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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: ORLANDOMarch 19, 2014Michael AlvaradoGeorge BeamonRhamel BrownSteve MasielloORLANDO, FLORIDA Q. Obviously it's a different situation coming from a smaller conference, but how important is senior leadership and getting you guys to this point where you have an opportunity to play on this stage in the NCAA Tournament? MICHAEL ALVARADO: It's a pretty big thing for us, especially we also have 80 percent of our team coming back, but being here the whole entire year with the younger kids is a big step for us, especially in this game as well. GEORGE BEAMON: Definitely senior leadership is big because the young guys, just getting them through things, getting up at 6:00 am, no young guy wants to do that. All the stuff we've been through, you need senior leadership to get guys through it and keep guys motivated. RHAMEL BROWN: Yeah, seniors, we've been through it all, we've seen it all, especially with Coach. We know what he wants, and we know what we need to get, where we need to go. I think the younger guys have a hard time understanding that, and that's just what we're here for, just to lead them in the right direction. Q. Sometimes New York is referred to as a basketball state, and you guys are one of four teams from the state of New York in the tournament. Do you ever pride yourselves and want to win out, to be the best team in the state? Obviously Syracuse is there, but do you want to be the best in the state? RHAMEL BROWN: Well, of course. It's always everybody's goal to be the best. I don't think anybody ever comes to the tournament expecting to lose or expecting not to win it all, but at the same time, you know it's going to be a tough task and tough role with New York having such great teams. It's really hard to be the best team in New York. GEORGE BEAMON: Yeah, we definitely strive on being the best we can be in any aspect, not just from New York, just anywhere playing basketball you strive to be the best you can be. We know we've got Syracuse, a lot of great teams, and we've got another big task in the NCAA Tournament with Louisville, another great team. MICHAEL ALVARADO: We're grateful and blessed to be in this position, so we've just got to make the best of it, and that's what we did through the entire year. Q. George, you guys have some familiarity with Russ Smith, obviously. What does he bring, and is it going to be a little difficult seeing him across‑‑ facing him? You guys played obviously growing up against each other. GEORGE BEAMON: Yeah, we definitely played growing up. He was always a great player, still a phenomenal player, getting better with the years. It's always a tough match‑up going against that guy, man. He's a great player, and now he's even well coached by Coach Pitino over there. They've got a great team, and he's the leader over there. It's just great. It's going to be great seeing him again, going at him again, just playing against him again. Just a great feeling. Q. Do you guys see yourselves as a little bit of mirror images of Louisville? Do you see a lot of similarities there? MICHAEL ALVARADO: Yeah, our philosophy is based after Louisville. We're like them but they're on steroids pretty much, so it's like we both press, we both have similar philosophies, and the better team is going to win. GEORGE BEAMON: Yeah, they're definitely the big brother of us. We watch all their film, countless film. Even before we were going to play them when Coach came in we started watching film on them. We knew their whole defense, their offense, and just prided ourselves on being a mirror image of them, but exactly what Mike said, they're us on steroids, again. Q. Can that work to your advantage in this game? RHAMEL BROWN: Well, you know, they do everything we do, but they do it to another level. They've been doing this for years. Coach Pitino has a great system over there and there's a reason they're in the tournament every year and always battling for the championship, so for us to win there's a lot of things that are going to have to go our way, but we're just looking forward to it. Q. Explain the opportunity that you guys have and the excitement or the pressure that comes with facing the defending national champions in their first game of the tournament. GEORGE BEAMON: I try not to let pressure get to me and none of my guys do. But we know we've got a great challenge playing against Louisville, the defending national champions. Just in the confidence of being on the court with those guys. They got a lot of pros, Russ Smith, Harrell, they got a lot of great players. It's a dream come true just getting on an NCAA court and playing against a great team like that, it's a dream, and I'm just blessed to be here. Q. Michael, you said Louisville was kind of like you guys on steroids. Is there any part of you guys' game that you guys think you might do better than Louisville or give Louisville problems in tomorrow? MICHAEL ALVARADO: That's something I'm not really sure of. We're just going to do what we do like we did our last 32 games, and just going to play for each other. STEVE MASIELLO: Just great to be a part of this NCAA Tournament. Very proud of this group of men I'm fortunate to coach and what they stand for, that we're able to come here and represent not only Manhattan College and the community, but New York City and one of the greatest sporting events there are. Very happy about that, very difficult match‑up with the Louisville Cardinals and Coach Pitino, which I know absolutely nothing about, so I've been trying to study a lot of film in the last two days to get caught up on them, and it should be an exciting game. Q. Since you have been there, when you first went there, did you talk about Louisville a lot, or did you more use the things you've learned from Coach Pitino and use those without necessarily referencing Louisville? STEVE MASIELLO: We've spoken about Louisville a lot. You know, it's one of those things where when you get there and you're trying to kind of rebuild a program, you want to give them something to look towards, and Louisville has been that for us because of Coach Pitino and the job he has done there, and obviously myself coming from there. So we would show edits, we would show a lot of things in what we were trying to get to. That being said, we do it about a lot of teams.  