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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: WASHINGTONMarch 18, 2011Rashad BishopMick CroninLarry DavisYancy GatesWASHINGTON, D.C. MODERATOR: We'll open up the floor for questions for the Cincinnati student-athletes. Q. Rashad, Jim Calhoun was just in here and he didn't think UConn got to experience the real Cincinnati team when they played you because they made so many perimeter shots, and didn't experience your physicality. Do you think they saw the real Cincinnati team when you played them? RASHAD BISHOP: Well, I think, I don't think so. We weren't really communicating well on defense so we left some shooters open sometimes, and they was just knocking down shots. Q. Just as a senior can you just talk about what it means for you to finally be on this stage and how long you waited for these moments and for last night's win and all this sort of stuff? RASHAD BISHOP: It's a good feeling because we worked hard for four years; always came up short, but we kept at it, kept working, kept trying to get better and this year is making it even more better. Q. Coach Cronin last night was saying he'd rather play anybody except a Big East team. I wonder what you guys feel about that, especially in this case you're actually getting a chance to perhaps get some revenge on a team that beat you, so I wonder the pros and cons of that. LARRY DAVIS: We just gotta take it as another game and just try to go out and there execute on defense and just try to get a win. YANCY GATES: It's a good and bad because we only got one day to prepare for them but we pretty much already know UConn, but it's also the same for them, they pretty much already know us. But like Calhoun said, won't do feel they got the best UC team the first time. So we just focus on coming out in the game with more effort and try to be more physical. MODERATOR: Other questions for the Cincinnati student-athletes? Q. Larry, looking at the box score, the UC guards didn't play really well in that game, there wasn't much production. How important do you think guard play will be in this game? LARRY DAVIS: I think it's really important because last game their guards got off to a good start, making shots and everything. So I think that our guards, we gotta come out on defense and try not let them get shots and not let them get started early. Q. Can you talk about Kemba Walker and how to guard him. He only had 16 on you the first time, but going into the game and knowing he's there, how does that affect your preparation? LARRY DAVIS: It affects our preparation a little bit because he's a good player. He makes plays, but at the same time we just -- he's going to get his, so we just gotta make sure don't nobody else go off in the game. Q. Yancy, is it a different team of UConn players you're going to play, too? You saw what they did in New York, is that a different UConn team than you faced? YANCY GATES: Definitely. As freshmen we got to experience a lot of basketball now. So technically you're not considered freshman anymore because the season is over, coaches like to call it a year experience. But still their first time here, and I don't think they had a tough game on their first game. So we'll try to make this a tough game for them and hopefully they can make some of those freshman mistakes. Q. For any of you, when see what Cashmere Wright goes through every day, icing his knee after every practice, how much pain do you think he's in and how much of a struggle do you think it is for him to play every day? RASHAD BISHOP: I think it's real hard for him because he had a couple knee injuries that kept him out. He tore his ACL and he did something else to his knee before the season this year. So I think it's real hard for him. He's just trying to do it for us and we appreciate that. And he just wanted to keep playing as hard as he could. LARRY DAVIS: I kind of know how it feels because I tore my ACL, so I know how it feels to go through that pain and everything. But like Rashad said, we appreciate it and we just hope he gets better and just keep icing, keep getting treatment and just keep playing hard. YANCY GATES: I talked to him a lot about it. I think he says it bothers him more once he stiffens up, so he has to go through a lot of treatment during that. But just the toughness he's been showing to be able to do play through that, the toughness he played with last night with the pain that he was going through, like I said, we just appreciate it and he knows that we're right there with him. So I think it helps him get through it. MODERATOR: Other questions for the Cincinnati student-athletes? Okay. Thanks, guys. Making his way to the podium at this time, Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin. If you could make an opening statement about your thoughts heading to the third round, taking on a familiar foe in the University of Connecticut. COACH MICK CRONIN: Thank you for that lead-in. Obviously we're happy to still be here, excited about making it to the second round. MODERATOR: Third round. COACH MICK CRONIN: That's right, third round. Excuse me. Gotta get my P's and Q's. The match-up obviously with UConn is something that is tough to do, having to play a conference foe in the NCAA Tournament, but you gotta play who they match you up against. Probably the tougher part is playing the hottest team in America, which I don't think I'd get much argument that UConn is probably the hottest team in America. And they've done a great job becoming a tremendous defensive team. I think Coach Calhoun deserves all the credit. When you got the young players that they have, to be able to turn such a young team into such a great defensive unit the way he has shows you why he's in the Hall of Fame, and it's obviously a big concern of ours, the way they're able to defend in the half court. Their size and their length is something they use to their advantage as well as any team in the country. On the other