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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: NASHVILLEMarch 18, 2012Mick CroninDion DixonYancy GatesSean KilpatrickJaquon ParkerNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Cincinnati – 62 THE MODERATOR: Coach? COACH CRONIN: First of all, I want to congratulate Florida State on their season. I have great respect for Coach Hamilton and his program.  They are really a mirror image of us. We were 5-3 and not a very good team, they were 9-6, which I knew they struggled early, but he said we were 9-6 and lost by 20 to Clemson. We beat a team today that could have won the national championship. They have veteran players, unbelievable coaching staff, and really refuse to lose mentality. It was all we could do to take care of the ball and try to get one upshot against them, as hard as we had to work on the offensive end all year. Somebody had the lose tonight, and obviously Florida State was on the short end of it. But they had a great season, but couldn't be prouder of my guys. They just hung in there for 15 rounds, and we've had -- we've been in a lot of muscling games. When we have been, in the last five minutes, we've become a different team, defensively. Defensively the stops that we get, the rebounds we get despite our lack of size, the blocked shots, loose balls, and then on the other end, these guys stepping up making plays, and, you know, I think we get a lot of credit for playing hard. I think hopefully tonight people saw our talent level, to be able to do things some teams in the ACC couldn't do last week on a neutral court, some of our players made unbelievable individual plays down the stretch. And I think our talent level is a lot higher than people give us credit for. So I'm really happy for my guys, because they got a chance to show what they're made of on a national stage. Hopefully, we'll be known as a team that plays hard but a team that has really good players. The guys know to get that respect, you got to get over the threshold, you got to win big games. They were determined to do it. That's why we won tonight, the determination of guys is it sitting next the me. THE MODERATOR: Please raise your hand to ask a question. Q. Dion, talk about your dunk and how that just seemed to change the whole thing and did you feel that after you slammed it home? DION DIXON: Yeah. I seen them kind of looking back and I kind of read up. When I got the steal, I got the dunk, whatever, it kind of switched the momentum, you know. Got a lot of fire up on our guys and closed it out in the last five minutes of the game. Q. For Dion, when you got the steal, were you thinking go to the basket immediately and how quickly, how easy was it to get ahold of that ball and was a dunk what you were planning to do the entire time? DION DIXON: Yeah, I got a steal. Just me and the basket. I seen nobody else. I went up and dunked it. That kind of sparked us a little bit. THE MODERATOR: Other questions? Q. For Yancy Gates, now you guys gets to go against Ohio State. Sullinger. What's your thoughts about that? YANCY GATES: I mean, I've been playing a lot of good bigs this season. I just get ready to play against another great player, you know, with a lot of hype. I'll be prepared. I'll be ready for the challenge. Q. Yancy, you guys in the last two minutes I think only missed one free throw. Talk about y'all's ability to go there and make those big shots. YANCY GATES: We know that we're a good, you know, shooting team, you know. It's just based on how focused we are when we step to the line, and it was kind of after Dion got that dunk we knew that the game would come down to making free throws. So our focus, you know, got on to defense and free throws. So I think that enabled us to step up to the line and knock them down. Q. For any of the players, this now -- y'all make it four teams from the state of Ohio going on in the final 16. Is that just a little comment about the state of basketball in Ohio and how nice is it to join the party, so to speak? THE MODERATOR: Sean, to take that. SEAN KILPATRICK: I didn't know that coming into this game or even afterwards. I mean, we were just so amped about being in the Sweet 16. We're just quite worried about Cincinnati, on what we have to focus on to win the next game. Q. Yancy Gates, what lessons did you learn this year about the meaning of toughness? YANCY GATES: I mean, a lot. Just how to stay tough and focused down the stretch of games, you know, really, basically that's about it. Learning how to step up to the free throw line at the end of the games, knocking them down. Nothing major, really. Q. You guys are a physically tough team, mentally tough team, but how do you keep focused on offense and thriving offensively when they're so good defensively? You know you can do it, but time and time again, you come down and you have tough, tough plays. How do you come out of that with an offensive success in the end? YANCY GATES: Confidence in each other and in ourselves. You know, the whole time on the game, Dion missed the open shot and I told him, "Dude, make the shot, quit playing around, just get focused and make the shot, you know." Got a lot of confidence in each