If we see something we like and we want to emulate, we'll edit it, show it, but obviously Louisville has been the brand that we've tried to model this after. I've no bones about that. I don't get originality points for anything. A great deal of what we do is from Louisville. Q. I talked to Russ Smith earlier today. He said he was a little scared to try to talk with you this week. Someone asked if he had texted you‑‑ STEVE MASIELLO: He's so full of it, Russ. His dad has called me every day seven times a day and Russ has put him up to it. Q. Can you take us through the relationship? What kind of special kid is he? STEVE MASIELLO: He's one of the more special young men I've had a chance to know in my life. I've been around him since he's probably fifth, sixth grader. I've watched him grow up and become a man. His dad is a big part of my life, someone that's very close to me and my family. But to see Russ, forget basketball, to see him grow and mature the way he has in the last 10 years is remarkable, and he's made himself from a kid who was just kind of this funny comedian New York City kid to someone who really understands what life is about and really is one of the more selfless people I've ever been around, and he cares so much about other people and making them happy and pleasing them and bringing positivity to people's life, he has such an impact on so many people, he doesn't even know it. I love it. He holds a dear place in my heart. There's not much I wouldn't do for him. That being said, we've got to try to kick his tail tomorrow night. Q. Russ has talked about it a lot of times, back when they had those discussions about him transferring after his freshman year. He said I was halfway to Manhattan. Have you ever wondered how history would have been different? STEVE MASIELLO: The last two days I've been trying to get him to transfer now, and it isn't going too well. It's so funny when you take five steps back from this thing and you look at it, this is just a great story, and regardless of what happens tomorrow night, this has been so much fun for us. I hope they feel the same way, but I've had a blast with all the people involved, and they're such great people. You know, do I wish we had Russ Smith? I'd love to have Russ Smith play for me. That being said, I don't think either of us would change one thing with the way it's gone. He's turned out to be the best college basketball player in the country, definitely the best guard. He's going down as maybe the all‑time winningest player to ever wear a Louisville uniform. He's responsible for them going to two Final Fours. I think he's brought a new side to Coach Pitino back from a fun and love and just a kind of having‑fun attitude, and I think we've developed some very good guards at our place where I don't know if Russ was there if those guys‑‑ if Mike Alvarado becomes Michael Alvarado or George Beamon becomes George Beamon. So I think both of us wouldn't change a thing, but it would have been some story had it have happened. Q. Would you just talk about how difficult it is, I know you have other things in offense, defense, whatever, but he knows you so well, you know him so well. How difficult is it to prepare for Coach Pitino, and then also on the flipside of that, the regular season game was different last year. This is the NCAA Tournament, so the different feeling of this one. STEVE MASIELLO: We changed everything this week. We're not pressing at all, we're putting the triangle‑and‑two, box‑and‑one or one‑three‑one, we're running all five‑out motion, so we are going to run a whole new style that we've implemented, so anything he's seen on film, just scratch it. That being said, I think there is great familiarity with both of us. Obviously I learned so much under him, and he is responsible for where I am in my basketball career, and I pay him all homage in the world, and without him I don't know where I would be. But I could know what he wants to do, what they do well, what they don't do well, but so did the other 28 teams on their schedule. I'm not‑‑ I don't know anything anyone else doesn't know. Maybe I just know it without having to watch as much or that type of thing. It's one thing to know it, it's another thing to try and stop it, and it's kind of the Mike Tyson quote that I've been referring to: It's everyone has a plan until they get hit. Yeah, we have a plan on how to stop Louisville and it probably sounds very good, but doing that is something totally different. To follow up with your second question about last year's‑‑ I just think we're two totally different teams. I think they're a much different team right now than they were without Peyton and Gorgui. I think Chris is terrific. Luke's really evolved into a terrific college basketball player. Van Treese is playing as well as anyone right now for his job and his role allocation, and I think Montrezl has made himself into one of the most dominant bigs in the country, and I think when you look at last year's team maybe those guys didn't have this type of role except for Russ, and I think we're a different team. I think we've changed a little, as well. Q. You started your coaching career at Manhattan, you were there when they went to their last‑‑ STEVE MASIELLO: Tulane. I was at Tulane first. Q. You were at Manhattan when they went to their last tournament 10 years ago. How does it feel for you specifically being able to lead them back here? STEVE MASIELLO: It's a great story for me. Manhattan is such a special place because of the people, the administration, the community there. For us, this is a total team effort. For us to be able to do that right now and get it back to where it was 10 years ago, it's a credit to the people there. It's really not me, it's about the community we have. All I've been