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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLEMarch 18, 2010Terrance CalvinGeorge IvoryLebaron WeathersJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: We will take some questions. Q. Terrance, what's the feeling of your team? Do you guys feel overwhelmed, and how do you not become overwhelmed by the situation? TERRANCE CALVIN: Basically just by staying focused right now. That's basically our feeling, very confident and focused. Q. Lebaron, I was wondering if you could talk about what a whirlwind week this has been. Did what you guys went through early in the season with all those road games prepare you for this? LEBARON WEATHERS: What we went through earlier prepared us. It's like, coming from Dayton to here, it's like we're used to it. Q. Terrance, in that regard, when you first saw the schedule, did you think there were a bunch of typos on it or something or somebody was playing a joke with all those road games? But more important, though, how did that stretch of 14 road games help this team? TERRANCE CALVIN: It helped a lot. It made us a more physical team. Our defense became better because of it. But at the same time, yeah, when I looked at it, I asked coach, like, where's the home game? Every game was on the road. I think our first 11 games were on the road, and then we started finally at home in our first conference game. It was tough, but it helped us out a lot. Q. You guys are obviously underdogs in this game. Did you feel like you guys were the other night in Dayton, too? Everything I read, it seemed like that was kind of the case. And if so, did that help you Tuesday and can you use that to help you tomorrow night? LEBARON WEATHERS: We just went out and played our game, whether we was underdogs or not. We just went out and played our game. Q. Terrance, do you feel like there's any pressure -- more of the pressure is on you guys or Duke to win this game? TERRANCE CALVIN: I feel the pressure is more on Duke because they've been criticized all year about their play on the road and basically coming to the first round of the tournament playing a team that's never been to the tournament before. If they were to lose this game, it would be very bad up on them, so I think the pressure is on them more than us. Q. With all those teams that you played in the non-conference, is there anyone that compares to this Duke team, and who would you say was either similar to Duke that you played or close to being as good? TERRANCE CALVIN: If I had to choose a team, I would say Kansas State. That was the toughest road game all year. The crowd was very much into the game. They have a great point guard, great shooting guard, and they're a very tough team. So if I had to compare them to anyone it would be Kansas State. Q. You guys played pretty well in that game, right? TERRANCE CALVIN: Yes, we feel we played very well in that game. We played them to, I think, 12 points. Basically if it weren't for turnovers, the game would have been even closer or we could have pulled out a win. Q. Terrance, can you talk about what you've seen on film that you guys think can play to your advantage going up against Duke as talented as they are? What are some weaknesses you think you can explain against them? TERRANCE CALVIN: Tomorrow we're basically going to try to exploit their size. They're a very big team, we're going to have a small lineup, so we're going to try to use our speed against them. Hopefully that works in our favor. Q. Talk about what it means to be a part of a team to go to the NCAA tournament for the first time in UAPB history. LEBARON WEATHERS: It feels great. For the first time UAPB has been to the NCAA, it feels great to be a part of it, of the team. I'm pretty sure Terrance thinks the same thing. TERRANCE CALVIN: It's been a very humbling experience, just being around the guys. I've never been with a team as close. We're basically just like brothers. You can't see one without the other. If you see us out in the street or in class, walking each other to class, walking around campus, we're always together. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world. Q. This is, of course, you guys' first time, but coach, he came here as a player, he's been here as a coach. Has he told you guys anything about kind of how to handle the experience, or are you guys just kind of trying to learn from him and see how he handles himself? LEBARON WEATHERS: We're pretty much learning from him. He's been doing the same thing he's been doing all year, so we're doing the same thing we've been doing all year. We're just taking it one game at a time. Q. In the past a couple of Duke's NCAA opponents have complained or mentioned that they're always on TV and you see a lot of them. Have you guys been exposed to them a lot? Do you have a good impression of them from just the fact they are always on TV? TERRANCE CALVIN: I really don't pay too much attention to other college teams, so I really can't speak upon that. But I know Duke is really always on TV, so I'm pretty much sure they're used to that. Q. Can one of you guys explain what it's like back on campus with you guys being in the tournament and what that's been like? LEBARON WEATHERS: When people see us around, we always get, "good job," "way to go." They'll say, we're behind you and all that, so it feels really good. THE MODERATOR: That's it for you guys. Thank you very much. Head Coach George Ivory from Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Could you give us an opening statement about the tournament and we'll field some questions after that. COACH IVORY: We're just very excited about being in the tournament this year, and you know, there's a lot of excitement here in the NCAA tournament and we're just glad to be a part of this situation. Q. Of course for all your guys this is their first time being here, but you came here once as a player and I know at least once as a coach. Is there anything you can tell them about your