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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: SAN JOSEMarch 19, 2010Ronald NoredBrad StevensWillie VeasleySAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA ROGER ROSS: I would like to welcome Butler student athletes Willie Veasley and Ronald Nored to the table. We will have Coach join us shortly. We'll open it up to questions. Q. Ronald, Murray State is among the nation's leaders in steals, and it looks like they attempt to apply a lot of pressure and try to let their defense turn to offense. You had a little trouble in the first half against UTEP with that kind of pressure, time from time in games to games during the season, do you see that in determining the outcome of the game, how Butler handles the Murray State pressure? RONALD NORED: It can be. I think we have to be tough with the ball, and I think we've done a good job of that all year. UTEP applied a little pressure yesterday and we didn't handle it very well. But I thought the second half we did a great job, and I think it's going to be about going out tomorrow and do get same thing. Q. Willie, does that become sort of something that the whole team has to concentrate o not just leave it all to the guards in terms of helping to relieve pressure and get the spacing such that people have targets to throw to in a press situation? WILLIE VEASLEY: Yeah, as you can see from the UTEP game we had Matt actually come up and receive the ball just to free-up the guards and stuff. It's a whole team effort to break the pressure and not just our guards, our forwards and our big men, too. Q. Ron and Willie, one thing that Murray State talked a lot about is when you build a culture that's a winning environment you expect to win every night. You guys got down the first half, but was it something you were telling each ear you knew you could come back and it was just a matter of time? RONALD NORED: It's been a recurring theme for us, our second halves have been good, no matter if we started tough in the first half or not, I think it's about our focus, if we're down 10-0 or down at halftime or not it's about coming out and finishing the second half strong, and we've done a great job of that up to this point and to continue to succeed down this road we're going to have to continue to do that. Q. Both of you, Murray State is not a nationally ranked team as UTEP was and doesn't have the profile of the other teams you've played against. I think I know the answer to this, but any chance that you would let down at all in the NCAA Tournament after getting past UTEP and maybe looking forward to another Sweet 16 shot? RONALD NORED: No, no, that's not happening. We're in the round of 32, and every team that's here now is a great team. They've done the same work we've done to get here and it's going to be about going out and playing hard. Murray State plays really hard. We've seen on film and we're going to have to match that or be better than that to beat them. Q. Just even in the last 24 hours of your film work what things are you seeing on tape, things you can exploit or the one big thing that you have to keep in the forefront of your minds? WILLIE VEASLEY: I think just Murray State has from top to bottom they have a very balanced team, and all of them go to the glass hard, they like to get out in transition and we have to limit their opportunities with second-chance points and fast-break points. Q. I know you love playing for Coach Stevens, but it seems like his name gets dragged into any opening in North America that might be for coaching. Is that ever a distraction for you guys or you set that aside and don't pay any attention to it. RONALD NORED: Speaking of the devil. (Chuckles.) It's about playing basketball. Coach Stevens doesn't focus on things like that, and I think he does a good job of keeping us focused on what's next. No matter what people are sayin' we have to go out and do our job every night. Q. Willie, does Coach ever get confused for one of the players? WILLIE VEASLEY: Oh, does he get confused as one of the players? I don't think I've ever heard that before. I've heard quite a few jokes about his age and stuff, but never confused as a player. RONALD NORED: He can't hang with us. (Chuckles.) ROGER ROSS: All right, thank you very much for your time, gentlemen. We appreciate it. We'll open it up for Coach Stevens. Q. Brad, Murray State is among the nation's leaders in steals. They seem to thrive on pressure. Do you see that as being the most influential component of the game, how Butler handles Murray State's swarm and attack and so forth? COACH STEVENS: I think that's going to be one of the keys to the game, there is no question about it. I think that anytime you're playing in a game of this magnitude and with two teams that are this good, I think that anytime you get points without any -- without anybody in front of you, whether they be conversion points off of steals or transition baskets off of bad shots or deep rebounds where you're layin' it in with really no extra effort offensive rebound