brings it every day. Off the court, I mean, it's the same way, he really cares about us. It's not hard to miss. Just in your daily conversations with him, he's always talking to all of the guys. He's really personal with us. I think that's different from every program. DAN GERIOT: I would say compared to other A-10 teams, maybe not this year, but the St. Joe's team a couple of years ago when they had Nevins in the post and four really quality guys out around him, I'd probably say that they're comparable because of the skill and talent they have and their shooting ability, especially around their center. I'd probably say they're comparable. Q. Ryan, I wonder if you might tell people how this trip is different than your average trip. Are things different when you go on the road to an NCAA Tournament than they are when you go to Dayton or St. Bonaventure? RYAN BUTLER: It is a little different. Obviously like traveling to and from places with a police escort, but mentally we're trying to take the same focus we've taken all year. Obviously it's special to play in an NCAA Tournament, we want to experience everything it has to offer. But at the same time we're here to win games. I would say it's a little different from the scenery point of view from what's all going on, but mentally our approach is the same. Q. Their guys are big, they have big guys that can step out and shoot 3's, especially Ben Allen, and I wonder what you guys do to counter that? It's unusual having a 6-11 guy doing the things they does, apparently. RYAN BUTLER: Obviously it's tough to guard, but at the same time we feel that we guard well on the perimeter. And usually the guys on the bigger sides it's easier for -- we can put more ball pressure on them, because we're little, we can be scrappy. I think that we can use that to our advantage. Obviously his height, he can pass the ball over us if necessary. But we can use his height to our advantage, actually. KEVIN ANDERSON: That's definitely an advantage, we feel. He's 6-11, so we can -- the forward can bother him, because he's 6-11 on the perimeter, but the advantage he has, he can shoot over us, he can pass over us, he's a good passer, the whole team is a good passer. It's going to be hard to contest the shot because he's so tall. We feel we have some advantages of him being on the perimeter. DAVID GONZALVEZ: I can't tell you our game plan, you know, it's a secret. Q. Have you guys seen the front page of USAToday? I know you guys are on the cover of the sports section, and I don't know if you've seen it, what your reaction was, if you were getting calls or texts? It's hard to treat it just like another game when you're on the front page of the USAToday sports section? KEVIN ANDERSON: I haven't seen it. Dan asked me earlier, and I haven't seen it. I haven't gotten any texts. I don't know David has seen it either. DAVID GONZALVEZ: I was looking for our trainer today to get taped before practice and I ran into one of my assistant coaches and he asked me if I seen it I told him I haven't seen it. But then he just showed me really quickly. And it was pretty cool. We try to stay away from that stuff as much as possible, and try to stay humble, because we've still got games to win here. After the season we'll probably take a look at all that stuff. Q. Kevin, RYAN BUTLER was talking about your defense and how you switch constantly, and switch so much that sometimes you'll be matched up on him and he's 6-11. He said he was looking forward to that. What do you do when you're matched up on a guy who has that kind of advantage over you? KEVIN ANDERSON: I just fight hard to try to front him in the post. We have great help on defense. I know one of my team members is coming over to help me. I'm not worried about it. As long as I fight hard in the post and have help over there I'm fine. THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Coach Chris Mooney. Coach, some opening comments. COACH MOONEY: Thank you. Well, we're thrilled to be here, very exciting for our program and our players. We're very anxious to play. We had a great A-10 tournament that we were just a part of and really looking forward to playing system tomorrow. Everything has been great so far and more than anything just looking forward to the first game tomorrow so we know that we're next. Q. Just looking at Richmond's history, you've always come into to tournament as a 12, 13 or 15, and pull the upset. How does it feel to be on the other side with teams coming and gunning for you? COACH MOONEY: It feels great. I talked a lot the last week in wearing the home jerseys in the NCAA Tournament. I think it's the first time Richmond has done that. We've embraced our tradition for having success in the post season. Coach Tarrant's teams in the 80s and 90s and Coach Beilein's team in '98 have won games as, you know, has 12 seeds, 13th seeds. And for us to be on the other side now is great. I think that's what Coach Tarrant and Coach Beilein was working toward all that time to get to the point where we are now, to be able to wear the home shirts in the first round. So we're excited about it. But of course tomorrow when the game jumps or the game tips off it won't matter who the higher seed is. Q. Do you think it's possible for any team that's not a top 3 or 4 seed to win this tournament? COACH MOONEY: I think so. I think probably anything is possible. You know, those teams are seeded in the top 3 or 4 for the reason, is because they've had such outstanding regular seasons. And all have close to 30 wins in some of the best conferences in the country. I think anything is possible. But I think there's a reason they're seeded where they are. It has more to do with the body of work they've put together already. And just evidence how great they are. It will be a huge upset if Kansas loses or Kentucky loses, and the reason is because those teams are so good. Q. Pete Carril has great amount of experience in these NCAA games, you do not, you're younger. I wonder if you've leaned on his experience and spoken to him in the last couple of days and got some feel for what you want to do come tomorrow? COACH MOONEY: You know, I haven't. The Providence Civic Center is where the Princeton game happened in 1989. Was it today, St. Patrick's Day? So that's pretty exciting. Coach Carril is a big believer