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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: KANSAS CITYMarch 21, 2013Jamal CrookGeorge FantRay HarperT.J. PriceKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI JOE DALFONSO: We're joined by Western Kentucky student‑athletes. Questions, please. Q. When you think of 16 seeds, you think of teams from the Northeastern Conference, lesser leagues. You don't think of Western Kentucky with your tradition. I don't want to say insult, but how do you take it that you're a 16 seed? JAMAL CROOK: I mean, you know, sometimes that's just how it goes. You can't really look at the seeding. You just got to know you got to go in and play basketball. That's our main focus. We're looking beyond the seeds. We got Kansas. That's our main focal point. GEORGE FANT: I definitely agree. I don't think they were trying to disrespect or anything. It's the seeding. It how it goes. They pick who they want to be certain places, certain seeding. We got the 16 seed. Q. Jamal, how have the last couple days of practice been? Do you feel ready to go tomorrow? JAMAL CROOK: Just been going over Kansas stuff. I mean, I think we're all ready to go. We've been preparing the way we should be. I think we'll go out tomorrow ready to go. Q. When you watch film of Kansas, what is the first thing that really sticks out to you that makes them so good? T.J. PRICE: Just mainly how they defense really stand out for anything. You can tell they defense get them going a lot. Even if they struggling on the offensive side, they'll pick up their defense, then they can keep on going. But they defense is really impressive. GEORGE FANT: Yeah, definitely their defense. Like he said, they don't have the offense going, they rely on the defense. I think they have the defensive Player of the Year in the conference on their team, Jeff Withey. They also move the ball a lot, really quickly. They don't hang on to the ball too much with one person. That's another big thing. I'm not sure how many assists and turnovers they have. I know they're pretty good at it. Q. Jamal, you have struggled in terms of turnovers all season. Coach has talked earlier this week how important it is not to turn over the ball. How do you eliminate those turnovers? JAMAL CROOK: Just handling ball pressure. Anything they throw at us we have to handle it. Especially when we pass it to the wings, our guys are going to have to meet the passes, be strong with the ball. Mainly just handling pressure. Q. Do you do like what football players do, carry around the basketball all day? JAMAL CROOK: No, sir. Q. What did you get out of last year? You were a 16 seed last year, but you won a play‑in game, then took on Kentucky. GEORGE FANT: I think the main thing we got out of it was they also had a great shot‑blocker on their team, UK, like they do at Kansas now. I definitely try to tell some of the younger guys, the guys that haven't been there, haven't been on this stage before. I mean, it's hard to tell them not to be nervous. I tell you right now I'll be nervous when we first get out there. I'll just try to explain to them it's going to be a hard game, physical, get a lot of calls. You got to go out there and play, play through things. T.J. PRICE: I would say something that we got out of this is we can come in with confidence. Last year when we played Kentucky, they was the No.1 seed. We also were in that game. We came out playing hard, didn't worry about what everybody else was saying. I feel like we coming to this game knowing that we can beat Kansas, not just compete with them or be happy to be in the NCAA tournament. It's different from this year. We won the play‑in game and happy we made it. This year we want to penetrate instead of just being glad to be here. Q. T.J., you had the hot hand at the Sunbelt tournament. Are you worrying about Kansas keying in on you? T.J. PRICE: I'm not worried at all. My main thing is just to let the big fella right here go to work, just like he did in the championship game. He carried us and we got the win. I'm not too worried about them focusing on me. Just more than me out there. There's the other four players, too. Q. George, you were able to get to the Sunbelt tournament, win the whole thing. There were a couple nights when not all three of you were playing well. How important tomorrow is it for all three of you to be on top of your game playing Kansas? GEORGE FANT: That's the beauty of this team. There's not just one guy. This team is full of guys that can fill the rim up, not even guys just sitting up here at this table. You haven't mentioned Aleksejs, you haven't mentioned Brandon. Other guys on our team that can fill the rim up. But, yeah, it's important for not just us three, but our whole team to come out there and give us something. If it's diving on a ball for a 50/50 ball, knocking an open shot, grabbing a rebound, anything they can go out there and give us. Q. George, did you watch any of the end of the Southern/Gonzaga game? Does something like that give you inspiration or is it totally unrelated? GEORGE FANT: We just got done watching actually. I credit both teams. They played really hard. But, yeah, I guess you could say that. We're not trying to base ourselves off what they're doing. We're going to do what we do best, which is play ball. It's what we all grew up doing. We all wanted to be on this stage. We're here now. We just want to go out there and play as best as possible, try to get a win. Q. You've done it the hard way. Last year you overcame that 5‑11 start to win your conference. This year you had to win four again. What is it about you guys that you have to do it the hard way? JAMAL CROOK: We just believe. That's the main thing. We have faith. Put a lot of faith in God. I mean, there's going to be times when things aren't going your way. That's where the belief come in. Unfortunately we had our struggles and we had 'em last year. You know, just looking back on last year, onto this year, that belief kicked in when it needed to, and that's what got us through. T.J. PRICE: Same what Jamal just said. Last year we had some major struggles. This year our struggles was injuries. Trying to push us back this year. Once again, that belief came in that we'll never quit. We came as a big family this year. We were like really brothers and we'll never give up on each other. That's what we did. We believed that we can win. We believed we could do it in four days again. That's what we did, we never gave up on each other. Q. Coach Self made the point earlier that Coach Harper has the most national titles of any coach in this