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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTON

March 15, 2011

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UAB coach Mike Davis and student-athlete Jamarr Sanders. Coach Davis, an opening statement.
COACH DAVIS: Well, I'm as proud of the basketball team as I've ever been in my coaching career. I can't say enough about this basketball team and the things that they had to endure coming into this event for our guys to come out and be able to be in the NCAA Tournament. And I think Aaron broke his leg, and Jamarr, we had two seniors on this basketball team that has bought into everything we tried to do this year on and off the court.
And so we lose two really, really great men. Both guys will graduate on time and both guys have a career in basketball. But both guys have really, really bought in. They trusted us as coaches, and they trusted our administration. They've just done a terrific job, and I'm proud of them.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jamarr.

Q. Did you feel like the team might have been overwhelmed there at the beginning, kind of almost in awe of the surroundings and the magnitude of the event?
JAMARR SANDERS: No, I don't think we was overwhelmed at all. Clemson is a real good team. They came out and fought hard. And every time we would make a run, I mean, they did what a good team is supposed to do.
They withstood our run and made a run of their own. But I don't think we were overwhelmed at all.

Q. I think they outscored you guys 40 to 12 in the paint. Did you guys have any answer to Jerai Grant or Milton Jennings inside?
JAMARR SANDERS: Those guys are unbelievable players. They were physical down low. And, I mean, it's a team effort. I don't think it's all on our post players. It's guards on the team and other players on the team. We have to give those big guys help. And we just didn't give those guys enough help tonight.
But you have to take your hat off to those guys for coming out and helping their team for the win.

Q. Just give me your thoughts, if you would, on Aaron and how hard it was for you to see him go down the way he went down and what turned out to be his final game and just what he meant to UAB and the magnitude of that injury?
JAMARR SANDERS: I mean, when he went down, I thought he was just cramping up because he'd been cramping up all year, and I was waiting for him to get back up. For him to go down like that in his last game, it really hurts. Aaron is a great guy. He's done wonders for the program of UAB and the city of Birmingham. He's an unbelievable player, and to lose him in his final game so he can't go out on the floor, finishing the game, I mean, it hurts a lot.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, this is the first year they've done this in Dayton with sending at-large teams here. Being you're not going to be in the main bracket, did it take away anything from the experience for you guys to be here instead of the main bracket?
COACH DAVIS: No. If you would have been there when a name came across the screen, you would have saw a group of guys that was so excited to be a part of it. And I just think what put a damper on everything was just the aftereffect that people were saying that we didn't deserve to be in.
But that kind of hurt our guys a lot, because you have young men who are student-athletes, who they live for this day. They live to see their name come across the screen. And they think so highly of opinions that people say about them on national TV.
And for our guys to have to witness that was really, really heartbreaking for them. I can't even explain to you the magnitude of how crushed they were to hear that.
But being here, we thank the committee for allowing us to be a part of this. Our Conference USA did a great job of preparing our conference to do what the NCAA wanted us to do.
They have a formula that they want you to go by. And our guys, Chris Willard (phonetic) , and all our administrators made sure that we did that. They made sure we played a tough schedule. They made sure that we did the things we needed to do to be part of this event.
This is a wonderful event. I mean, truly a wonderful event for young men. These are student-athletes. These are NBA players. These are college students, when your name goes across that screen -- I don't care if you're at Duke or UAB, it's excitement for you. I don't care how many times you've been there or ever been there, this is the best time of your college career to be a part of March Madness.
And I had no problem being in this game, because our name came across the screen and it made our guys really, really happy and really excited to see their names. And they deserve it. We won the conference outright. That was our goal to win our conference.
And our conference is really, really, really good. I think we don't get enough respect for our conference. But we're willing to play anybody anywhere. We'll go play you at your place, you come back and play us at our place. If you have a problem with scheduling, I'm quite sure everybody in our conference feels the same way, Southern Mississippi, East Carolina, Memphis, Tulsa.
You can tell we have some very good basketball teams in our conference and some great coaches in our conference as well.

Q. Yesterday you said you were concerned about your athleticism. Were they perhaps even more athletic and quicker underneath than you might have expected?
COACH DAVIS: They were a lot bigger and stronger than our guys to adjust to. I thought we did a poor job early of just handling how physical they were. But they're a well-, well-coached basketball team. This is a very good basketball team. And they played North Carolina. They got North Carolina down, but North Carolina was able to come back and win. So I knew they would make runs against us.
My biggest concern was them being able to withstand them being physical. And Aaron didn't play well early in the game. We turned the basketball over. I think the first six, seven possessions we had four or five turnovers and that helped them make their run.

Q. As I asked Jamarr, what was the difference inside? Didn't look like you had an answer for Jerai or Milton Jennings.
COACH DAVIS: We just didn't do a great job in our post defense, but they were getting point-blank layups, almost getting dunks. But it was just a matter of us not giving it the energy that we needed to give early into the possession.
But Clemson is a very good basketball team, and you have to take your hats off to them for being a very good defensive team, and they made some plays and made some shots.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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