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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: BUFFALOMarch 19, 2014Jordan AaronRob JeterMatt TibyBUFFALO, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Milwaukee student‑athletes Jordan Aaron and Matt Tiby. Welcome to Buffalo, appreciate you being here. Q. For both players, you guys swept through your conference tournament, four straight wins, two good road wins. How much do you think you could take the momentum from there? Even though it's been over a week, momentum from that tournament into this one tomorrow? JORDAN AARON: Hopefully, we can carry that into this tournament. We just want to be gritty and just keep playing with that competitive spirit like we've been playing with throughout our conference tournament. Just stick to what the coaches have playing for us out there, and I think we should be fine. MATT TIBY: As myself, I need to bring that energy that I brought in the conference tournament, definitely want to go out there and play some team defense. That's what really got us here. Just getting down to the defensive stops and playing together as one and playing for each other. Coach always says, Stick to the plan, so that's what we're going to go out and do. Q. Jordan, Coach Wright compared you to Speedy Claxton. How do you respond to that, and why do you think he did that? JORDAN AARON: I guess because I'm going kind of fast. I just try to go out there and play my style of basketball and just lead my teammates the best way I know how. I just leave everything out on the floor like the rest of my team does. Q. Jordan, what is it like coming back home to play, and how many family members are you expecting to be in attendance? JORDAN AARON: It's a wonderful feeling to be able to come back home, especially playing in the NCAA Tournament. And have my family in the stands, that's definitely a tremendous feeling. As far as how many that's coming out, I don't even know. I think about 30 or so. Hopefully, they all make it. Q. What was different for you guys during the conference tournament? Because you didn't maybe have the record in conference play that you wanted. So what were you able to do differently in the tournament? MATT TIBY: As a collective whole, we definitely wanted to get together. We wanted that common goal, and that was to make it to the Horizon League Championship and to win it. So it started with defense, and I took pride in getting those stops. I just let Jordy do the offensive thing because I knew he was going to go out, and he was able to score 20 to 30 points. I've seen him do that all year round. I just wanted to go out there and do my part and get those rebounds so we could secure a victory. We just went out there with that energy and that passion that we love to play with. We really played for each other out there. Q. For people who don't have a great feel for your team, you mentioned the term 'gritty,' but talk about the turnaround. Pretty remarkable. Just what a ride it's been this season. JORDAN AARON: We've always been kind of not on the radar of a lot of people, and that's the kind of chip that we have when we get out there on that court. We just want to leave everything out there for that 40 minutes that we're on that court. I think this team has a lot of confidence and a lot of players that are aggressive, and we just play for one another. We always back each other up whatever we do out there. So we just like to leave everything out on the basketball court for 40 minutes. MATT TIBY: The turnaround from last year, as for myself, I was sitting out. I transferred in from a junior college the second wave through. So seeing what my team needed out there on the floor really gave me a perspective of how I wanted to shape myself as a basketball player for this team. I knew this team needed some energy, and I knew this team needed that rebounding presence. So I took pride in that, and I really rallied the troops on the defensive side. So we really came together as a whole in the summer, and we had that common goal to just make it and just prove everybody wrong. We had that chip on our shoulders all year round. Jordy was right there next to me, and he was leading the way with us. Q. How do you plan for going up against a team that's very balanced and shoots a lot of three‑point shots? JORDAN AARON: Just definitely sticking to the plan that the coaches have for us. We know Villanova is a great team. We're just going to go out there and play our style of basketball and get ready for a fight out there. MATT TIBY: Villanova is a great team, very well coached. They have balance all around the floor. Their guards are very well, and they have a great player, Pinkston, down low, and it just comes down to making stops. You know we're going to have to play in those gaps, and just put our hands up and just go rebound the ball and don't give them second chances. Q. Jordan, you guys had a few days from when you won the championship to the selection. Did you guys kind of maybe go through some teams that you wanted to play or maybe even some conferences that you were curious that