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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: CHARLOTTEMarch 17, 2011Julian BoydJim FerryDavid HicksKyle JohnsonCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes, raise your hand and let us get the handheld Mike to you. Q. Julian, for you can you talk a little bit about what it means to you not just to be playing in the NCAA Tournament but playing basketball right now. JULIAN BOYD: It's a great feeling. You know, my story after not being able TO play last year and being out the whole time and not being able to do anything, it was a very, very hard time for me, but being able to be back on the floor with all my teammates and being able to play again, it's one of the best feelings ever. Especially now to be in the NCAA Tournament, it makes it even better. Q. Can you talk about getting North Carolina here, Julian, what's going to be sort of like a home arena for them? JULIAN BOYD: When we saw where we were and who we were playing, we all thought the same thing, it's pretty much not a road game. We have one of the best road records in the nation. We've done so well. So I mean to us, it's just not rough road game and we got to come out and play how we've always played. Q. For either of you, when you look at Kendall Marshall and what he's done to North Carolina, have y'all studied him -- Duke was pretty effective at slowing him down Sunday. Is that how you approach dealing with him? KYLE JOHNSON: We know Kendall Marshall since he's been put in the starting lineup, the team has had a lot of success. We look to -- he's the head of the monster for them kind of thing and we know that he's the thing that makes the team go. So we understand that, and we have to limit him as best we can to give us the best shot. DAVID HICKS: We've prepared well for Kendall Marshall specifically. The coach has made a big emphasis on him because he controls the game for them and controls their speed of attack. He basically, like Kyle said, he's the head of the monster. We prepared well, and I feel like we're pretty confident an how we can take him away and limit him to the things that he does well. Q. Julian, I know you guys like to push the pace and score a lot of points this season. That is what North Carolina likes to do as well. Will you want to slow things down to -- what -- or will you continue with that type of tempo tomorrow? JULIAN BOYD: I mean, we've been doing that all year and we've had great success doing that. So we're going to come out and do the same thing we've always done. Since they run like we do, we have to make sure we work on our conversion a lot, make sure we can get back to stop them. We're still going to run and still going to do the same thing that we've been doing to give us the success that we've already had. Q. How are you guys -- either -- any of you guys can answer. How are you guys going to handle, you know, being -- playing Carolina in Carolina, NCAA Tournament, all the spotlight that's going to be on you? DAVID HICKS: Well, we're ready for it. I mean, it's another game. We look at it as another game. It's obviously on a bigger stage with more lights and more people, but at the end of the day it's still a basketball game. It has to be played between the lines, put the ball through the hoop, as the coach would say. We're looking at it as another game, and we're preparing well, and I feel like we're pretty confident in ourselves. Q. Guys, one of the great things about the Tournament is if an underdog is hanging with a higher seed, the crowd starts to get behind the underdog. Considering where you guys are playing, that's probably not going to happen if that's the way it goes down tomorrow. Any disappointment you're not going to get the extra advantage? KYLE JOHNSON: There's no disappointment. We're like a road team. We like playing on the road. We like taking the crowd out of the game. It gives us excitement and we look forward to stuff like that. Q. Are you guys still a little miffed about your seed in the tournament? I know when your name went up there, you guys weren't happy about that. DAVID HICKS: We get over it. It is what it is. We have no control over it. The coach says do the things we can control. We put up a pretty good resume for ourselves, I feel like, and the rest of my team is behind that statement, and, I mean, we have no control over where we were put, but we've come to play and see how it plays out. BY THE MODERATOR: Q. Kyle or David, could you talk about what it means to have Julian back after what he went through last year and does it carry over any meaning this year? KYLE JOHNSON: It's great to have Julian back. Last year was sad for the team as well as for him, and Julian is such a great team -- great teammate, and I'm just more happy for him just have to have him back. Because to have the game taken away from you, none of us ever experienced that. He experienced that for a year and he was great with it. He showed great support for the team. Whether -- he showed up at every practice, every game, he was always cheering for us, and we always wanted to win for him. Just to get him back it was great. It was