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


March 14, 2012


De'Mon Brooks

Jake Cohen

J.P. Kuhlman

Bob McKillop


PORTLAND, OREGON

COACH McKILLOP:  We're absolutely thrilled to have earned this opportunity to participate in the NCAA tournament.  The city of Portland has opened their arms up to us, to the NCAA teams participating, and we feel very welcome in this city, so we're grateful for that.  Thank you.

Q.  When you look at this game, what are the one or two things you think are most important for you guys to do to be successful tomorrow?
JAKE COHEN:  Well, I think we have to come in with the confidence that we've earned all year.  We've played a really tough non‑conference schedule.  I think we're well prepared to play in a game like this.  I think we need to handle the pressure well.  They're a good team.  If we handle their pressure well, we'll be in good shape.

Q.  I don't know if you saw in the Big East tournament, what are your impressions of Louisville?
De'MON BROOKS:  Just off their reputation is a great team.  Head coach Rick Pitino is great.  Everybody growing up and knowing that name.  Louisville is a great team, and besides winning the conference championship, is one of the most competitive conferences in the country.  It shows a lot.  Grateful for the opportunity tomorrow.

Q.  I was wondering what you felt like the keys were to being able to break Louisville's pressure?
JP KUHLMAN:  Obviously, like Jake said, that's one of their biggest assets is the way they pressure the ball and create turnovers.  I think it's really just slowing the game down a little bit and making the easy plays.

Q.  You guys played and beat Kansas, you played Duke.  Do games like that, are those games that prepare you for NCAA tournament games?
JAKE COHEN:  Absolutely.  They're in big atmospheres, big‑time crowds against big‑time teams.  Those experiences will definitely help us.  For most of us this is our first tournament game, but we feel like we've been here before because of those types of games.

Q.  Can you just talk a little bit about this season.  I know you had a good deal of experience coming back and how the season unfolded and where you are now.
COACH McKILLOP:  I think most seasons are roller coaster rides, particularly for a team that had never won a conference tournament game before.  The ups and downs of our schedule from the standpoint of non‑conference opponents that were traditional powerhouses and other teams that were from outstanding conferences, but maybe didn't have the reputation.  And as we progressed through the season, there became more of a consistent pattern to the way we played.  We started to understand who we were, what our skills were, what our roles were.  It's been a growing process, but one that's continually gone forward.
And credit these guys here, as well as the entire roster.  Every day they came to work.  They looked at each opportunity of practice as a gift, a gift to be playing a game of basketball or playing it together with a group of guys they really admired and playing with a system they came to understand and respect.

Q.  When you look back at the Western game and the way it ended, you're going to face pressure tomorrow.  What did you learn from the last few minutes there and the pressure when they obviously whittled the lead away there?
JP KUHLMAN:  Obviously we were disappointed with the way we finished that regulation.  I think we showed that in those two overtimes the toughness this team has and the resiliency, and going forward we know how to face that pressure, how to handle it, just to keep attacking it until the end.

Q.  Everybody knew about Davidson three or four years going when Stephen Curry played there.  How important was he and what Davidson did back then to you going and deciding to play there?
De'MON BROOKS:  It was great.  Just to be able to see the opportunity Davidson has put on, it just shows that everybody else on that team and teams before just coming in and paving the way and laying the foundation for Davidson in basketball in general.  And that gave us the opportunity to be here.  That's why I came to Davidson, so I could build on that foundation and just wholly leaving my mark when I leave.

Q.  Obviously you guys are the underdogs here.  In your mind what's it going to take to score an upset tomorrow?
JAKE COHEN:  We have to play our game.  We know Louisville is a good team, but we think we're a good team, too.  If we come out and play well and play our game we're going to be in it until the end.

Q.  As one of the highest‑scoring teams in the nation, I forgot where you finished, but 78 points, do you feel like you guys can and want to run with Louisville or do you feel like you just have to pick your spots?
JP KUHLMAN:  We're not going to change anything.  We're just going to play our game, what we've been doing all season.

Q.  You mentioned roller coaster season, a lot of teams go through that.  Louisville epitomized that at the end of the year.  They didn't win the last few weeks of the regular season, 7th seed, and they win the Big East tournament.  Do you mainly focus on what they did last week or do you watch the last month?
COACH McKILLOP:  We've tried to watch every aspect of them back from December right through to now.  You never know where a late clock situation develops, out‑of‑bounds play develops, that maybe is part of their arsenal, but hasn't been used in a month.  So to not go back as far as December or even November, would be foolish upon our part.  We want to be as thoroughly versed on what Louisville does as possible.

