|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: GREENSBOROMarch 15, 2012John BeckerMatt GlassFour McGlynnGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Could you just kind of walk us through your travel on this little safari you guys have been on? When did you get in? When did you get to sleep? What it's been like for you guys? FOUR MCGLYNN: Yeah we had a 6:45 wake up call, got on the plane around 8:00. Flew in, got here probably around 11:00. We went over to a local college and had practice from 1:30 to 2:30, and then kind of hung around in the hotel a little bit, did a pool workout and got here about 20 minutes ago. Q. Tired? FOUR MCGLYNN: Yeah, it's been along couple days. Q. You guys obviously were in Dayton a couple of days ago but how much does it mean for the time to now get to the real March Madness here? MATT GLASS: It means a lot. We were obviously very excited to be in Dayton and it was an unbelievable opportunity for us and just very happy that we were able to advance and now have another great opportunity in front of us now. So we couldn't be more excited. Q. John Henson's situation, I guess he's uncertain to play tomorrow. Does that‑‑ I know you guys focus more on you, but does that affect anything in your preparation? Any thoughts about preparing for them not knowing if he's going to be there to block a shot or grab a rebound? MATT GLASS: Obviously he's a huge difference maker on the defensive end, and he's a big offensive threat as well. So it does make a difference, but they're so deep at that position they got so many different weapons that they can hurt you with and so we're going to have our hands full no matter who's out there. And we just need to focus on what we can do to be successful and try to compete. Q. Obviously you guys are a huge underdogs here, number 16 seed going up against a number 1. No one's ever done that before. What's the mindset of the team going into this? FOUR MCGLYNN: We're going into the game as confident as we have been all year. We have been playing great as of late, been on a pretty good winning streak, and we know that everyone's doubting us. But at the end of the day, it comes down to 12 guys on our team and the coaches in the locker room that believe in us and we're going to believe in each other and go out there and fight and hopefully come out with a win. Q. Talk about how you guys kind of pulled back together after what appeared to be just a crippling loss at Binghamton late in the season. MATT GLASS: It was a very big road bump for us. It was definitely a low point in our season and we needed to regroup. And we had to decide at that point were we going to let it beat us or were we going to get better from it. We regrouped. We refocused. And I think it helped us a lot in the games down the stretch there, and we were able to rally together and pull up some big wins and I think that was the difference. Q. Talk about you guys' defensive effort in the championship game against Stony Brook and against Lamar last night. It seems like you guys have stepped it up. Have you guys changed anything? MATT GLASS: That's been a staple of this program for a long time, and we have really tried to focus on that, especially late in the year. We feel like if we guard and rebound, we can compete with anybody in the country. So we really put a lot of emphasis on that, especially late in the season, especially in playoff basketball. And so far it's been paying off for us. Q. Can you walk us through how you got Four as opposed Patrick or whatever? Why Four? FOUR MCGLYNN: Yeah, my uncle played with one of his good friends in high school. They called him Four because he was the fourth generation. And my dad named me Patrick which made me Patrick McGlynn, IV. So my uncle thought it would be cool if they called me Four and started calling me ever since I was a baby and it kind of just stuck from there. Q. Were you okay with that? Is that all you've ever known or do you say don't call me that or did you always like it? FOUR MCGLYNN: I kind of always liked it. I liked having a name that nobody else that I knew had, so it was cool being different. Q. Talk about your first NCAA tournament game. You score 18 points. What was it like out there last night and how do you think you can recreate that tomorrow? FOUR MCGLYNN: Obviously it's a huge stone in my life playing in my first NCAA tournament game, and I think I played pretty well. I was really comfortable out there. I always like playing in big games against teams and especially games that really matter. I'm just going to go in there tomorrow night with the same mindset I had going into the Lamar game, it's just another game and just go out there, play my hardest, and hopefully everything works out from there. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thanks, guys. See you tomorrow. We'll take an opening statement from coach. COACH BECKER: Real excited to be here in Greensboro. It's been a whirlwind the last 48 hours coming down from Dayton, but we're really happy to be here. Looking forward to playing North Carolina tomorrow. Huge task in front of us, but we're confident, loose group and looking forward to the challenge in front of us tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for coach. Q. I think that you think in retrospect the loss to Binghamton might have been a blessing in disguise. Could you go through that a little bit? COACH BECKER: Yeah, I really do. Obviously that was Binghamton's first loss at the time. We controlled our own destiny, as far as winning our regular season title. And in that game we talked to the guys all year about playing with composure, handling adversity. And in our three losses, including that one, we trailed at halftime. And we just lost our composure. And I think after that game, the point really hit home with our guys and since then we have been a very composed focused group for 40 minutes sticking with the plan, grinding games out. And we have won four straight do or die games and our composure and poise has been a big piece of that. Q. Obviously you guys are trying to defy history here. What's your approach tactically and even more importantly psychologically addressing your guys? COACH BECKER: The big thing is we're very confident, but we understand the task in front of us and our guys understand that no 16 seed has ever won. But I told the guys, mathematically we can't win this game; no one's ever won this game. But Murphy's law says it's going to happen at some point and why not us? So we're taking that approach, just making the guys believe. We got a game plan, and there's something about this group and I believe in these guys, and we're going to come out expecting to win tomorrow and try to hang around. And the longer we can hang around, the better it will be and we'll see what happens. Q. Obviously the team's been doing defensively so well this year. Now you're going up against a lot more firepower. What's the approach there? COACH BECKER: We just have to continue to be ourselves and do what we do. Every team in this tournament at this point has gotten here playing a certain way and we can't really deviate from that. North Carolina obviously is going to be the best team we have played all year and we're going to have to play a perfect game. But we have to approach this from a defensive standpoint and do things that we have done all year. Obviously we're going to have to do some stuff we have done against different opponents all year. We'll have to do it better. We'll have to do it perfectly every time, but we'll see. And we have been pretty good defensively and hopefully we can have another performance in us like we have had recently. Q. I believe that you were picked to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack preseason in the America East. When you took over as head man and took a look at this group, did you think it had a championship capability? COACH BECKER: I did. We're young. We start three sophomores, we play five sophomores, our leading scorer is a freshman, and that was the thing that worried me, the experience issue. We have great kids and I knew they would be coachable. I hoped they would buy in and they did. But I was just worried about the experience thing and were we a year away. I knew this was a championship team with the characters and the talent we had on the team, I just didn't know if we were maybe a year away. Q. As we talk right now, Syracuse is being taken to the wire with the 16 seed. Can you use that to instill confidence in your team and will you? COACH BECKER: Yeah, absolutely. I hope Syracuse holds on so we can be possibly the first, but, yeah, absolutely. And there's been a lot of close calls, and so we'll definitely use Asheville's performance today as something to talk about and give our guys some confidence. Q. You guys talked about in days leading up to the tournament about the honor of being in the first four, but now that you got through how much more does it mean to you and to the program to get to the Thursday and Friday games here? COACH BECKER: It's real exciting and to get our second NCAA victory in Dayton or in our school's history in Dayton was fantastic and something we'll never forget. To get two games in the NCAA tournament is exciting and, yeah, to be here and that first four thing, there's only 68 teams left in the other tournament, 68 teams in this tournament that everyone's trying to get to, the best tournament in the world. And so we're honored to be in the first four. But now that we're in the final 64, it's even better and the police escorts get better as you move along, that's for sure. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, coach. See you tomorrow. COACH BECKER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|