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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTONMarch 20, 2013Matt BradyA.J. DavisAndre NationDAYTON, OHIO James Madison – 68 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with on opening statement by Coach Brady. When he's finished, we'll open the floor for questions for our student‑athletes. COACH BRADY: We are really excited to win a game in the NCAA Tournament. I'm really proud of our kids' effort. There was a couple minute stretch there in the second half where I thought we lost our poise and our composure just for a small stretch and let them get the game right back to a one‑possession game. I thought the second half our kids played really strong. I said to our kids at halftime that LIU, if you look at their box scores, they score about 30 percent more points in the second half almost every game this year than they do in the first half. As I look at the box score, I'm pleased we held them to 50 percent less points in the second half. So it was a good defensive effort for our team. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. In the second half, C.J., he seemed to get a couple of buckets, and then it seemed like your length frustrated him. How much of a factor did your size play in the matchup? ANDRE NATION: I think it played a big factor. We knew he was stronger, so we wanted to give him a little space and just beat him on length. Q. Andre, that team hadn't scored fewer than 58 points in a game all season. They had 90 the last four games they played. What does this say about your defense as a team and just the performance you guys have tonight? ANDRE NATION: Once we stick together, we're good defensively, we know that. So just staying together as a team and playing team defense, we knew we were going to get stops. Q. What do you guys know about Indiana, and what do you know about Friday's matchup? ANDRE NATION: We know they got No. 1 seed. So we know we're about to play one of the best teams in the country. They've got a big man, and they've got good guards. They're Indiana. We know about them.  We see them on the TV all the time. It's not nothing new. A.J. DAVIS: We know they've got a good post and good wings. We've got to contain them on defense. Coach has been stressing to us all year defense is going to win games for us. He's going to draw up a game plan for us to get it done on defense. Q. A.J., did your role change at all tonight with Rayshawn out for the first 20 minutes? You picked up right where you left off, it seemed like, right where you were in the last game? A.J. DAVIS: Coach said don't do anything outside of your character. Just be humble and play your game. While Rayshawn was sitting out, a couple of guys came off the bench and stepped up for us. So it was good until he came back in for the second half. Q. For both of you guys, how important was it to set the tempo in the first half? It seemed like at some points you almost aggravated them as a whole, just passing the ball and stuff? A.J. DAVIS: Coach told us to be confident and take good shots on offense and don't give out transition layups. That's what we did on offense, limit them to one shot so they didn't run out on transition and get back on defense. ANDRE NATION: Like he said, Coach wants us to take good shots. I know I took a couple of ill‑advised shots. We wanted to start on their tempo. We're a fast‑paced team too. They play faster than us, so we knew if we could get them to play to our tempo, then we were going to control the whole game, and I think we did a good job with that. Q. A.J., what was the key to slowing down Olasewere in the first half? I know he ended up with 20, but the first half, turnovers and blocked shots really held him down. A.J. DAVIS: It took all five guys on defense. We knew he was a good player. Coach stressed it to us day in and day out, if we wanted to win this game, the defensive game was going to do it for us. We had to be locked in. That's what it took for us, all five guys locked in on defense for us to win. Q. A.J., what's so different about the last 10, 11 games or so? Your numbers are so different than basically the entire season? A.J. DAVIS: My teammates are finding me. Coach is drawing up good plays for me. We're just playing confident within ourselves and playing within Coach's system. THE MODERATOR: A.J. and Andre, thank you for your time. Good luck with Indiana. We'll open the floor for questions for Coach Brady. Q. Do you expect Andre to have the sort of impact as a freshman? I know he's played on the biggest stage, and he contributed in all sorts of ways. Do you expect this throughout the year? COACH BRADY: He's further along with his basketball IQ than I recognize, but he's the athlete, and he's got the basketball ability that I recognize when we started recruiting him. But his basketball intellect and his IQ is much higher than I could have really speculated. He's becoming a really good teammate, and I think his shot selection is improved. I think he can do more on offense, but he's willing to wait his turn and just kind of be a role player. The defensive end, obviously, he's unique for our team, and I think even for our league. Q. What is the psychology involved as a coach in preparing your team to face a No. 1 seed like Indiana? COACH BRADY: We have some older guys. They're typically pretty unafraid of any of the challenges we face. We played UCLA first game of the year on the road in front of however many people. We played hard. They just seemed to make every single shot, especially in the first half. So I think we can reference that game. We didn't play great. They played great, I thought. They made a lot of