end, they've shot the ball extremely well in the last month of the season, and they have arguably the best player in the country creating offense for them in Kemba Walker. So it's a great challenge for us, but we got some guys that can play and we gotta get our game plan in and get ready to go. Q. Mick, you were in here a couple days ago talking about the academic situation being worse than you thought it was when you took over, and I was just curious, if you could expand a little bit on is that just a young coach wanting the job, not necessarily knowing -- asking all the questions, or was it just a product of not having the information? COACH MICK CRONIN: They can't tell you everything or you'd run. I knew it was not good. I didn't know the APR numbers that had dipped to the 775. And honestly, the APR is pretty confusing. And I'm sure that you guys would be confused if I really went into the detail of it, of the situation. But I had never heard of a historical penalty, which is when you're below the cut line three consecutive years and you go lower each year. These are things I didn't know about. And I don't think Cincinnati, we didn't know about it either. These are all things -- you've gotta understand my athletic director had just gotten the job as well. So with so much turnover in our department, it took us six months to put a plan together that the NCAA felt comfortable was going to be effective. They gave us advice throughout the process of implementing a new plan of academic support and decisions going forward from A to Z in many areas. But I would have taken the job anyway. Q. Mick, just wanted to ask you about Rashad Bishop. He's kind of an under-the-radar guy. But what has he meant in four years? What has he meant to the program, just all the things he does? COACH MICK CRONIN: One of the things when I got the job, I went to Danny Hurley at St. Benedict's and Mo Hicks at Rice High School, two of the best coaches in the country, but two of the winningest programs in high school basketball on the East Coast, arguably with St Anthony's or St. Pat's. But I knew those guys were close friends of mine. And I said, look, I gotta rebuild this program and I know I'm not getting your best player. But I want a player. I need a player. I need a guy from St. Benedict's. I need Rice Raider. And Danny said, I got a guy, Rashad Bishop, that's being under-recruited, but he's got great toughness. So I said, I'll take him. He said, you haven't seen him. I said, I saw him play once in the summer, but I'll be there Thursday. Came up September on a Thursday, watched him work out, offered Rashad Bishop. Then I drove over to Rice and asked Mo Hicks, who do you have for me? He said, Kemba Walker. I got a guy that's being under-recruited that nobody wants. I've tried to tell people about him. He's been a backup. Other people have been higher. So it's ironic that those are the two guys. But Rashad Bishop has been great. He's given us a lot of toughness that you have to have in the Big East, and I've been really, really happy for him that he's been able to have such a great senior year. At times this year he's been a real offensive force for us. Lately he hasn't practiced because of a turf toe, so it's taken him off of his offensive rhythm a lot. But I was happy to see -- we changed his medication. Our doctors did a great job with him this week, and he played pain-free last night. So right now I think he's really excited. He thinks he can get through the rest of the tournament, hopefully, that we can stay alive and he can get back to being the guy he's been this year instead of just trying to limp through the NCAA Tournament on one foot. But I don't know where we'd be without him. There's no doubt in the last four years he's led us in total minutes played. Q. You were with Bob Huggins at Cincy when they played in Conference USA. What do you think is the different nature of the game, the nature of the program? Is it different because you're in the Big East now? And if so, why? What are the new challenges? COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, obviously it's night and day. When I was with Coach Huggins, we had great teams, but the question was always -- with Cincinnati, you listen to the analysts. Cincinnati is good, but how good are they because of the Conference USA. You don't have ever have to worry about that anymore because when you play top 20 teams on a weekly basis, that's the biggest difference is the Big East Conference tells the truth. They say a bullet tells the truth. The Big East Conference tells the truth. At the end of 18 games in a conference tournament, you know who you are and what you need to do to beat quality teams. One thing about it, like coming into this Tournament, you can have a meeting with your team and say, all right, guys, here's -- when we've beaten really good teams, here's how we did it, and when we've lost, this is why. So you can figure out who you are and what you need to do to be successful. There's really no questions left to be asked. Obviously the challenge year to year is much greater to have success. And that's been the biggest issue probably with our fan base, that you lose a game and people say, well, what's wrong? Nothing. You just played another Big East team. And that's the difference. You can play well and lose in our league. That never happened at Cincinnati in the Great Midwest and Conference USA. The Bearcats played well. They usually won by 20. You'd play it bad and still win. Those days are long gone. Long gone. Q. Coach, can you talk about how soon after the coaching change at Rutgers last year did you reach out to him, and what does he bring to the staff, especially in terms of recruiting guys like Jermaine Sanders and Shaquille Thomas? COACH MICK CRONIN: He does a great job shopping for us. He lives in my basement. Takes the pressure off me at the grocery store. We're two and a half men. I have a four-year-old daughter. It's just -- it's not