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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 18, 2013Randy BennettMatt DellavedovaStephen HoltDAYTON, OHIO THE MODERATOR: We're being joined by Saint Mary's student‑athletes Stephen Holt and Matthew Dellavedova. Q. Matthew, can you kind of talk about the last 24 hours and just kind of the crazy‑‑ having to travel halfway across the country and just what the last 24 hours have been like for you guys. MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: Well, we just found out who we were playing and then just met as a team. We weren't sure if we were going to leave that night or in the morning, so we just went home and packed and then had another meeting and then just left this morning. Q. Matthew, you guys have been here before, so you kind of know what to expect. Can you be satisfied just getting here? How much is the hunger there to win and to advance? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: We're definitely not just happy to be here. We've been working all year to keep getting better, firstly to make the tournament, but once we got here, we want to win some games. Last year we lost to Purdue when we were up and probably should have won that game. So we're definitely not just happy to be here. We know each game is going to be tough, it's knockout, but, yeah, we're extremely hungry to win this game tomorrow. Q. Randy talked yesterday about the previous three practices you guys had had was working on things to improve what you had done. What's one specific thing that you guys needed to work on to improve coming off of what you did in Vegas? STEPHEN HOLT: I thought we had a solid practice leading up to this moment today, and it's mainly just focusing on us. We play a lot on getting up and down as far as scrimmaging. Just trying to get our offensive touch back since we didn't shoot the ball too well in our conference tournament in Vegas. We're very confident coming into our game tomorrow versus Middle Tennessee. So we're just excited to be here, but at the same time, know we're focused and ready to compete. Q. Stephen, can you talk about you guys were here last year in the tournament and three or four years now for Saint Mary's, how much does the experience play and how important is it for you guys knowing what to expect here? STEPHEN HOLT: Expectation is very key. Since we've been down this road before, we know the process and what to expect. For me, this is my second time going to the round, and this is Delle's (Dellavedova) third time. We're very experienced, and overall us having pretty much the bulk of the team from last year back coming in for this game, we're having our goals a lot higher than last year, seeing how many games we can win, and we're just really excited to get back on the floor and compete. Last time we went out, we lost to Gonzaga. So just to get the rust out and go out and compete with our brothers and stuff, that's the main thing we're excited about. Q. Given your relatively high RPI and the success that you've had, especially in the last 2 1/2 months, are you at all surprised that you're here? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: Don't really look at all that bracketology stuff. That's more Levesque's job on our team. He just gives me the updates, so I don't know too much about that. But we're here now, and we're going to be ready to play tomorrow. Q. Matt, you talked a lot the last couple of weeks about this senior class, wanting to keep the season going as long as you can. Up until this time, you knew you had another game to play no matter what you did. After tomorrow, you don't really have another game. Does that affect anything in terms of preparation, in terms of how you feel when you go out there? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: I don't think so. I mean, we've been playing‑‑ I think we've been playing as hard as any Saint Mary's team I've played on, and we've been leaving it all out there each game. We definitely want to keep playing together for as long as we can. So, yeah, we're going to be excited to play, but at the same time, we know you've got to win, or it's all over. Q. Matthew, Middle Tennessee's best defender is Bruce Massey, their point guard. I don't know how familiar you guys are with him yet, but do you see that as a challenge him going head to head with you? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: Well, I hadn't seen him too much before last night, but I watched a bit of the conference tournament game and got the semifinal to watch now. But, yeah, they're a physical team, and they play hard. The first three minutes of the game, there were three or four loose balls, and they were all diving on the ground for that. So, yeah, it's going to be a tough matchup, but they crash the boards hard as well. I expect it to be a pretty physical game. Q. Stephen, three years at Saint Mary's, have you ever had bagpipers greet you when you got off the bus? STEPHEN HOLT: No, that was the first time that's ever happened. It was a unique experience. The hotel staff was great at welcoming us in and making us feel at home. That was pretty funny when we got off the bus, I would have to say. Q. Stephen, can you just talk about the last 24 hours, what it's been like for you. Is this such a whirlwind of finding out when you're playing and how quickly you've got to get around and how long is the flight? Just talk about how long this last 24 hours has been. STEPHEN HOLT: It kind of went kind of as I predicted. It's kind of a whirlwind right when we got announced to come here and out to Dayton. We weren't sure pretty much if we were coming out that night or leaving the next morning. Once we found out we were leaving the next morning, it was all about game mode and preparation, getting my stuff packed, hopping on the plane, making sure I got my rest. Lo and behold, we're here now about ready to practice and game tomorrow. So it went pretty fast pretty much. Q. Granted you haven't seen a lot of Middle Tennessee, but of what you have seen, is there anybody in the WCC to which you compare them? MATTHEW DELLAVEDOVA: I saw that they throw out a bit of 1‑3‑1 sometimes, like half‑court press. USF does a little bit of that. I mean, it's a bit of a different style. There's probably not one team you'd compare them to. THE MODERATOR: Stephen and Matthew, thank you for your time. Good luck tomorrow night. We're joined by the head coach of Saint Mary's Gaels, Randy Bennett. COACH BENNETT: I was just asked on the radio interview, Does it seem right that you're playing in this play‑in game against Middle Tennessee with the years‑‑ the kind of season we've had? And the answer was pretty easy. We're excited to be in the tournament, and it's so hard to get in the tournament. Whatever you play nowadays in the tournament, you're going to have a tough opponent, and we do. It's a little different in that the turnaround time is so short, I think your preparation is definitely different. It's almost all logistics, when you're flying