shots. Now we have a neutral court. Obviously, I think Indiana is playing at an extraordinarily high level. I know their team well. I know their personnel. I haven't looked at anything they do. But for us, it's an opportunity to be in a game with the No. 1 seed in the country, and we're excited about the opportunity. Q. Coach, when Devon picked up his fourth with about eight minutes left, how long were you going to go with him on the bench? How close were you going to let it get? COACH BRADY: Devon Moore is a very cerebral defensive player. I was actually surprised he picked up his fourth on the play that he picked it up. That was a play where typically he'd let that guy‑‑ he'd challenge that shot in the air with his length where he'd put his hands forward. We played games in his career with eight minutes to go and leave him in the game, but we thought we had just enough cushion‑‑ we had a three‑possession‑plus advantage at that point. We were going to leave him in until it got to one or two possessions, and Ron Curry came in and did a nice job. Q. With the kind of weird weekend you had of high and low, that might have been traumatic for a lot of teams. Why wasn't it for your team? COACH BRADY: It's a great question. We've been through a lot of adversity in my five years. We lost a lot of players. We lost‑‑ our best shooter is in street clothes this year due to an injury. We didn't have him for the first six games. We had him back for the next six. We went 5‑1, lost him for the rest of the year. We've got two other guys, Andre Nation is playing with damage to his left hand. Charles Cooke broke his hand. Gene Swindle, our backup center, is out now. We've just played with a lot of adversity. I think at this level you can't really let it impact your team. You certainly can't use it as an excuse. We've never done it. In my five years, we've had five very different teams, and this is a very different team than last year. But this is a team that's playing well now, and we're not going to let them use any excuses, no matter the course or circumstances. Q. With Rayshawn on the bench, what did you think of your team's performance in the first half, and what was different in the second half? COACH BRADY: We played a lot without Rayshawn for a number of reasons. One, he was injured. He missed a game and won a game without him and went small. We certainly don't want to do that in two days' time. We're not going to be able to play very small. We'll go with a different lineup probably the next game because we'll have to have some size on the floor or we'll get crushed on the glass. Now we're going to play some front‑court guys more than we did today. There are games we played without Rayshawn when we needed to go offense to defense. I thought Rayshawn rushed a couple of shots on the rim today, but I'm glad he got in the game. What I'll say about Rayshawn is he's as nice a young fella as I've ever coached, and I've done this for 20 years. I think he feels remorseful and feels he let his teammates down. He apologized to his teammates the other day, and we all felt somber about the situation. He's a terrific kid from a very disadvantaged background. He made one mistake, and we're trying to move on. Q. Could you talk about what this first NCAA win means to you. COACH BRADY: Well, it's significant. There's no escaping that. I think it's great for all head coaches when they have an opportunity to do it and your first chance. Some of the greats of the game have been in the NCAA Tournament and have struck out for a few years at a time. That really says more about this team than it does me. I think these seniors really wanted the opportunity to win a game for our program, and I feel great for our kids. As I said to our kids before we went to CAA Tournament last weekend, this is the experience of a lifetime we'll never forget, and Friday will be the most significant experience that any of them will ever have. So we're going to hope we play great. Q. You mentioned using size. Is Gene going to be available for Friday? COACH BRADY: No. Gene Swindle is out. Q. What's he out with? COACH BRADY: He has a partial torn meniscus, we think. He didn't practice today. Q. The other thing is you guys being here since Monday, how much do you think that helps you against Indiana? Do you feel like you need to play almost a perfect game? COACH BRADY: I'm hoping they haven't arrived in town just yet and they get here right before the game starts. I don't know that we have any advantages. I think the only advantage we have is we just played a game in the NCAA Tournament. I was an assistant at St. Joe's. We were the No. 1 seed in the country in 2004. Every basketball player and every coach has jitters when the ball gets thrown up until it becomes a game. We have to hope we can get past those jitters a little bit to make it competitive and stay in the game for the duration. Q. Can you talk about Charles Cooke a little bit. Didn't score in three of the last four games. Goes off for 15 tonight. COACH BRADY: He's a talented young guy. We knew when we recruited him he's a guy with a lot of potential. He's got great confidence in his game. He had 15 in previous games this year on six shots. He's a long terrific kid who truly just learned how to play. There's times when I think he's going to be the best freshman of the group. We play four a lot. Charles comes from a great basketball program. He played against some of the best players in the country in AAU basketball. He's obviously also not scared out there. THE MODERATOR: Coach Brady, thank you for your time. Good luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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