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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: WASHINGTON

March 16, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C.

MODERATOR: Student-athletes Darnell Wilks, Ibrahima Thomas, and Yancy Gates.
At this time we'll open it up for questions for the Cincinnati student-athletes.

Q. Ibrahima, these guys asked you what playing in an NCAA game is like and it looked like you were going to play a lot at Oklahoma State. Why did you leave?
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: Wow, tough question. Actually, yeah, they did make it my sophomore year, the year I left too, but it was just something just happens and I left. So I'm just happier where I'm at right now and I'm happy that I'm playing with these guys.

Q. Ibrahima, have these guys been picking your brain about what it's like to play in the tournament and what have you been telling them?
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: It's real good with the experience I have and my teammates that play like the year that he say I left, they play back there with James Anderson who's my close friend. So it's a really good experience. We're looking forward for it. Gonna take one game at a time and hopefully win all our games.

Q. Yancy and Darnell, both you guys kind of committed to Cincinnati when the program was kind of in a state of disrepair. What gave you the confidence that you guys could get back to this point and what was it like when you first committed here? How low was the program?
DARNELL WILKS: I was here before Yancy was, so for me, it was just wanted to come here to get us back to this point that we are now, and I knew the guys that were coming in, I knew like how all of us wanted to win and, you know, how all of us wanted to put in the work ethic and just to get back to the point we are now.
YANCY GATES: I'm from there, so I got to know these guys one year ahead of me real good when I was going through my recruiting process, not only as players but also as regular people. So it gave me the confidence to come and know that I was going to be playing with some good guys that was competitive and wanted to win, so it was just my decision. That was basically -- that helped my decision to come at that time where it seemed like they would never get back here, but they kind of -- knowing those guys just gave me that kind of confidence.

Q. Yancy, the Missouri team is not known as a great rebounding team. Do you think you have a big advantage there? And the other day Mick talked about what they would do to you defensively, how they would try to make you uncomfortable and attack you in different ways. How do you prepare for that?
YANCY GATES: I've been getting double-teamed all year, so that's going to be normal for me and my teammates. And rebounding has been our advantage, one of our advantages all year, so we're just going to try to do what we do and out-rebound our opponent and just do what we do, try to win the game.

Q. Yancy, there was a lot of talk about not only having to build basketball back at Cincinnati, but build the academic side. Since you are from Cincinnati, what was the sense in the town of when Huggins left?
YANCY GATES: You're talking about as far as the basketball or academic?

Q. Both.
YANCY GATES: When Huggins left, a lot of people was down. They just felt like it was over for the program entirely. And even for a minute it kind of seemed that way with the losses that Cincinnati was taking. But every year, the record got better. I mean, but Cincinnati has a lot of impatient fans. It's been a long process, but we're back in the NCAA Tournament now, so a lot of the fans are happy and smiling and so are we. So I think -- I don't think they forgot about Huggins but kind of put him in the mirror now and just keep moving ahead.

Q. Yancy, when people look at your season and they look for a turning point, they look back at that St. John's game where obviously you were very unhappy. Could you talk about how that turned into a turning point and how things, I guess, got patched up between you and Coach and how it propelled you guys to where are you are now?
YANCY GATES: Oh, well, everybody asks me that question. It really wasn't a problem between me and Coach as like people try to make it as. It was just two people want to go win and we saw ourselves in a bad situation. So we had meetings, I had meetings with the coach about myself, and we had team meetings to try to get all -- everything -- feelings out about what was going on. And I think that was big for us as a team because instead of maybe this player feeling one way and another playing feeling another way, we was able to get all of it out and let each other know how we felt, what was going on, and I think it brought us closer together so we could make our push at the end of the season.

Q. Wondering if you could talk a little bit about preparing for Missouri, the fastest 40 minutes in basketball, some of things you've done in practice to get ready for that?
DARNELL WILKS: The coaches has done a good job preparing us for that. They're a real big fast-break team and they just trap hectically, so we all just been working on just taking care of the ball, being tough with the ball, limiting our turnovers, and basically that's what we're working on.

Q. Could you tell as you little bit about what you know of the folks in Senegal knowing about your play here and if anybody follows it and if you have some idles there watching you as you enter this tournament?
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: Actually, during the whole season, my dad watched the games online and actually on ESPN3 network, so they follow the games. And the game Thursday is like the big game for them because obviously it's my senior year and they tell me that there's a lot of people that will be in the house watching it, and hopefully we're going to win because they're going to be cheering for us.