tournament. Has he been giving y'all any specific tournament tips this week? GEORGE FANT: Not just tournament tips, just basketball tips in general. He's right, Coach Harper does have the most championships. It's not for any reason, it's for a good reason: he's a great coach. He knows the game. He knows how to prepare for a big game. That's what we've been doing. We've been preparing a big game. Fortunately we have a couple guys on our team that live for big games like this, so we're going to see what happens. Q. For all the tradition that you have, you still have to operate under the shadow of Kentucky and Louisville. How do you deal with that? GEORGE FANT: You don't really deal with it. Those two schools have great tradition, along with us. They're not the only two schools in there. They have really good tradition. They've been winning for a long time. Fan base, they're in big cities. We're just in little Bowling Green, I guess. We get great players that come through Western. We're just building our tradition better and better every year. We're not really worried about Louisville or Kentucky. That's pretty much it. We don't try to live in their shadow, out‑do them or anything, we just play basketball. JOE DALFONSO: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. Best of luck tomorrow. We're joined by Western Kentucky head coach Ray Harper. We'll ask coach to open up with a statement about his club and then go to questions. COACH HARPER: Well, I'm happy to be inside where it's warm and not outside where Bill ordered this cold weather. But we're excited about the opportunity. We know the challenges that lie ahead. So looking forward to it. JOE DALFONSO: Questions, please. Q. Would you rather be playing at Municipal where you won some championships? COACH HARPER: I like Municipal. This seems like a newer arena, but I enjoyed Municipal. Q. How do you handle being a 16 seed, a program that's had so much success in this tournament? COACH HARPER: Just like if we were a No.1 seed. They're going to throw it up tomorrow night and hopefully we'll be ready to play. Like I say, we're not concerned about the seed or those type of things. We're excited to still be playing after some of the adversity and things we had to overcome this season. Q. You've really done it the hard way these last two years, having to win four games in your conference tournament. How has that maybe steeled this team a little bit? COACH HARPER: I don't know. I mean, this season we got off to a good start, then we just had so many injuries. We lost our starting point guard for six weeks, our leading scorer for five weeks, our starting small forward for eight weeks. The kid we projected to be our starting small forward, we lost for the season. Our backup point guard we lost for over four weeks with a hamstring injury. I think the biggest thing is we continue to compete, we continue to believe. Played pretty good basketball down the stretch. You know, we'll see what happens tomorrow night. Q. You talked about trying to prevent turnovers. That's kind of been what your team has done. As a coach, what can you do as far as execution? Any kind of tricks you can work with them on during the week to have them value the ball? COACH HARPER: We talked about it a lot. We worked on some things. It's going to be important that we not turn the basketball over. There's going to be a couple keys. I think handling their pressure, not turning it over, and second shots. Not giving them second and third opportunities. Hopefully we do a good job defensively and eliminate their number of second and third opportunities tomorrow night will be huge for us. Q. Coach Self said earlier that George Fant is a terrific player. How important will he be for you? COACH HARPER: He'll be big. We have a lot of guys that need to step up. It will be much like the tournament where we had different guys step up each game. We're going to need a lot of guys to step up and play well tomorrow night. Q. How have the last couple days been? Do you feel like your guys are about as ready as they can be? COACH HARPER: I think so. Had a great meal last night. Had some good barbecue. Looking forward to that again when we get out of here tonight. Seems like they got some good places to eat here in Kansas City. Q. I heard this morning when you walked in there's a little snafu with security asking if you were a fan. What exactly happened there? Is that a common occurrence? COACH HARPER: I'm sure Bill Self didn't get asked the questions I got asked. They didn't know who the heck I was, okay (smiling)? I told them I was a fan, I was here to enjoy some good basketball. They just stopped me. Fortunately I had some people with me that they actually believed and said, He coaches our basketball team. They allowed me to come on in. Hopefully they'll let me in tomorrow night. Q. Without giving away too many secrets, what's y'all's plan for dealing with Ben McLemore tomorrow night? COACH HARPER: I think one of my former teammates called me yesterday and reminded me what our former coach at the University of Texas used to tell us, Abe Lemons, if a guy could shoot it, he would ask us, Is that guy a good shooter? Yes, sir. Then get out there and guard 'em. So we're going to tell him to get out there and guard him tomorrow night as much as possible. Q. What makes Western a special place to you? COACH HARPER: It's a place with a lot of tradition, a lot of history, a place where they care. We got a tremendous fan base. We got banners hanging in the rafters, Final Four, Sweet 16s. I think this is our 23rd or 24th NCAA appearance, which has to be top five or six in the country. I think being in a place where they care about winning is very important. I think we're in the process of trying to get this program back and be a perennial top 25 team in the country. Q. Look at the challenge Aleksejs has tomorrow night. He and the rest of the post players, how much production are you going to need from them? How would you like to see them deal with someone like way think? COACH HARPER: He's a handful. Second team All‑American. He's not going to be playing one‑on‑one all night. The thing you've got to do, you've got to eliminate the easy baskets. Can't get anything to go in around the rim. Give him different looks. Can't get the same look for 40 minutes. He's too good a player and they're too good a team to try and do that. We'll try and mix it up, hopefully keep him off balance a little bit. JOE DALFONSO: Thank you and good luck. COACH HARPER: Appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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