put-backs. Those all play a huge factor in these games. Certainly I thought they ran their stuff, and they did a terrific job yesterday against Vanderbilt. But those two areas were clearly in their favor. Certainly you try to limit those at the end of the day you're going out and playing basketball, I'm sure they want to limit us from getting those as well. It all becomes part of our overanalysis the day before a game. Q. Coach, I noticed in their box score yesterday against Vanderbilt that they outscored Vanderbilt in the paint, but it seemed like a lot of their scoring came from their guards. Are their guards slashing a big concern for you? COACH STEVENS: Their guards in general are a huge concern. They are outstanding. They're interchangeable. They start three guys that have been there before and the guy -- they bring multiple guys off the bench that can all play. Then you bring three, Canaan off the bench, and he's freshman of the year in the OVC, can score off the bounce and pulling up and shootin' all of those guys can shoot and all of those guys can drive which puts in you a predicament defensively, means you can't overhelp, you have to help appropriately. It opens up alleys for the bigs and it open up alleys for the other guys to drive it. That's difficult. It's really difficult. They're a heck of a basketball team. I've said this before, yesterday, but we've played a lot of good teams this year and they are if not -- if they're not the best they're right there at the top. I just haven't thought enough about it to rank everybody. Q. Coach, throughout this winning streak that you put together you've been trailing end of the half several times. How much confidence does that give your team that you know you've been tested and when you're done in the half you can come back and make a run? COACH STEVENS: I think it does, Mark, and I do think that at the same time you don't want to come out of the gates slow. I didn't think we did that. I thought we came out of the gates fairly nervous yesterday. Maybe that's just part of playing on the first day and being back in the NCAA Tournament, but we settled down. We did easier things in the second half and it led to better opportunities. Tomorrow we're not going to be able to start like that. It won't be a 6-point lead at halftime for Murray State. It will be a 15-point lead. So we can't play the way we did in the first half tomorrow. They're too good. Q. Billy, the way you shot in the second half, the game that followed yours, Washington and Marquette both shot in the over 60% from three's. It seemed like most of the games teams shot pretty well. Is there anything about this facility that you think is conducive to that? Usually you hear this time of year that it's the opposite almost, three-point shooting doesn't -- COACH STEVENS: Unless the rims are wider and they widened them at halftime because they weren't wide in the first half for us. You know, I don't know. I didn't know the Marquette/Washington results, so haven't paid attention to that. All we try to do is get good shots, and yesterday we were gettin' good shots. Our guys did a pretty good job of finding the hot guy. That's a sign of growth, and that's a sign of progress and it's got to be a different guy every time you step on the floor, you know. We can't expect or rely on Shelvin to shoot 7 for 9 every day to give us a chance to win or give us a chance to be in the game at one point. But certainly that's why you have a lot of guys on your team who can step up and make plays, but I don't know that it's any different in this facility per se. Q. Coach, we've heard Ronald joking with you today at the press conference, but I'm wondering if beyond the preparation and things you normally do are there any extra fun things that you and the team are doing or challenges that you guys are giving back and forth to each other? COACH STEVENS: No, I wouldn't call them extra. You know, I want these guys to know that our coaching staff is going to work as hard as we can to prepare 'em well, and at the same time really I want them to enjoy the process. So we need to make it as simple as possible for them which in a one-day turnaround for a team like Murray State is really hard. But I want these guys to really enjoy this experience. I want 'em to appreciate it. I know this: Our guys are going to come out and play really hard. They do every time they take the floor. They've always represented Butler in the right way. Because of that, you know, you feel really good about spending time with them. They're terrific guys and I wouldn't trade those guys for anybody. Q. Coach, since you are at a smaller school and have been so successful and are so young, your name seems to pop up in coaching speculation from coast-to-coast. How do you handle that in your personal life and also with your team? It doesn't seem to matter if you would be a candidate, really your name is thrown into the mix. COACH STEVENS: Depends on who says people are candidates. I haven't gotten a call from anybody, so it's not anything that even goes through my