fortunate to do is give them a blueprint. They've followed it and they've well exceeded my expectations, not only the players, but from the secretaries, the trainers, the SIDs. It's just a total team effort that's gone into this, and for us to be back here, we couldn't be happier. That being said now, we want to sustain the success and make these trips more often. The oatmeal raisin cookies are unbelievable in the back, so this has just been something we're really looking to do more of. Q. Rick earlier was saying that he was a little frustrated with the selection committee that they paired you guys together and maybe didn't know your history‑‑ STEVE MASIELLO: He said that? Q. He said something to that effect. Did that bother you at all when you got placed in that same bracket with him? STEVE MASIELLO: You know what bothered me? And I'll say this. All I cared about was where Manhattan was going day that day, and once I saw Manhattan come up, the next thing I was worried about was where Coach Pitino and Louisville going, and I was going to cheer my tail off for them, wherever they go. To see them come up and then see us come up against them, it takes a little fun out of it because this is fun. This is basketball, this is great. And it took a little fun out of it because it went from being a great story for me, that I'm living out, to now I've got to take all my emotion, so now I can't call Coach Pitino for advice, now I can't rely on him to give me some pointers, and it just became business, because now I have to go against the one guy that means so much to me. I would have played any of the 67 teams and been fine with it because there's no emotion involved, not because of the basketball aspect, because they're terrific teams, but the emotion is what makes it hard, and you have to cut that off right away. So that's why I was just upset about it. For the media, it's great. For the fans I'm sure it's great. For everyone else, and I can't speak for Coach, but for me, there's so many emotional attachments involved to Coach Pitino from where I come from going back to 1989, it's just that's not fun for me going against someone that I have to try to‑‑ now try to beat and almost in my mind think negatively about. It's hard for me to do that. Q. Your players obviously know your relationship with Coach Pitino. How have you approached it with them this week? STEVE MASIELLO: The emotion is out of it. I want to win the game. There is no more emotion. The emotion will be Friday morning we'll go back to having emotion, and he's not going to take it easy on me. I mean, that I know. So from that standpoint I love Coach, but he's here to win a game, I'm here to win a game. Everything is handled from our end and his end I know with the utmost class, but there's a job to do, and both of us want the same results. Q. I'm sure in your mind you envision winning this game. What has to happen for Manhattan to win this game? How does that play out in your mind? STEVE MASIELLO: Well, you know, I think it's kind of stating the obvious in the sense of where we know how well Louisville is in transition. We know they rely off of turnovers. I think the No.1 thing is taking care of the basketball. I think if you take care of the basketball and limit their transition points of them getting out and getting easy opportunities on the break, you have somewhat of a chance. Then I think the three‑point line is a major, major, major factor where you can't let them get open looks, and you've got to take away the attempt because they have so many good shooters and shot‑makers. That's the thing that's different about this team. Chris can make shots, obviously Luke, Russ, Tim, they have guys that are shot‑makers, and so you have to really lock down the three‑point line, and then I think the backboard is a very big part of this game and the ability to get in the paint and control the paint. Those three things, and I think any coach would probably say that to you when you prepare for Louisville. How do you do that is the problem. How do you do that is what you've got to try to figure out and then I think I've got to go home tonight, say a couple our fathers, call our team priest, and we'll work some good prayers in. Q. You mentioned all the good shooters. Is Van Treese on the scouting report as a three‑point shooter? STEVE MASIELLO: Because I'm on the sideline, anything is possible tomorrow with these guys. Van Treese might come out and take the first three threes of the game just because I'm on the other sideline, so I have to rule out all rules of logic with the guys that I'm familiar with on that team on the sideline. It should be fun. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can just make it competitive because this team is terrific. Q. You talked about it during your opening statement. You don't want to just play for the school but for the community and the state. New York is kind of a basketball state. Does it give you guys any extra confidence to know that you're one of the best teams in one of the better states basketball‑wise in the country? STEVE MASIELLO: I don't know if New York is a basketball state. I think it's a basketball city. I think Kentucky is a basketball state because of the following and the people. There's so much going on in New York, sometimes it's hard to‑‑ but I think what's great about us is in our mind we're representing the greatest city in the world in the greatest sports event, which is March Madness, in the world. That right there unto itself is just really‑‑ it's a lot of pride. For me being a New York guy and being a New Yorker, that I'm having the opportunity to represent my home city in the greatest stage in the world and these guys who are a lot of New York kids, I think that's where we're a little different. We have a lot of Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island kids, so our makeup is New York kids, and now we have a chance to represent that and kind of have the city on our back. That's awesome. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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