Q. You get a feeling there are maybe other people, or fans around country that know you're playing?
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: Obviously because I just get -- especially on my Facebook or Twitter or stuff, my social network stuff, I get a lot of people from Senegal. And even when I walk on the street, there's a lot of people that are proud of the fact that I'm from Africa or something, and they just happy that the way that I represent them and the way that the team is represented. So they're really happy about that and I'm glad.

Q. Any of you guys, from last year, losing one of your all-time leading scorers and a guy to the NBA, seems like it might be a tough year, but what gave you guys the confidence this year could be different, maybe taking a more team approach.
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: The record.
DARNELL WILKS: How do we know we was going to be a better team in the long run? Just we know what we had coming back and a lot of people looked at it, yeah, we were losing a lot of scoring, but we also knew what we had in the locker room and the guys that we had, and we knew how more together we would be and more just like a more of a team, just more about each other, not more about individuals. So we were confident about going in the next season because we knew how hard each other would work at getting us to this point now.

Q. Yancy, I wanted to ask you about, they called it sort of tough love that Coach Cronin gave you a little bit this season. How much did that kind of fuel you to get things rolling at this point in the season, and how special is it now for you to be here?
YANCY GATES: I think it did help fuel me because when I was going through that, a lot of people started counting me out, like I even read things, people saying my career was over. And I kind of laughed at that stuff. That really -- stuff like that really fuels a player.
And to be sitting here now at the NCAA Tournament is real big for me because I'm from Cincinnati and when I was being recruited, that was a lot of the talk. I was going to be the guy to come and help the team get back to the NCAA Tournament, which I did, and just to see people kind of saying my career was over and now even with the social networks, I look, people telling me, good job, and all this other stuff. It's a good feeling because I got booed in my home gym and I just sit back, and now I smile when I go in my home gym because now I get the loud cheers all that stuff.
So people took what me and Coach Cronin was going through the wrong way because maybe they way it looked and the media presented it, but I knew and, you know, my teammates knew and coaching staff knew what was going on, so that was all that matter today me.

Q. All of you guys, I know your experience here just started, but can you talk about what it's like now that you're here and you're up doing the interviews and everything, just what it's like so far?
YANCY GATES: I'm just trying take it all in. It's a big experience. Every college basketball player wants to play in the NCAA Tournament, and I know a couple players that never got a chance from my team that graduated. And just to be able to have this chance this year, this is just big for me, special really.
DARNELL WILKS: I'm excited. Once I got here, I was hoping that one day we would make it here and we have and it's just a dream come true. It's not like nothing I expected. I've been to the Big East Tournament a couple times. I thought that was pretty big, but now that I'm here, I'm like, man, this is even bigger. So I'm enjoying it.
IBRAHIMA THOMAS: It's a great experience. This is what everybody works for. At the beginning of the season, always running suicides, these coaches just making you run, some of them probably smack you in the back of the head, throw the ball at you. This is what we worked for, so we're excited that we're here and we're ready to go.
MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. Good luck.
Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin is making his way to the podium. Coach, can you give an opening statement about your thoughts heading into the NCAA Tournament.
COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, obviously, like everybody else, we're very happy to be here. Have great respect for Missouri as a basketball team, and we're also fortunate to be in the Verizon Center where we've played three consecutive years. A great venue for this event, and hopefully our guys are comfortable here.
And we've won two of our last three, so as a coach, you're looking for any advantage you can get. So kind of been banking on that, maybe being an advantage for the Bearcats, making a few shots. But other than that, we're honored to be here and ready to play.
MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Cronin.

Q. I've read a couple of your quotes over the last week in the Cincinnati paper. The highs of Kilimanjaro, the lows of the academic mess. Can you just discuss bringing this program back and what you've gone through.
COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, just a lot of hard work. Segments to the rebuilding process for us. First of all, was the academic part because of our APR probation. My boss, Mike Thomas, and our academic services really had to work extremely hard to convince the NCAA that we had made necessary changes, and along with the coaching change, to alleviate any further penalties.
We lost the scholarship. And our probation was real. We had to make immediate academic progress with our APR or we were going to suffer more severe penalties that were put on hold. They have put penalties on hold, giving us a chance to show progress, or those penalties were going to actually happen.
So we already had no players, so to lose scholarships would have been devastating. So our first few years, we had to recruit some guys we knew we were going to be able to graduate and really focus on fixing the academic problem.
And where other people can maybe take a chance on certain type of players that would go one and done or, you know, guys that may be great players but questionable academically, we couldn't do that
So we had to take our time with this whole process due to what we inherited. And then the other factor is the Big East Conference. Our conference is so large that you have so many teams that are of quality, obviously 11 in this year's tournament, but every other year you got eight. It's not a matter of getting better, it's a matter of better than who. Better than seven or eight teams that are already in the top 25.
So it's been a process of adding talent, building chemistry. And the last part has been intangibles. You gotta recruit -- gotta get two talented classes and get them to their junior and senior year, which is what's happened for us. We have five scholarshiped seniors. We have a couple of juniors as well as a red-shirt sophomore who was part of that junior class.
And we're mature enough. We got to a point where we are mature enough to win at a high level. Talent's not everything. In our league, you gotta have talent and maturity.
So it's been a long process that has been a life experience for me as a coach. I feel better for it and I thank the people that stuck by me during the whole process