experiences how to handle this and that sort of thing? What have you told them about that? COACH IVORY: Well, we talked about it a little bit, but it's a new era. I just want the guys to come out and play hard like they've been playing all year. We think that experience that they had in the early part of the year will bring a lot of experience for this game tomorrow night. Q. Can you talk about your memories of 1986 and Duke, and I guess you and Coach Krzyzewski talked a little bit about that earlier today. COACH IVORY: Yes, we talked about that. It was a first round tournament and we lost to Duke by seven points, and they were No. 1 in the country that year. It was a very exciting time for us, as well, our first appearance in the NCAA tournament with the Mississippi Valley Conference, as well. Kind of similar situations, first time for us here at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, so it's a special situation. Q. Can you talk a little bit about Duke and kind of what some of the critics out there are saying, that maybe they shouldn't have been a 1 seed and they've gotten an easy road? When you're the opposing coach do you kind of not want that to get out there because it's one of those things that Duke can use as a motivating factor, and seeing them, are you surprised that they're getting that type of criticism now that you've gotten a chance to break them down on film? COACH IVORY: Well, I haven't had a chance to read no newspaper or watch too much TV, so I didn't know they were saying that. Duke is an outstanding basketball program, so I think that by itself speaks for itself. But we don't want to give them nothing to motivate them, but at the same time, we're just focusing on playing tomorrow night. Q. Are you guys feeling any pressure, or do you think the pressure is on Duke in this game? COACH IVORY: Well, no, we're not feeling the pressure. I just think that right now we just want to go out and play a good basketball game against a good program, a great coach, and hopefully an exciting basketball game tomorrow night. Q. Back to the '86 game, is it a thing where you like to -- you think about it a lot, or when you talk with Coach Stribling do you talk about it a lot, or what do you think about when you think about that night? It was a while ago, but.... COACH IVORY: We just sometimes think about what could have been. It goes both ways. I think that was the beginning of helping the program there at Mississippi Valley State become what it was. Any time you get a chance to play against a legend like Coach K and their program, it's just a great opportunity to learn and watch his style of basketball. Over the years even as a fan you've got some people hate them. I really like Duke. I think they've got a great program, and I watch them all the time on TV. So it's like when we saw who we was playing, I was like, wow, here goes a program that you see all the time on TV, and everything is clean cut, the guys are clean cut, great program. We're just glad to be playing them. Q. In your mind is Townsend's hand back to 100 percent and also in your mind how is Tyree Glass' knee? COACH IVORY: I'd say Townsend is about 80 percent. He wanted to get back out there in a hurry to help us win the NCAA tournament. Tyree is day-to-day. His knee is very sore. They looked at it today, so we're going to look at it again tomorrow and see how far he can go. Q. When we look at your schedule and we see 0 and 11 in the schedule you played and then to see where this team is at, what did you learn about your team, because from the outside it's almost like, wow, that's almost a miracle from the start of the season to where you're at now. COACH IVORY: When you look at our team, a lot of toughness, we're not going to quit, we're going to play to the end. We figured in order to get to the NCAA tournament we had to play a pretty tough schedule to get our guys ready for the tournament, and we had a tough schedule last year. We had five starters coming back and probably four of the top subs coming back, so we wanted to play a tough schedule and see where we really was at and what we needed to work on for the conference. Q. I asked Terrance this, what team you played in the non-conference that closely resembles Duke, and he said Kansas State, and that's also one of the games you guys have talked this year that you thought you played as well as you could have almost in that game. Can you take things you did that night into tomorrow night and hope for a similar result or even better? COACH IVORY: Yes. When you look at Kansas State, Georgia Tech, both big guys, athletic guards. They're kind of similar in a way. But we take a lot from a lot of games we played. In those games I think we might have out rebounded one of those teams, not both of them. We hope we can do that tomorrow night, but like I said, it's a great opportunity for both teams. Q. What's the biggest challenge when you're on the road for as long as you guys were and not getting a home game until mid-January and going everywhere you guys went? COACH IVORY: It was probably just class work for the kids. When you're on the road like that, but we get the lessons before we leave and we do a lot of studying on the road. At the end of the first semester, you had seven guys with 3.0 GPAs with all that traveling, so it was a good situation for us. Q. You guys have talked a lot this last week about the history you made for a SWAC title in forever, first NCAA tournament appearance, but given the history a 16 has never beaten a 1, you guys can accomplish something tomorrow night bigger than all that, right? COACH IVORY: Yeah, anything is possible. In this country, that's what opportunities is for. You play the game on the court, and that's what you've got to do. As far as what people say and things, it doesn't really matter to us. We're just here to play basketball. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. Good luck. End of FastScripts |
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