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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 19, 2013Cy AlexanderJeremy UnderwoodAustin WitterDAYTON, OHIO North Carolina A&T – 73 THE MODERATOR: We're now being joined by the head coach of North Carolina A&T Cy Alexander, as well as student‑athletes Austin Witter and Jeremy Underwood. We'll start with an opening statement by Coach Alexander and open the floor for questions to our student‑athletes only. COACH ALEXANDER: I want to commend Liberty University for a very good game. Either team could have won the game. I thought that John Sanders and Davon Marshall and Speaks all played tremendously well on offense. On the other hand, I thought our young men showed a lot of resilience because Liberty didn't back down, and we would go up a little bit, and they would keep coming back. I thought our defense again got a couple of turnovers for us and allowed us several breakaway opportunities. I was not pleased with our inability to make free throws down the stretch. I think we could have iced the game about 30 seconds earlier had we made free throws, but hopefully we'll make them on Thursday. I commend Austin Witter late in the game. He had a couple blocks, and he had really just enough at the end to alter the shot just slightly, and we walk away with the first NCAA Tournament victory for North Carolina A&T. So we're pleased to be moving on, survive and advance, and that's what this whole deal is all about. Q. This is for Austin. Just seemed like John Caleb drove towards you on that last play. What did you see on the last play, and what were you trying to do to stop the drive? AUSTIN WITTER: I knew we were up 1 at the time. I knew he was going to go to the rim, and I just wanted to play off of him. I seen him a couple times during the game trying to jump into our players' body. So I just tried to jump back, keep my hands back, and use my length to alter the shot. I believe I got a little piece of it, but I'm not really sure. I think I did just enough to get it off. Q. This is for either player. After all the struggles the program's had in the past 15 years, it's the first winning season since '95, how does it feel to bring a first NCAA Tournament win after all the struggles that they've had? JEREMY UNDERWOOD: It feels great. We worked very, very hard over the last three years, since I've been here. We've worked very hard. We always believed in ourselves. We never stopped believing in ourselves. We just kept working hard, and we pulled it out. It showed that hard work pays off. Q. Jeremy, it seemed like in the second half Davon hit a couple of 3‑pointers, and they put you in on Davon, and you kind of held him down for a couple of minutes. What were you trying to do to get in his face or try to make it more difficult for him to make the shots? JEREMY UNDERWOOD: I just know that he like to shoot 3s. So I just try to stay very close to him, and I didn't let him get comfortable. Let him get his feet set. I try to stay comfortable and disrupt him a little bit, stay close to him and disrupt him, and it worked. Q. Were there any nerves at the start of the game? Or if there were, when did they wear off? How were you guys feeling going into the game? JEREMY UNDERWOOD: We weren't nervous at all. We were more so happy. It's been a long time. So we were more so happy to be on the floor and to have the opportunity to play in front of this crowd on this stage. So it wasn't really any nervousness on my end. Q. Jeremy, for you again. It seemed like you were creating a lot of your own offense in this game. Just what was your kind of mindset on offense? What were you trying to do to create your own offense? JEREMY UNDERWOOD: The first half I seen that I had the hot hand. I didn't miss the first half. So I seen that I had the hot hand, and I just kept going. My teammates believed in me, and they kept letting me go. My coach believed in me. I told him I wanted to run certain plays, and I felt like I could produce off of certain plays, and he had confidence in me. I just went out there and made it happen. Q. For both of you, I was just wondering, it's a pretty good sized crowd, wondering how it felt playing out there the opening tournament with everybody watching you? JEREMY UNDERWOOD: It was very, very exciting. We have a nice crowd at A&T, but nothing like this crowd. Very exciting for us, and we were just more so happy to play, happy to have the opportunity to play on this stage. AUSTIN WITTER: I didn't really even notice how many people were in there until around halftime when I looked up into the stands, and I seen the darker upper area, and I seen all the people up there. I was excited. I knew it was going to be packed from before, when we started playing, and that's the kind of stage you wish you could play on every day. That's what you‑‑ as a Division I basketball player, that's what you wish, that's what you dream of. Q. You guys, I'm sure, know that a 16 has never beaten a 1 in this tournament. Not only do you get a 1, but you get the No. 1 1. Wondering if you have any thoughts about this statistic and that you're playing, at least according to the tournament seedings, the best team in the country. AUSTIN WITTER: That's just a statistic. We're still going to go out there and play hard, play our game, and no matter what, we're going to try to get the win. THE MODERATOR: Austin and Jeremy, thank you for your time. Good luck. Now we'll open the floor for questions for Coach Alexander. Q. Coach, obviously, this is your first year at A&T, but you are very familiar with A&T, and I'm sure you've been made familiar with A&T's history in this tournament over this year. What does it mean for you, what does it mean for the alumni that you've talked to, for the former players and fans, to finally break through and get this win? COACH ALEXANDER: I think the whole entire A&T community, the Greensboro community, and the alumni of A&T are all very proud of what these young men have done this past year. It's been a long time, and for a while, A&T was in this tournament for seven consecutive years in a row, and all of a sudden it kind of went south for whatever reason. I was the opposing coach at South Carolina State University, and we had the opportunity to go to the tournament five times while I was there as a head coach. So just the e‑mails and texts I've had over the last‑‑ since we beat Morgan State on Saturday, just everybody just elated over the‑‑ where the program has come in a one‑year period. When I got the job last May, we talked about trying to win a championship for our