Q.  Is there anything unique about a Rick Pitino team that you can prepare for that's similar across all?
COACH McKILLOP:  As you look at this Louisville team, you see they are tenacious with their pressure.  And what makes their pressure so effective is not just the tenacity but the IQ, the instinct.  And the IQ and the instinct comes from talented players who are very well coached.
So he has a standard of excellence when it comes to developing a pressure defense, whether it was in his days at Providence or his days at Boston U or even when he was an assistant at Syracuse and Hawaii, Rick is well schooled in his system and he has really implemented it quite well with these guys.  And I think a big part of it is not just their talent but their IQ.

Q.  Just wondering, do you and Rick, have you known each other through the years or what kind of relationship, professionally or personally, at all?
COACH McKILLOP:  Yeah, I've known Rick since the 1960s.  We played a lot of times in the park.  We played a lot of times in the pickup games in the summer.  We actually played against each other in college.  And I can recall when I was a high school coach and Rick was at Syracuse recruiting, he would actually come early to watch our guys workout and get a workout on his own playing pickup games at our gym in Holy Trinity High School.  So I know Rick quite well.

Q.  The players you said, they just want to play their game.  But do you take anything out of the way some teams slow Louisville down, South Florida comes to mind, Notre Dame comes to mind, in that it kind of took them out of their game and those opponents were able to beat them.  Or can you guys even play a slowdown game?  Do you just kind of throw that out the window and play as fast as you play?
COACH McKILLOP:  To try to remake who we are at this point in the season with a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday preparation would be foolish upon our parts.  We're going to be who we are.  And we are that way when we played Duke.  We were that way when we played Kansas.  We were that way when we played Vanderbilt.  We were that way when we played in the Southern Conference.  We have a lot of experience playing that way.  To deviate from that would not be the right thing, the smart thing for us.

Q.  Curious what that run a few years back with Curry, how much does that play into the psyche to be able to motivate these guys?
COACH McKILLOP:  We don't discuss that run.  We don't discuss runs.  We discuss getting better each day.  This is a team that has its own identity.  We are certainly very fortunate that our history is filled with Curry, and what his teammates did during that run.  But this is a team that has their own identity.  And to use that as inspiration and motivation, I don't think it would be productive for us.  So I haven't even discussed it.

Q.  Rick Pitino referred to your offense as the Princeton offense on steroids.  How do you react to that?
COACH McKILLOP:  I think it's a compliment.  Princeton offense means you generally have pretty smart players who are unselfish.  Steroids means you're playing with pretty high energy.  If you're playing smart with high energy that's a compliment, so thanks, Rick.

Q.  He also mentioned that you get players who can pass from every position.  Do you feel that's a strength of your team and how does that help you?
COACH McKILLOP:  One of the great memories I have is as a kid kind of playing college basketball and then becoming a coach and watching what Digger Phelps did in Fordham back in the early '70s.  I always thought what Digger's teams at Fordham represented was the most difficult kind of team to defend because they were so interchangeable, they had such versatility.  Charlie Yelverton was, of course, the master of them all.  But that team was very difficult, not because of their size, not because of their athleticism, not because of their shooting skills, but because they blended all the skills of basketball into every player on the team.
And we have three to four point guys who can play the point position for us.  We have three or four big guys we can isolate with dribble penetration opportunities.  I've always tried to coach that way.  I haven't had the players that have been able to grasp it as well as this group has.  There's tremendous versatility on this team.

Q.  You're from the city and what does that mean to be a New York City style scorer.  What does that mean to be a New York City style guarder?
COACH McKILLOP:  When you grow up in the city, at least when I grew up in the city, which was the first 12, 13 years of my life, as Rick did in Queens, there are steel backboards and steel rims, and there's no nets and there's wind and cold.  So the touch on the ball, the feel on the ball is not conducive to shooting jump shots; it's conducive to going to the rim, to finding a crack, to finding an opening.  With the concept of winners only in the parks and the playgrounds, you're going to fight every way possible to get a score to stay on the court.  And you're going to get fouled.  You're going to get hit.
So I think the city scoring guard is somebody that's able to get to the rim, take a hit, find a crack, find a way to get his shot off, whether it's faking, stepping under a dribble move.  That to me is my understanding of what a city guard was.  Now, of course, today with the glamour of the AAU circuit, maybe that's changed somewhat, but clearly Smith represents what the city guard is.

Q.  Two coaches, Greg Marshall at Wichita and an assistant at VC, Mike Rhoades, played and coached with Hal Nunnally.  And did you know Hal Nunnally?
COACH McKILLOP:  I certainly know Hal Nunnally and know what a great, great teacher of the game he is and the great success he's had at Randolph‑Macon.

Q.  What kind of challenge does their front line pose to your front line?
COACH McKILLOP:  They're ferocious; they're ferocious defensively, they're ferocious on the glass and when they have the ball in their hands.  They find a way to get to the rim, they find a crack.  And they're highly skilled.  They made five or six jump shots in the Big East tournament.  This is not just a big guy, so I believe they cover all the bases that they're expecting their big guys to cover.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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