you might get? JORDAN AARON: No, we had our practices, but we kind of just sat back and waited for who we were facing. Just prepared for them after we knew who we were playing. We knew it could be any of those top teams, and we just prepared like it would be anybody that we would face out there. Q. What did you guys take out of the Seton Hall game, that Villanova lost? MATT TIBY: I didn't really mind that game. That's not the Villanova team that I've seen all year round. They're very well balanced and very well coached. So I'm expecting their best coming out. We have to just get down at it with the defensive side. We've just got to talk and communicate, and that's really big for us. Q. Matt, are you much of a college fan to know that 15 seeds do win this game? MATT TIBY: Yeah, ever since growing up, usually on spring break, I'm with my parents down in Arizona watching Selection Sunday. It was just great to see our name to be up there. The past few years, you see the 14 and 15 seeds come out with victories. It's just because they have more heart and determination than any other team, and that's what it comes down to is we have to go out there and play with our heart. We have to be determined and get some stops and get those defensive rebounds. THE MODERATOR: Jordan, Matt, we appreciate your time. Wish you all the best tomorrow. Be right up with Coach Jeter. Head Coach Rob Jeter has joined us. We'll go ahead and have coach make an opening statement and take questions from the media afterwards. COACH JETER: Thank you. First of all, obviously, we're thrilled to be here. I think I'm very thrilled to have a team that's finally played to their potential. We feel really good about where we are, and we just want to make sure that we can go out tomorrow and just represent Milwaukee and the city and the fans to the best of our abilities. Q. Coach, going forward from the conference tournament, two great road wins. What clicked for you guys? COACH JETER: We got our team together. We finally had our team back together, and we were able to put people in the right positions. We were able to put the right rotations together. They've really, for the last part of the season, played with passion and energy to get something done. I think that was the key. Q. A couple times your players used a phrase about playing with a chip on their shoulder. I wondered if you could maybe expound on that or address that. COACH JETER: We have a lot of new faces, and the beginning of the season was all about trying to get these guys to buy in, trying to get these guys to come together as a team. They get some leadership. With all the new faces, was the season predicted to turn out this way? No, and I think those guys recognized that. But I think they also recognized that they had enough talent in the room to do it, but we needed to do it together and learn how to do it together. As they progressed through the season, they really learned that lesson, that when adversity hit us in some of those tough times, we seemed to play more as individuals. Later in the season, we figured out that when adversity hits, we really have to learn how to lean on the person next to us. I think that's what we learned more. But having that chip on our shoulder because of last season and because of the fact that no one really knew our group, they didn't know where to put us. As a result, they put us in a position where we had to prove to some people that we were a lot better than what they thought. Q. Coach, how do you plan on facing a guy like Pinkston down low in game play? COACH JETER: I don't know. We'll have to see. He's very talented, can really put a lot of pressure on you at the rim. He's going to attack you. I think with the new rules that are in place, it favors a player that's aggressive like him. We have to throw multiple bodies at him, and if we have an opportunity to make him shoot tough two‑pointers, that's going to be our advantage. We can't allow him to get to the rim. He's so good with his footwork. He's just a tough matchup. I think he's 6'7", 240. Now, I have to wait until I see him, but I've seen him on tape. He looks every bit of 240. He's just a matchup nightmare because he can really move and he's so slippery around the basket. Q. Coach, if you could maybe describe the two or three biggest strengths of your team and then a couple areas when you guys struggled this year that really seemed to magnify themselves. COACH JETER: We'll start with the negative and end with the positive. How about that? I think the negative for us has been just rebounding. I think that had plagued us earlier in the season. Now, in the tournament, we solved that problem. So we have to make sure we continue to do that. The positive is that our group, they're very close. They really care about each other. They're a talented group. Sometimes, like I had mentioned earlier, when adversity hit, they really started to go back to individual talents rather than really trying to fall back on all the things that we really want them to do together, is to play as a team and to make the extra passes. But we're doing those things