out, where you're staying, when is your shootaround time, when is your media time, what gym are you doing your walk‑through in. I think the focus is more on getting your team ready to play and not as much about the opponent you're playing. You just don't have much time to prepare for the other opponent with 48 hours' notice. It's just as exciting. It's a little bit more exciting because it happens so quick. You don't have time to dwell on it. As I said, we're excited to be in the NCAA Tournament. What a great event. Probably the best sporting event in the country. Q. Can you fill us in a little bit, Coach, on the logistics, kind of the timeline of what you guys went through from the time you found out you were making the tournament until the time you found out you had to come here. COACH BENNETT: I'll tell you this, I didn't see the rest of the show. We were in the first bracket, and once I saw our name called and we were playing Tuesday, it was a mad scramble. Are we getting out on a plane tonight? Because we had a text that said there's a plane waiting for you and we could fly out tonight. We tried to do that, but that didn't work out. Had trouble getting a crew to fly the plane, which is kind of important. So we just came out early this morning and just got here about an hour and a half ago. I think we left our school at 6:15 a.m. and flew out and checked in the hotel and came over here. So we're just getting adjusted to being out here on a little time change and a little geographical change. So we're here, and we're going to try and get some things done tonight practice‑wise and get ready to play tomorrow. Q. I know you've got the history with Kermit back at Idaho. Was there ever a conversation there: One day we're both going to be head coaches and we're going to make the NCAAs and we're going to play each other? Any other conversations back years back like that? COACH BENNETT: I don't know if they even remember my name back then. I was low man on the totem pole. I know I was doing all the gofer work and running around. I was pretty naive to the whole deal back then. I was just trying to do the grad school thing and learn as much as I could. At that time, you don't know. You don't know Tim Floyd is going to be Tim Floyd. You don't know Larry Eustachy is going to be Larry Eustachy. You don't know Kermit Davis is going to be Kermit Davis. I do know this. I was the one learning a lot, and I was the one‑‑ I'm sure they were too, but they knew so much more about college basketball than I did at that time. I was just trying to soak it all up. I didn't even know what I didn't know. I was‑‑ yeah, I was learning all the way. Kermit was great to me. They all were. All three of those guys. Kermit was kind of‑‑ he was like the second assistant, so he kind of looked after me, and he was the guy that I would usually go to with the questions. I thought back then‑‑ I thought he was a really sharp basketball mind. I thought he had a good feel for the game and understood things. So I learned a lot those two years. Like I said, I'm not sure they knew my name back then, but I'm glad they helped me along the way. Q. As a follow-up to his question, have you kept in touch with Kermit much over the years? Have you talked to him recently? COACH BENNETT: Yeah, I talk to him probably once or twice a year, whenever I see him or something comes up where we need to talk. I follow his team. I follow his program. They've been good for a while. He's done a great job at Middle Tennessee State. And all the way along, when he was an assistant at LSU and before that, Texas A&M. I wouldn't say we stay in touch like on a regular basis, but we do touch base probably once or twice a year. Q. You say you obviously know Kermit. I don't know how much you've studied Middle Tennessee in the past 24 hours. Is there any team in the WCC to which you compare Middle Tennessee, if there's a comparison? COACH BENNETT: I was thinking about that before I came over here because I thought I'd get that question, and they‑‑ you know what they're like? A San Diego team, not now, but a few years back when they were very athletic and strong and played very good half‑court man defense. That's what they are. They're an athletic, strong, physically gifted team. They're not‑‑ I mean, I haven't seen them in person, but they're not super tall or‑‑ I mean, we have teams in our league that are bigger, but I don't know if we have any teams that are more athletic and stronger. They remind me of the old Southern Illinois teams that we used to battle the first time we played in the NCAA Tournament, and we played them a couple of years after that, and those teams were sticky defensively, they're grindy. They played the ball hard, and they're physically strong. Q. Coach, both of these teams have plenty of experience coming back from last year's team. Your team has NCAA Tournament experience, Middle's doesn't. Is there a value to having that type of experience at the tournament? COACH BENNETT: I think so. I think there's a value just to have been in the NCAA Tournament. There's some things that happen in the NCAA Tournament that are a little different than a regular season game. Whether it's the media press conferences, whether it's the 40 minutes on the main court, whether it's the pressure of‑‑ or the excitement of being in the NCAA Tournament, all those things are‑‑ just like anything else, I think experience is valuable. It's helped our programs over the years that we've‑‑ the last six years we've been in the postseason. Four of those have been in the NCAA Tournament. So we have players that are going through the process a second and a third time. So I think that helps. But it doesn't‑‑ I know it helps us. I know it makes me feel more comfortable as a coach, and I think our players are a little more comfortable with the whole process. I don't know if it means anything as far as winning the game. Q. Can you talk a little bit about how not having Jorden Page tomorrow affects you guys and who you might have starting in his place. COACH BENNETT: We'll start Jordan Giusti in his place. We started Jordan Giusti the second half in some games. So he's probably been playing as much or more than Jorde Page. We'll miss Jorde. He's a guy that's a play maker offensively. He's a guy that's been in the NCAA Tournament‑‑ this is his third year his team has made it to the NCAA Tournament out of three. The one year he redshirted, we didn't make it. We were in the NIT. So he's experienced. He's scoring, and he's play making. He's solid in some other areas too. Those are the areas I'm concerned with missing, especially play making. Q. We haven't seen James Walker in a little bit. Is he going to see some action? COACH BENNETT: I'm not sure James will play or not. Giusti's come on for us and really played well. McCoy's been coming on. So those guys have kind of made a little late season surge. I'm not sure what would happen with James. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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