quite a eventful. We're not winning every day. But in all seriousness, Darren and I are best friends, so we talk all the time. Every day, every other day, to say the least. So there was no doubt who I was going to hire when Tony Stubblefield got the opportunity to get the big cash at Oregon. And, by the way, Tony's a big part of why we're here. He's a great guy. But Darren has done a great job. I think that the key, a big key for us is George Jackson, Larry Davis, and Darren are all head coaches. Coach Jackson was a Head Coach for multiple years and a Hall-of-Fame type of high school coach. Larry Davis, proven, rebuilt Furman with no resources in a tough situation. Darren just hadn't had the opportunity, but because Fran went to TV on him, he had to kind of start over with me. And hopefully the people at schools like Manhattan and Monmouth and people will call me about him. I don't want to lose him but they would be lucky to have him. All those schools. And he'd be right at home on the East Coast. It would be a great start for him at that level if he was to get that opportunity. But I firmly believe I have as good a staff as anybody in the Big East, and that's a big part of success is having great assistants. Q. Can you think back to the first UConn game, they 10-19 from 3-point range, how much of that was you not covering out there? Just what happened? Why did you lose that game? COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, they scored more points than us. But, no, they did a great job of making shots. I thought that we probably didn't show enough respect to Jeremy Lamb as an shooter in that game. I thought Roscoe Smith had tough shots. Obviously I watched that game all night. I don't know if you can tell with the light on me that I've been doing that. We still lose every time I watch it. But their shot-making was a big part of it. They shot 50 percent against us. And I think their shot-making ability has been the difference in their team because you can't just guard Kemba Walker. And the fact that those two guys in particular, their emergence and their confidence, it jumps off the screen at you when you watch them on film in the last couple weeks. They're a very, very confident team on the offensive end, and they can hurt you in a lot of ways. That being said, I thought our offense was a big problem in the game. We had 17 turnovers. They're hard enough to guard. We put them in transition way too much. And that really hurts us because when we can set our five-on-five defense, we're as good as anybody in the country defensively at times. So we gotta do a good job and make sure we execute on offense and don't turn the ball over. Q. Another rebuilding question, Mick. In the locker room, talking to Yancy about a lot of the people locally and other places telling you stay away from Cincinnati, don't get involved in that, can you impart at all maybe some stories or anecdotes about some of what you had to go through as a coach talking to kids? And then also, just last night, the second part, does last night change anything from that perspective? COACH MICK CRONIN: Well, let's just say that in college basketball, it's very competitive. And there's those that are at the top. They don't really throw the rope down to you to help you climb up there. There's only so many people up there. And when you're trying to rebuild a program, there's a lot of people that are quick to point out that you're struggling, that you're probably going to struggle, you maybe had a losing season. A lot of people quick to predict who's going to get fired in this business. At times there's some questionable things said by some people, and you gotta fight through that. The hardest thing in recruiting is to get kids to believe in something that they can't see. The difference for us now is our recruits can see it. We don't have to sell a dream or a vision. We can pop in a tape and show them what a team with 26 wins and a team that's won more games five straight years, a team that's -- you know, a coaching staff that's helped players improve each year, that's graduated their players, stood by their players in tough times. So now it's eight easier from a recruiting standpoint. But it's a tough business to have to rebuild and take over. The obstacles are hard enough but the behind-the-scenes, let's just say everybody's not looking to help you. Q. Mick, you kind of touched on it already, but Jim was up here before saying that he's sure that UConn didn't see the real Cincinnati team three weeks ago. Do you have to change your game plan for them because of what they did over the last two, three weeks? COACH MICK CRONIN: A little bit. I think that -- it seems to me that we started them on a roll. Since our game, they've really shot the ball extremely well. Their only loss would have been the next game against Notre Dame, which is a game they could have easily won. And Notre Dame, at the time, as hot as anybody. And again goes back to they played well; they just didn't win. That happens in our league. But I think their young guys, especially Roscoe and Jeremy, the guys are really shooting ball extremely well. But I have the same concern that I had that day. And Dan Hoard's in the back of the room, my pregame show that day, I was extremely concerned about being able to score on UConn. And that's still my biggest concern. Because to win this game, we're going to have to put the ball in the basket. Yes, we hang our hat on defense, but at this level, and you're playing against teams as good as this, you're not going to shut them out. And so we're going to have to have some guys make some shots because if you really struggle to shoot against them, their size becomes even more of a factor. The court shrinks more and more, so we're going to have to knock some shots in at some point to try to loosen their defense up a little bit. MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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