Q. Have you climbed Kilimanjaro?
COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, no, no, I've not climbed any and I'm not going to climb any mountains. I like to work out, but I'm not a mountain climber. I'm not a hiker either.
But, you know, it's funny, in the Big East, you get your program to a point, to a point, but then you look around and you say: I gotta do this every year.
Fortunately for us, we get most of our leading scorers back next year and we had a great recruiting class, but as Jamie Dixon is here and Coach Calhoun and we all talk, every year you start thinking, well, I hope -- they won't be as good, will they? They won't be as good, will they? And I just laugh. Somehow, in our league, everybody figures out a way to be as good or better every year.
People think the Big East has got it. Wasn't this supposed to be the year we dropped off? It's just never going to happen, and so it's -- you gotta be ready to roll your sleeves up if you're going to continue to coach in our conference. They say climbing the mountain is easier than staying on top and staying -- for us, on top is one of the NCAA Tournament teams coming from our conference.
So I'm just looking forward to try to continue to improve our team and try to compete for a Big East championship.

Q. You took a calculated risk with how you handled Yancy a little bit there midseason. Were you concerned that it would pay off particularly with the sort of dividends you're realizing right now?
COACH MICK CRONIN: Not really. And I look at -- I don't look at it as people on the outside look at stuff when you handle your team, whether it's start this guy, don't start that guy, you sit a guy down for a game.
I simply look at it from the coaching aspect of you have discipline within your team. It's real simple. You treat each guy the same. And I spell love and discipline the same way with my players. And sometimes it's confusing to the outside. Oh, he's being tough, he's taking a stand, he's sending a message.
No, I'm trying to give him discipline, but I spell love and discipline the same way. And then when you bring him back and others want to bash the kid, you stand by him, because again, now it's a matter of you love him enough to stand by him.
What we do, people forget I think too much that we coach young people. They're amateurs. They're kids. And college basketball is big business, but we're still trying to help young people grow up. And standing by kids is something -- it's something that should be just as noble as maybe, saying, well, he sat him down and he sent a message. No, I'm just trying to do the right thing for each guy on my team.
I honestly didn't think about how it was going to play out to helping us win games. I really never thought about that. It was not some great move on my part. That was never really in my consideration.
I think and I say this a lot: If you can send any messages as a college coach, maybe younger coaches, junior highs, and high schools that look up to you, it's just do the right thing, don't complicate things. I'm a son of a high school coach. I just do what my dad would have done, to be honest with you.

Q. You've got a Senegalese on your team, a couple of Nigerians here in this region. You talked about recruiting. How much recruiting goes on in Africa and how has that changed the face of this NCAA Basketball Tournament over the last decade? We're seeing more and more people come in from overseas.
COACH MICK CRONIN: I think a lot. Ibrahima, was he up here?
MODERATOR: Yes, sir.
COACH MICK CRONIN: He's a great kid. We're very fortunate to have him. I think the influx of talent from Africa and what's being done I think through the NBA with the Basketball Without Borders program, that's only going to be more and more as they expand the camps and the infrastructure of youth basketball in the whole continent of Africa.
But I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure that it's climbed every year as far as the influx of talent from Africa.

I personally haven't gone to Africa to recruit. Thomas tells me he's going to take me home and meet his parents and he's going to help me recruit over there someday, so I'm going to hold him to that.