other whether it's me, Dion, the two in the crowd, J.D, doesn't matter. We have a lot of confidence in each other to make plays on offense in any given. THE MODERATOR: For any of the players, you mentioned amped to be going to the Sweet 16. Considering some of the toughness this team has dealt with this season, that make this trip and playing next weekend even more special? JAQUON PARKER: Going to the Sweet 16 is all cool, but, I mean, like we thinking way, way better than that. We trying to get past the Sweet 16 and try and do bigger and better things. DION DIXON: It's confidence for us. Considering everything we've been through all year, you know, make it to the Sweet 16, it's just unreal, you know. Q. JaQuon, you had 11 rebounds down the stretch there with Yancy and Justin both with four fouls for like the last four, five minutes. Did you feel like you really had to step up there or was that just kind of natural just out there playing your game? JAQUON PARKER: Like, I knew just because we play four guards, that somebody got to go down there and try to mix it up a little bit with the big fellas. I just try to go out there and just help Gates and Jackson and just do anything to win. Q. Sean, you can answer this. Ohio State played one time in the last 40-something years, like four, five years ago in '06 with you. What does in a mean to play that school? SEAN KILPATRICK: I'm not that big on the history. We're kind young to think about that. It will be a great challenge. I mean, both teams have great talent, and it will be another game like this one or even more tougher. I mean, we know how tough they are, but we're also a tough team as well. I mean, we haven't gotten this far off of just being soft any night. We're a tough team. THE MODERATOR: Anyone else? Thank you, guys. Okay. Q. Mick, what about playing Ohio State? It's pretty well-documented that they haven't been real -- to play them on this stage with the way your kids are playing right now? COACH CRONIN: I have great respect for their program. Other than that, they're the next team we play. You know, these guys have a goal. We have a goal, and, you know, we get in the tournament to win it. I want my guys thinking that way because I believe in them. It's important that they know that I believe we're capable of winning the whole tournament. We're capable of winning any game we play. They pose tremendous matchup problems because of the way Deshaun Thomas is playing lately. He's been off the charts the times I've seen him. But other than that, just for us, we got eight wins over ranked opponents. Looks like we're going to have to keep doing that. Q. Coach, was Dixon's play, was that the kind of play that y'all needed to kind of just ignite things there at the end? COACH CRONIN: I told the guys before the game that a game like this, we needed to get steals and we had 19 points off turnovers and 13 steals. That doesn't happen, we weren't going to win. Florida State with their size and their senior lay defense team, they're so trained and well coached defensively, the adjustments that their kids make on their own, over and above how prepared they are, makes it so hard to score. We had to get some transition baskets. I told the guys this is going to come down to easy baskets. We're going to have to get some easy baskets. Dion's play was the difference in the game. But, you know, other guys made big shots for us, but that was a tremendous play on his part, you know, reading the passing lanes. Great anticipation. Q. What do you come out of these two wins feeling like you maybe need to prove on going forward with your team? COACH CRONIN: Well, obviously our offense left a lot to be desired in the first half, and, you know, the thing about it is, when you play good teams, you find they exploit your weaknesses, so you're able to watch the film and go back and try to find areas where you can get better. You know, we can always get better in our half-court execution, because that's really what it boils down to. You're going to have to get some baskets in 5-on-5's, get yourself to the free throw line and get your better players the ball from an area where they can be effective. You know, I will say that's tough to -- I knew -- Yancy was going -- it was going to be a tough night for him because the way Florida State plays low post defense. That's an area I think we can definitely improve getting him some deeper touches more often and playing off of that. Defensively we're pretty good. We need to make sure we stay that way, because the road ahead of us has got a lot of land mines. Q. Yancy Gates arrived with such high expectations being a hometown guy. How is he in dealing with those expectations initially, and what's the biggest way in which he's kind of grown over these four years? COACH CRONIN: Just maturity. He's not a prep school guy. He wasn't held back in the eighth grade. He's very young senior for this day and age in college basketball. You know, I told him -- he's gotten a crash course in life and learning who your friends are, learning what's important and, you know, how to mentally be able to deal with tough times and pressure, and ultimately he's made it through because of his family. He has a