now. They're really trusting each other. And guys like Matt Tiby are willing to sacrifice a few extra buckets to make sure that they can give a teammate an extra pass. I think that's been really positive for this group. But I think the guys, I think it really comes down to one thing. These guys are talented enough, but they really care, and they're really sticking to the plan of just making the extra pass and trying to make sure their teammates look out for their teammates rather than themselves. Q. One of the things Jay said was he recognizes Bo Ryan's fingerprints on your team. That seems to be a high compliment, first of all. Secondly, can you just maybe quickly talk about the influence that Bo had for you. COACH JETER: Well, when you spend 15 years with an older, gray‑haired guy, some things are going to rub off on you, and luckily for me, there was a lot of positives to rub off when it comes to Bo, with Coach. I think the best thing to sum up Bo is that he really cares for his players. I think that's why his players work so hard for him, and that's why his teams play so well together because they trust him and they care about him. I think that's the one thing that I've tried to pass on to our guys, let them know that we do care about them. When they believe that, then they'll trust you. They might give up a few shots every once in a while to make the extra pass because they care about you and they know that they can trust you. But when it comes to basketball and the Xs and Os, Bo keeps things really simple, and we try to do the same things. It's just a simple game. You've got to take care of the basketball. You've got to get more shots than the other team, and there's ways to do that. Statistically, we want to take those higher percentage shots, free throws and layups, if you can. So that also lends to get more shots. I think that's what we try to do. Now, we do it a little differently. Our plays and our schemes are a little different, but the principle behind what we're trying to accomplish is the same. Q. Coach, you talked about some of the strengths and weaknesses. If you could expand and tell me about your offense and defense by describing the style of offense you play? Also, defensively, are you predominantly man to man, zone team? Describe that as well, please. COACH JETER: Our offense is all about tempo, and it's going to be very important against Villanova. Tempo, we have to control that tempo. We want to make sure that we're getting good shots. Not that we won't take quick shots, but we want good shots. Good shots for us are the percentage shots. We really believe passes that come from the inside out are shots that we can make. We really believe that if we get the ball closer to the rim, then now we can bring in the X‑factor, and that's the officials. We can bring those guys into play, and hopefully they'll reward us with extra shots from the free‑throw line. Those are the things we try and do offensively. We try to spread the floor, make extra passes, and attack the paint with the pass or the dribble. That sums us up offensively. Now, defensively, we're a man‑to‑man team. Now, we have played some zone, and there are situations where I think it's necessary at times, but we really want to be a man‑to‑man team. We're going to play 90 percent of the time in man. We have played some zone, but as of late, we've had one possession of zone in our last six games. That's not a secret. Villanova's watched every tape of ours, I'm sure. But it's still all about accountability and just making sure guys understand that, as a group, we have to guard. A good man‑to‑man is a zone anyway the way you have to get off of gaps and be around on the back side. But there's a little more accountability in man‑to‑man. Q. Rob, you talk about the rough year last year and not being thought of very highly this year. You have a real good season, real good tournament. Is there a feeling in the locker room of 15 seed, why not us? COACH JETER: Well, I think, first of all, talk about last year, just it happens. It's a rebuild year. Just a blip on the radar. And the good news is that we had some opportunities for some younger guys to grow and mature. I think we're seeing a lot of that progress this year. 15 seed, we're deceiving because of our last four games before we head to the tournament. We just didn't have one of our best players, or our best player on the court. You take anyone's best player off their team, and that changes things. But we knew, once we got everyone back together, it's just a matter of, well, could we rebound and get ourselves back to playing like we were before we had lost Jordan? And we did. We did that pretty quickly. And as a result, we got back to playing at the level that we were. So being a 15 seed, 14 seed, 12, 11, you're going to play good teams in the tournament. You're going to run into them first round, second round. It just happens for us we're running into a Villanova team that's very talented. THE MODERATOR: Okay, Coach. Best of luck to you tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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