Q. You talked about this a little bit yesterday, about their pressure and Cashmere Wright. How much of that burden falls on him or is it -- it's not just him, or how do you spread that out? How do you think he'll handle what burden there is?
COACH MICK CRONIN: Missouri is 40 minutes of defensive pressure and they change it. They come at you different ways.
My message to Cashmere Wright and all our primary ball handlers is the worse thing you can do is try to be a hero and over dribble. You gotta make sure that you're strong with the ball, but the easiest way to deal with it is pass it. That sounds simple, but when you're a guard and you got great quickness at times, you want to take it on yourself. But you know one thing Coach Pitino used to always talk about when I was with him was the guy that they loved to press the most in the NBA was Isiah Thomas because he would try to take it personal and take it on.
So for three days we've been working on passing. And it's real simple rule. Pass the ball to the guy open. The longer you dribble, the alarm is going off in your ahead, it should be. Here they come and they're going to get it.
So Mike's teams have always been the best. I saw the average 9.8 steals a game. That's low for his teams. Also I think they're almost tied for first the country, but I remember playing UAB when I was at Murray State or Louisville as an assistant where they averaged 11 steals a game, even higher than they are now.
So my concern is my players just haven't played against their type of style all year. We really haven't faced anybody that plays like that.
MODERATOR: Any other questions for Coach Cronin?

Q. Coach, you've spoken about the Big East up here and talked about the toughness. Having a team win five games in five days, including the last four against ranked opponents, now that the dust has settled on that, can you put into words what Connecticut did to win that tournament?
COACH MICK CRONIN: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I don't know what the odds would have been against that at the beginning, but I don't know anybody other than probably their coach and the kids in their locker room that thought that was possible.
Last year we played on Tuesday and we won Tuesday, we won Wednesday. Thursday we got beat on a bank shot at the buzzer. I remember thinking: What if we'd had to play two more? I distinctly remember thinking that, how I thought our team was tired on Thursday.
But I would give Kemba Walker all the credit. I think -- obviously UConn gains their toughness from their coach. And that's a big factor. But Kemba's such a -- he's such an extraordinary talent that he clearly elevates everybody around him. And when he's at his best, they're a different team. And he's done it numerous times this year. You saw their run at Maui and their run last week. And we all watch enough basketball to know when you're watching a special guy play the game. And he just put a team on his back, almost like Danny Manning did back in '88. I was a part of it with Kenyon Martin during his senior year as an assistant coach. So it's unbelievable.
But now, if you'd told me that he was going to be fresh and ready to play the way he was, because he's just that kind of player.

Q. Mick, your players seems to be very happy to be here. How do you get them off that level which can become its own obstacle?
COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, if you know my guys, they're happy to be everywhere. I have one of the funniest teams on earth. They're as good as impersonators as there are in college basketball, we could win a talent show for sure. It's been a big part of our success, our team chemistry.
We have a lot of fun together when we travel, probably had a lot to do with our road record being so successful. So I wouldn't mistake that for that they're just happy to be here. That's normal for them. They're a fun-loving group of guys. Makes it fun to be around as a coach.
I think another thing this time of year, if your guys look tired and mopey, you're in trouble. So one thing we try to practice really hard and when practice is over, you gotta let those guys have some fun and enjoy the experience a little bit. You ought to be around them in a hotel.

Q. First of all, I want to ask you who does the best impersonation?
COACH MICK CRONIN: We got some good ones. Sean -- all the New York guys are always the best. They got the most personality. So I will say Sean Kilpatrick, although he's one of our younger guys. He's pretty good. He's probably the best of the group. He and Larry Davis, Ibrahima Thomas.

Q. Who does Sean impersonate?
COACH MICK CRONIN: All of us. They all got me down pretty well. They got the assistant coaches, but they're hardest on each other. You'd have to ask them. Hopefully we'll win Thursday, you can get to talk to them again. Whenever the locker room is open, they're pretty good at it.

Q. More practical question is, a 38-point loss in the tournament, you throw that tape away or have you been dissecting every second of it over the last however many days?
COACH MICK CRONIN: No. I take this because we played Notre Dame, Mike Brey is a good friend of mine, had a great line. They got blown out at Marquette and he had a great line. He said he's glad it only counts for one.
So doesn't matter if you lose by one. There was a point in that game I told the guys, look, we can try to win and go run around and try to steal the ball from Notre Dame, which is almost impossible, or we can be conservative, but that's not who we are. So even though we're down 14 or 16, let's go try to steal the ball every possession.
It didn't work, and that's why you saw the score you saw. I mean, I could have done things differently, but my guys know, like I told them, hey, I don't care what the final score is. Let's try to win the game. They know what I'm all about. I'm not worried about what people think about me at all. I just care about what those guys think about me and what I stand for and what we all stand for. So like Mike Brey said, it only counts for one
MODERATOR: Okay, Coach. Thank you.

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