in the jinx, I haven't talked to him in an while, so I'm sure he wouldn't want to talk to me right now. Q. Since you brought it up, what do you recall of that game? I've been told that went down as Princeton's greatest loss ever, but it was a game where 16 almost upset a 1. And that's obviously never happened in this tournament. COACH MOONEY: I was a junior in high school and being recruited by Princeton. I was just floored. That was probably the first time I saw them play on national television. They were up 28-20 at the half. Georgetown it just stormed through the Big East Tournament, they won like by 35. And Princeton played just incredibly well. And I just -- I couldn't believe it. They had a shot at the end to win the game that was blocked. I think Coach Carril might argue there was a foul on the play. It was great. It didn't change Princeton basketball so much, as it changed the perception of Princeton basketball. It was a huge game and not only good for Princeton, but good for the NCAA Tournament. Q. Did it change your perception? COACH MOONEY: Well, it gave me a perception of Princeton basketball. I think I visited maybe later that spring or later in the summer and visited those guys and played pick up with them. And it gave me an idea of how good they were, how tough they were, and how much they competed with the very best team in the country. Q. Getting back to Richmond's wins and high seeds. How do the players react, because for some of them it's ancient history. Are they interested in the history of the school and what it's done or are they more worried about now? COACH MOONEY: They're more worried about their video game tournament they're in. I think they are interested in it and they do embrace it. But for those guys it's a very long time ago. And we've really embraced our tradition as a program. But these guys, they're much more concerned with, you know, the A-10 tournament and St. Mary's and how their peers are playing. And I think that's understandable. Q. Everybody talks about how difficult it is to prepare for your team, do things in kind of an unorthodox way. How difficult is it to prepare for St. Mary's? COACH MOONEY: It's extremely difficult. To shoot the way they do, to have four guys on the perimeter who shoot the ball extremely well and pass the ball well. We're a pretty good shooting team. I don't know that we have one guy shooting over 40 percent, but they as a team shoot 40 percent from 3. And they have an All-American type center. So it's very, very difficult. Our defense is very predicated on help defense. And with St. Mary's you just can't provide that much help defense because of the outstanding shooting. This is a very, very difficult team to prepare for as difficult and potent an offensive team as we've seen all season. Q. Kind of along the same lines, is Samhan the best big guy you faced all year, Allen was the -- how he plays off Ben Allen, who is more perimeter player? COACH MOONEY: He's the best big guy. Lavoy is one of the best defensive players in the country. But Samhan's combination of being a great defender, and also averaging 21 points or 20 points, 11 rebounds, he's a phenomenal presence. He's worked very hard. I know those guys, the coaches at St. Mary's very well, he's worked very, very hard to make himself a great player, which he is. He's a handful for anybody, and especially for us. Q. Can you tell us how Josh wound up at school from Australia and St. Mary's has all those Australians? Is there any kind of connection? COACH MOONEY: Well, a little bit. I talked to Kyle Smith. Kyle Smith and I who is the associate head coach at St. Mary's worked together and lived together for a year while we were at the Air Force Academy. When we got to Richmond we talked about how to get into Australia and Europe and tapped into him for contact information. Josh did not play at the Australian Institute of sport which is where a lot of the -- like Dellavedova played there, Stiendl played there, Daniel Kickert who used to at St. Mary's played there. He did not play at the AIS, so he was a little more difficult to find. And one of the contacts that Kyle had passed on to us helped us find him. And I watched him play and was impressed and we offered him a scholarship and he decided to come. St. Mary's, they're everywhere down there. They're very, very popular, and they kind of have the market cornered. Q. What made you focus on Australia? You said you wanted to expand there, what made you decide there? COACH MOONEY: More than anything Josh did. When we get tapes from everybody and try to have relationships with as many teams as we can. We saw the one on Josh we were very impressed. He was skillful, athletic big guy. The only thing we needed to see was he legitimately 6-10. Once we were down there and saw him work out a couple of times we were sold. Q. I talked to Kyle about you on Sunday. And he had a lot of good things to say. But he also said that you were intense on the court and a teddy bear off it. One, is that a fair assessment, and two, how would you describe him? COACH MOONEY: I'm glad you told me what he said about me before I could describe him. Teddy bear is not -- that's good and bad, I guess. But that would be a fair assessment. I think I'm certainly much more approachable off the floor than I am on. Kyle, I think, I've said this many times and my staff has heard this many times, is the smartest man in college basketball. I think he has the best feel and overview of basketball programs and coaching of anyone I've ever met. I used to say this about Coach Carril, he could watch games and there would be hundreds of coaches evaluating players, and Coach Carril, would be able to crystalize the exact thought perfectly. And just have his opinion, you know what I mean, which was very deep and understandable, but he could express it very clearly. That's how Kyle is. He has a very good knack for understanding how programs work, how players work. Every program he's been a part of has won, and won big. And what they've done at St. Mary's, I think he deserves a lot of credit for. I'm sure Randy gives him a lot of credit. Like I said, I think he's just -- he just has an innate understanding of college basketball and college basketball players. End of FastScripts |
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