great family. It's very tough to be a local player in this day and age in college basketball, let alone sign up to help build a program that's been devastated and just joined the Big East. I don't think any player in the history of our program, and we've got a storied history, has really had the weight of the world on his shoulders that he has during his time at our school. That's what I told him late in the game, you know, I'm happy for him to see him make those free throws. He's a different guy. The problem in college basketball, though, guys, everybody wants John Wall. Everybody wants one and out. That's not what our game is about. It's a bad rule anyway, you know if the pros would change it. But, you know, you saw tonight from Florida State's seniors, we played against Luke Loucks as a freshman, the development of their older guys, what they've been through. That's what college basketball is all about. I was just really happy for Yancy and Dion to reap the benefits of all their hard work for four years. I'm obviously very proud of them. Q. Coach, thinking back to your press conference after that Xavier game when you talked about what happened that night wasn't what you see was all about and whatever, how do you put that all in perspective of the way this team has come back together and playing? COACH CRONIN: Well, two things. One, obviously I'm happy for my kids, because it needs to be about them and that's what I try to -- that's what we needed to apologize and understand what really happened in that situation. But then from that point on, I told them I'm not going to let people take your season away from you, you know, because we played a mistake. But I would give all the credit to our university, our president and our A.D. who were so supportive and talked to the kids so we could get past it. We were able to get past it because the leadership of our university -- we disciplined the guys that did wrong, we apologized, and then we told them how much we loved them, what we expected of them, and moved on. As a group we just focused on -- we knew who we really are. We really focused on making sure we were having fun and not letting that define us, you know. That's a big, big part of what I try to do in my program is make sure that our kids know. And anytime I speak to young kids, you can't let other people define who you are. We've been on a mission to define what Cincinnati basketball is all about, what our university and city is all about, and the kids have banded together to do that. It hasn't been easy. These guys' backs have been against the wall since that day. Not because of the issue, because we were 5-3 and our RPI was skyrocketing. It was going the wrong way in a hurry. We were so far from the NCAA Tournament, we couldn't see it with binoculars. So, these guys, they're prepared to play must-win games because we've been playing them since December 13th at Wright State. That's a must-win game. That's why we're such a battle-hardened team. The kids have really shown what they're made of, that's why I'm so proud of them. Q. How much of a factor do you think playing in the Big East conference where you're playing tough, physical, grind-it-out games all the time in big time arenas with loud crowds, I'll wondering in conference play and the how well you guys played the last month in the conference has helped you guys get to this point? COACH CRONIN: I 100 percent agree with you. You know, I know that Georgetown and South Florida lost close ones today. Almost had six teams from our conference. Coach Hamilton was highly successful in his, years if you look at his winning in Miami. His team plays like a Big East team. It was like a Big East draw all over again. But no doubt it's helped us, no doubt. In our league, there's nowhere to hide, you know. There's teams from our league with great coaches with losing records. You go back and really look at that and really understand how competitive. It's not that there's not great teams in other league, you know, but the depth of our league is -- and that makes it like the NBA, and you have to learn how to grind through it. And if you have a young team in our league, you almost have no chance. I mean -- because the grind will just eat you alive, but when you have a better team and a veteran team, the grind and -- and you get through it, it builds your confidence and you learn how to win a game like that. That's really -- that game is a microcosm -- obviously my guys are -- our local reporters told me that was even more physical and more of a war. Well, obviously it's win or go home. I don't want Charles Barkley with his fishing pole talking about going fishing. I didn't want to be going fishing. I don't fish anyway. Q. Are there any lessons do you think in the fact that both you guys and Xavier are in the Sweet 16? COACH CRONIN: Great for our city. But I don't make as much of that. That situation is long gone, it's over with. Young people make mistakes everyday across America, it's just not always on television. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Good luck to you. COACH CRONIN: Thanks guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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