seven seniors, and them understanding, and I told them, that they had to play a heck of a lot harder than I saw them playing on film. They bought into my philosophy of playing hard, playing smart, playing together, and playing with confidence, and defense. We're one of the better defensive teams in the country. Tonight, fortunately for us, we shot some amazing shots. We don't normally do this. So, again, I'm just very proud and pleased with how everyone has bought into what I've been trying to sell to the university and to our team and whatnot. Q. What is it about the MEAC that's brought you so much success? You mentioned your career at South Carolina State, and you struggled a little bit at Tennessee State, and then you're back and in your first year you win a tournament game. What is it about this conference? COACH ALEXANDER: I don't know. It's a good conference with good coaches. I've been blessed to have a good group of players at South Carolina State, and I have a good group of men who have grown this year. I think this run, two things it will do for our university. One, it's going to be a tremendous boost for our recruiting, and, two, it's going to be a tremendous boost as far as overall student applications, as far as the student‑‑ we have about 11,000. This is a very good school academically, engineering and technology. So hopefully everybody can benefit from the success that the men's basketball program is having. Q. For those of us who are uneducated, haven't seen you guys play, haven't seen you coach previously, are you always so‑‑ your body language so expressed like that? COACH ALEXANDER: Yeah. Q. It seemed like you were kind of willing a lot of that. Is that something you just developed over the years? COACH ALEXANDER: I had to do that with this team. This team never won before. When you get a team‑‑ and hopefully over the years I can kind of slow down, and they'll understand. But when you're working with a group of guys that never won, they don't know that every play is important, every defensive possession is important, every offensive possession. And we still take plays off, and when we take plays off, I try to play the play for them and let them know that I guarded a guy for them surreptitiously. But, no, having to help them understand how hard‑‑ I feel like if they see me working hard, they'll understand how hard they have to work. Q. Cy, Jeremy said he wasn't nervous. What was your read on the players before the game and as they took the court?  What kind of vibe were you getting from them? COACH ALEXANDER: I thought they were focused. The thing that we asked them to do every game is be focused but try to be relaxed. I thought in this particular game it's very, very important to be focused, but it's probably even more important to be relaxed. We didn't change anything that we normally do, our normal routine, our normal pregame talk, our normal pregame workout, and they seemed to be focused. We had film today. We had shootaround. We tried to keep it as normal as possible. To me, I didn't see any abnormalities as far as in their actions and whatnot. Q. You talk about your defense and how important it is to you. You might have discussed this already in your opening statement, but what happened on the last play, did you see how your defense reacted to Sanders as he went coast to coast? COACH ALEXANDER: Well, we were just hoping that someone would cut him off, and what I was probably more afraid of was nobody not fouling him because I knew he was going to try to penetrate and try to draw some body contact, and I thought that was a very smart play on Austin's part not to jump into him but kind of give him a little space and then just jump and hopefully get a little bit of the ball. I think he touched it a little bit. I'm not quite sure. But my biggest fear was that he was going to create a foul because he's very good off the dribble as well as his ability to shoot the 3‑point shot. Q. I'm sure you want to savor the victory for a little bit. How long do you do that before you start worrying about Louisville? What do you tell your team about playing a team like that? COACH ALEXANDER: We talked about it already in the locker room. And we as coaches will go eat as a team, and then about 10:00 tonight, we'll work from 10:00 to about 12:30 on Louisville. With modern technology, we'll have film on them in 30 minutes, with synergy and stuff like that. We'll watch the last‑‑ I think it was the championship game in the Big East maybe. We'll watch that game tonight. We told the players don't worry about Louisville tonight. Just relax and enjoy some basketball on TV. We'll let them worry about Louisville when we get to Lexington tomorrow. Q. You mentioned being displeased with the two missed free throws down the stretch. What's going through your mind as Adrian misses and Lamont misses? COACH ALEXANDER: Here we go. That's what's going through my mind. I felt that these two guys are two of our better offensive players. So Adrian came through, and Lamont came through in the MEAC championship game. I'm hoping they still got it in them to come through tonight. I looked up at the scoreboard, and we weren't in the double bonus, so I'm saying, uh‑oh, we've got to make one of them, and he missed the first one. So actually, I told him, when we got the ball in, don't be trying to get fouled. Move the ball. And Lamont did just the opposite of what I asked him to do. He holds the ball, and he gets fouled. I said, well, I hope he knows what he's doing. Obviously, he didn't. But we did‑‑ it was just not enough time. Again, the key deal was us being smart enough defensively not to allow Sanders to create contact and draw a foul. Q. Coach, I know you weren't there all these years, but how close did A&T ever get to a win in the NCAA Tournament? Do you know? COACH ALEXANDER: I'm not sure. I'll tell you who would know. One of my assistants, he's the son of Don Corbett, the legendary coach at A&T, and he's an A&T historian. I'll ask him, and you give me your e‑mail address, and I'll e‑mail it to you. I don't know. Corbett would know. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. Good luck against Louisville. AUSTIN WITTER: Is John Caleb Sanders. AUSTIN WITTER: Is Tomasz Gielo. #38G is Davon Marshall. PLAYER 3: Is Davon Marshall. THE MODERATOR: I'm joined by the head coach of Liberty Dale Layer, as well as student‑athletes, Davon Marshall, Tavares Speaks, and John Caleb Sanders. AUSTIN WITTER: Is Tavares Speaks. Sorry. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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