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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: RALEIGHMarch 20, 2014Isaiah ArmwoodMaurice CreekMike LonerganJoe McDonaldRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We're ready to begin the George Washington segment of the press conferences. Representing the George Washington Colonials today, we have Maurice Creek, Joe McDonald and Isaiah Armwood. At this time, we'll go ahead and open up the floor for questions. Does anyone have questions for the student‑athletes? Q. For any of the guys, what's it's going to be like to face David again after being his teammate for the previous four years? MODERATOR: Why don't we all answer this one. MAURICE CREEK: I wasn't David's teammate, but I heard a lot about David. He's a great player, and he's been a great role model and leader for the guys that played with him. So I'm excited to meet him for the first time and actually play against him. JOE MCDONALD: It's going to be a fun experience. He didn't play with us last year, but he was still around the team so it's going to be nice to see him out there. ISAIAH ARMWOOD: It's going to be exciting. David was one of my best friends when he was here. But other than that, it's going to be exciting to play basketball. Q. I gather it's been a bit of a tough week for you guys. You had the logo fiasco and then the president dissed you. Do you guys laugh at that stuff? Is that fun to you, or do you just ignore it? MAURICE CREEK: We really don't try to worry about that. We try to worry about George Washington basketball and really feel that we have a great opportunity to win a couple games and go as long as we will take us. So we're really not worried about what happened with the t‑shirt or whatever happened with the president. We're just worrying about winning basketball games here for our school. Q. How do you turn this into a regular game? How do you make it so the kind of situation doesn't overwhelm you and this becomes just where you do what you do before any other game and don't let the magnitude of it overwhelm you? JOE MCDONALD: It's just like you said, we want to keep it the same as if it was any other game that we're going to play on Friday. Of course, there's a little more media involved, but everything else, we're trying to keep it as normal and keep it within us, keep everything the same. ISAIAH ARMWOOD:  Just continue to do the things that we do, prepare the same way in practices before games. Keep everything the same so once the ball goes up, this is any other game. We got 40 minutes to play basketball. It's no different. Q. As a follow‑up to that, has Coach helped you with that at all in trying to keep your routine similar or as close to similar as you can in this situation? MAURICE CREEK: Yeah, he's done a great job at that. We haven't changed anything. And when we go out there for practices every day, he tells us, you know, when we go out there and play, come tomorrow night, just play loose and play the same way we've been playing since the beginning of the season. We'll be just fine. Q. Guys, you had a great regular season. You won a game in the Atlantic 10 tournament. Do you still feel like you're proving yourself, this program, this team, that you're worthy of being here? I know you earned to be here. Do you still feel like you're proving yourself to the world? MODERATOR: Joe, could you answer that, please. JOE MCDONALD: In a way, yeah. I think our job here isn't done. We still have a game Friday. We want to keep this momentum going. So yeah, we've had some things happen with the logos and stuff. We're not worried about that. We're trying to focus on what got us here and continue to have the success. Q. For any of the three players, have you guys had a chance to see David Pellom yet? And how strange is it that out of all the draws you get, you get a former teammate on the other team? ISAIAH ARMWOOD: No, we haven't got a chance to see him, but the committee might have knew something we didn't. They might have put us up against him. But other than that, been the same way. We know a lot of people on the different teams in the tournament, so that just so happened to be the draw. We'll play that basketball game as any other one. JOE MCDONALD: I really don't have much to say. It's just funny. It's just another great experience to see another ex‑teammate and play against him, so it will be fun. Q. One of the Memphis players guaranteed they'd win two games this weekend. What do you guys think about that? MAURICE CREEK: We're not worried about what Memphis is talking about. We feel like we can win games. Anybody who plays the game of basketball is going to have the confidence that they can win games. We're going to go out there and play George Washington basketball and take it one step at a time and play our best game. Q. With so many international players on the roster, I'm curious what it was like to kind of have a broad cultural influence on your program and what do they bring to the team that maybe doesn't have as many international players? JOE MCDONALD: They definitely bring a different style of basketball. And it's definitely helped the way it's shaped our style of play and our team. They obviously have a huge impact on how well we play. And it's just nice to get to know more about them and their culture. Also helps a lot to bring a team closer together. MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student‑athletes? Q. Maurice and Isaiah, can you just talk about how Coach Lonergan has helped the two of you? I know you've only been here for a year, Maurice, but he's helped your game and helped you as a player improve. Isaiah, since you've transferred in to Washington, how has Coach Lonergan helped you as a player? MAURICE CREEK: He's helped me a lot. It's an honor to have him as a coach. He accepted me into his program and pushed me to get better every day. And that's what you need from your head coach, especially when you're coming from three injuries as I did, and nobody really thought I had a shot at really playing the game again. He's pushed me to strive and be the best player that I can be and that's what I did for this program. ISAIAH ARMWOOD: He's helped me out a lot. When I first got here, I used to do things a little differently. He told me things, how it was, and he's helped me become a better player by doing that. When I got here, I used to do a lot of things he didn't like. He expressed that in a way so when I stopped doing that, it made me become a better player. MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student‑athletes? Gentlemen, thank you very much and good luck this weekend. We're now ready to start the next portion of the press conferences with George Washington Head