mind, you know? Right now I have so much on my plate and our staff has so much on our plate with trying to figure out how best to play against Murray State and what to make sure -- how two play in our practice today, when we need to eat, when we need to watch film, when we need to get up, all that stuff that goes into trying to prepare to play well. Nothing else is relevant, and I think you know this, there are not many places in the country where you can win 28 games a year the last three years, place in the NCAA Tournament three times and coach great guys, guys that are really striving this the classroom and with four academic All-Americans, be the only team in the country that's had that over the last three years, it's hard to match. So I'm lucky to be where I am. Q. You haven't set yourself up on a personal timetable like at this age I want to be here, that age I want to do that, anything of that nature? COACH STEVENS: I've never set myself up on a personal timetable. When I was an assistant or a volunteer manager, anything else. It's not about a timetable. It's about doing what you do well and trying to enjoy it. Sometimes it's hard when you're in the midst of it because you're so focused on what's next. But, again, I don't concern myself with much else. Q. Lorenzo Romar is the experienced coach here at this site, do you know much about him and what's his reputation in the coaching fraternity? COACH STEVENS: It's really good. I don't know Coach Romar very well. I've met him on a couple of occasions and spoken to him when we see each other but the last time the Final Four was in Indianapolis he was given an award at a breakfast sponsored by Athletes In Action, the Coach Wooden Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award and spoke to the type of person he is and his reputation in this business is terrific. It's not a big surprise when you have a person of that caliber and that he has a team of that caliber. Although I will tell you I don't know much about their team because they've never really been in our sights as far as a potential opponent. Q. Brad, you allowed to the difficulty of preparing for Murray State is that because they're unfamiliar or the way they play or something else? COACH STEVENS: Well, I think that they're not unfamiliar to coaches there is no question about that. They're not on TV as much as some teams and the irony is they're better than a lot of the teams that are on TV all the time. But the deal with them is that makes them so hard to prepare for is their depth and the fact that they've got six guys that average between 9.5 and 10.8 points, I don't think I've ever seen that. So it really challenges, you know, everybody is going to have to step up and defend because who knows if it's your guy that's going to go off on that given night and they're all capable of doing that. Very, very scary team to prepare for. Q. Team that's not really in your region, but with your age do you remember Steve Alford as a player at all? COACH STEVENS: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I remember Steve Alford as a player a lot more than -- I don't know him all that well, but I know him a little bit. Obviously, I've now coached five Newcastle guys at Butler. So every time you go into that gym you see Steve Alford's picture, but when you're a kid growing up in Indiana in the 80's, and I was in fourth grade in '87 when they won it all. Every one of us knew who Steve Alford was, and every one of us went out to the driveway and tried to shoot like him. Very few of us had success in that regard, but he was -- yeah, he's a legend of the game in Indiana, there is no question about it. Q. Anything you take from him when you played or coaching, you said growing up you guys tried to shoot like them him, does that translate at all in the coaching level? COACH STEVENS: I don't know enough about how they do it and, again, we haven't played against him and I know this, I have a lot of respect for a lot of different people and one of the beautiful things about playing in the NCAA Tournament and this isn't applicable to New Mexico or Washington because I haven't seen 'em play enough but you get a chance to learn more about great programs. We played Davidson first game of the season this year, I got three months to spend learning about how Davidson plays basketball. It was a real treat and it was a real headache, and I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to for those three months. But they do some unbelievable things and you get the same thing in a 36-hour period as you're preparing for a team like Murray State because it gives you a great appreciation for different ways that things are done and just the outstanding job that Coach Kennedy has done with that team. They're well coached. They're well drilled, and they put pressure on you for forty minutes on both ends of the floor. It's enjoyable to watch as a hoops junky, and it stinks as an opposing coach. ROGER ROSS: Coach, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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