exciting and it just added more depth and everything. It's excellent just to have him back. DAVID HICKS: The heart that he plays with, it kind of just oozes out of him and releases on to the rest of us players. He plays with so many passion and so much care of the game, when you're on the court with him, you have no choice to play with the same -- try to match his passion with the game. He knows what it's like to be taken away. It's not like an injury where you know you're going to come back when you're healed. He was told he might never be able to play. It's an incredible feeling to have him back. THE MODERATOR: We'll take one more question for the student athletes. Anybody? Okay. Thank you guys. COACH JIM FERRY: We're very excited to be in the NCAA Tournament again after a long drought and also to represent New York City who hasn't been in a for awhile. We obviously have a major challenge on our hands coming cone here here to Charlotte, North Carolina, to take on North Carolina. But you know what, we have a tough bunch of kids that have won a lot of games on the road this year. We have the most road wins in the country. We're going to try to stick together and try to grind this thing out and make a run at these guys. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Do you view yourselves as the Cinderella team, or do you feel like, you know, you've got as good a shot as anybody at this? COACH JIM FERRY: We're more of a big underdog than maybe a Cinderella. I do think we have a shot. A 15 has beaten a 2 before. We have to play extremely well. We'll have to do what we do very well. We have to play with great poise and composure. I guess you want to say underdog, Cinderella, you want to put them together, I guess you can. Q. Kendall Marshall is obviously sort of transformed the Tar Heels. You had some success controlling him last week. How do you look at stopping him? COACH JIM FERRY: We got to keep him out of the lane. His aggressiveness to break teams down has really helped North Carolina's offense evolve. He's a freshman. We have to go at him hard and put him in a situation where he doesn't feel very comfortable. He plays so unselfishly that it might be easier said than done. Q. Have you seen the song or heard the song that the Jimmy Fallon show did about you and what did you think of it? COACH JIM FERRY: Do I have to comment on that? (Laughter) I think it was great for some notoriety for a university. I think it was pretty embarrassing on Jim Fallon's 's part. Jimmy is a pretty funny guy. We'll take it. Q. Coach, your free throw numbers are off the board almost. COACH JIM FERRY: Which ones, the makes or the attempts? Q. The attempts. How in the world in your style of play have you be able to shoot 974 free throws, over over 30 a game. COACH JIM FERRY: Hopefully we'll get to that see tomorrow night against North Carolina. We're a very aggressive team. Part of our philosophy is winning free throws, winning turnovers, and winning rebounds. We preach it every day in our program. You know, we play aggressively. We offensive rebound aggressively very much like North Carolina. We're not as big. We play at a very aggressive speed. We have very aggressive forwards that get fouls. We constantly put pressure on you. And then obviously the drastic difference is we really focus on not fouling as well as a program. What's more important to me, I mean, the attempts are ridiculous, I'll admit that. It's taken our philosophy to a whole other level. What I'm really proud about is the statistics in regards to the made free throws compared to our opponents' attempts. That's something we really work on and focus on. If we continue to play the right way tomorrow night, we play so unselfishly as a group and the ball moves that we can attack it from different angles on top of the offensive rebounding. I thinkg that's going to be a big factor in tomorrow night's game. If we can get to the foul line at the rate we normally do, we'll give ourselves a chance. Q. With two teams that like to run up and down the court, is this a good march up or mad bad matchup for you guys? COACH JIM FERRY: I don't think it's a very good matchup. We're very good as flying up and down the court. They invented it is what it seems like. That's the way they play. And to have to do it here in Charlotte, I think that's very difficult. There's going to be -- I know they travel as a crowd, but their crowd doesn't have to travel that far. We're going to have to make some adjustments to what we do. We really got to focus on trying to slow them down, which is not an easy thing to do, not many teams have been very successful at doing that. But at the same rate, we can't come in here and suddenly become Princeton. That's not who we are. We can't slow it down and take the air out of basketball. We have a bunch of guys that believe in what we do, and we've been pretty successful at doing it. We maybe have to be a little smarter and more disciplined with it. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Coach. COACH JIM FERRY: Thanks guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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