Coach Mike Lonergan. Coach, if you could please give us an opening statement. COACH LONERGAN: Hello. Thanks for everybody being here. Very excited to be here. Our university is excited to be here as well. It's a great opportunity for us and our players, and we know we have a formidable opponent in Memphis. But we're excited about playing tomorrow night. MODERATOR: We'll open the floor for questions. Q. Get the fun one out of the way. I know it's been a trying week with the t‑shirt fiasco and the president dissing you. I'm wondering if you've heard from Michelle, if you got a thumbs up on that one? COACH LONERGAN: No, I didn't. But the t‑shirt thing didn't bother me. I didn't know about it until our players told me. It was an honest mistake. I was just joking around with President Obama. I've got a lot of respect for him. But I just noticed his bracket on TV and I saw he picked Memphis. His house is right down the street from our campus. But that was all in fun. I don't know if I want to say I'm sorry I did it, but definitely I wasn't trying to be disrespectful. He loves basketball and I just wanted him to pick us. Q. Get any reaction? COACH LONERGAN: Probably too much reaction, most of it positive, most of it very positive. But, you know, I wanted the focus to be on the players and on the game, so that's in the past now. Q. Any update on Kethan? I guess, what's the plan today and going into tomorrow with him and his status? COACH LONERGAN: I'm kind of game planning. He's not playing. Maybe the trainer comes to me tomorrow afternoon and says he wants to try to play. That's what happened last game. We were told he could play up to four minutes. Unfortunately, his foot was sore maybe 45 seconds or a minute in, so he didn't play. I'm staying out of that one because he's got two years left. He had a great season and I wish he was playing. Maybe he does, but I really don't know. It's just I'm prepared that he's not going to play. Q. Coach, have you had a chance to talk to David Pellom? And how strange is it, of all the teams that you get matched against in the first round, it's one of your own former players on the team? COACH LONERGAN: No, I haven't gotten a chance to talk to him. I'm sure I'll get to say hi to him before the game. Happy for Dave, happy for him being a GW graduate and he gets to play in an NCAA tournament, along with Lasan Kromah, who also graduated from GW last year. Q. Mike, I was curious if you could expand on how you were able to put together a roster with so many international players? COACH LONERGAN: When I got the job, I thought we had to increase the talent level. In our area, it was tough. Maryland and Georgetown are really good. George Mason. It was just a couple years removed from the Final Four. I looked back at what the successful coaches had done at George Washington University. Coach Jarvis had recruited a lot of international players. Just the diversity of our campus and the city of Washington D.C., so we wanted to recruit locally, nationally and internationally. We found out about some kids that were very good players. Some of them were under the radar. I think having a couple of international guys already has really helped. Those guys have thrived at our school and in our program. It's something we hope to continue to attract international student‑athletes. These guys played in American high schools. Most of them came over and played two years. Q. Coach, similar question, I guess, follow‑up on that. Does the school itself help sell that to the international players, that GW obviously has a huge international population, the city itself, I guess, when you're recruiting those kids, is there a comfort level at GW for them that maybe they wouldn't get at another school? COACH LONERGAN: Definitely. Our property, I think it's one of the things he's tried to really establish there at George Washington University. It's one of the top schools in the nation, but also in the world. Our athletic director, our whole administration really thinks it's a great thing to do. If you look at all our teams, all our student‑athletes in different sports, they're from all over the world. I'm not talking about 80 percent of them, but a decent amount are. They do well. I mean, D.C. is just a fabulous place. It's a melting pot. I have not been used to recruiting that many international kids, but it's been a great learning experience for me as well. Q. Coach, with the emphasis on the freedom of movement, have you found yourself this season doing things differently offensively or defensively, or have you just done things the way you've always done them? COACH LONERGAN: I really changed, because one of our weaknesses, we didn't have a lot of depth going into the season, and now especially with some of the injuries we've had. So I probably played 1‑3‑1 and zone maybe 20 percent of the time as a coach. This year that has been anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of games. What it does, it guards against foul trouble, especially early in the year, when they were calling anything, if you put a hand on guys. I actually think the officials have got away from that and I don't think they call it anymore. Some of the teams we've played lately, that's part of their game in hand checking. I'm a big fan of them enforcing the rules more closely and calling fouls. But I think it's definitely, they said it wouldn't, but I think it's definitely changed as we've gotten towards the end of the season. But it's also, we've found that we can found we can be a pretty good 1‑3‑1 team. Next year, when we're healthy and have more depth, we're probably going to work a lot in the off‑season in really tweaking our 1‑3‑1. I'm not going to stay like Syracuse and be strictly a zone team, but I think it can be a strength of ours even more than it was year. Q. Coach, what do you think about their four senior guards, in particular Joe Jackson and how he makes them go? COACH LONERGAN: They're terrific, very, very experienced. He was Conference Player of the Year last year, at least in Conference USA. A lot of my friends coach in that league. He can score. He's a high assist guy. He's a terrific all‑around player. And all those guys, I mean, they're strong, they're good defenders. And when they get out and run, it really gives them momentum and you can just see they love to play that style of play. So they definitely have a lot of experience. I actually think their inside game is very underrated as well. Their freshmen, Nichols and Goodwin, they're very good players and they work really well together. MODERATOR: Any other questions? Thank you, coach. Good luck. COACH LONERGAN: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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