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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: ANAHEIMMarch 23, 2016Billy KennedyAnaheim, California THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Texas A&M Head Coach Billy Kennedy. Coach, an opening statement. BILLY KENNEDY: Obviously we're excited to be here and thankful to be able to get here, and having beaten Northern Iowa in an unbelievable game; they were a really good team. Now we're playing another really good team in Oklahoma. So right now it's all Oklahoma and trying to figure out a way to slow them down. Q. How good of a job has your team done of now moving past that epic win and putting all their focus on OU? BILLY KENNEDY: I think we're ready for Oklahoma. I think Monday, obviously, was a good day to get back and kind of recuperate and refuel, so to speak. Yesterday we had a really good practice. Our guys are very familiar with Oklahoma. We see them on television all the time. They're former Big 12 opponents, so we played them a couple of years ago. So they know what's at stake. I think we're ready to go. Q. What does that do to your team's confidence when you make an effort in that situation? How much does that impact your team's confidence? BILLY KENNEDY: Well, we were confident before. I think it can only help. But I think we've got to learn from what we did wrong and put ourselves in that situation. Our guys know it's incredible. They're thankful. But hopefully it only helps. We shouldn't become arrogant. That's for sure. We know how fortunate we were to win. Q. A lot has been written about your successful management of Parkinson's, and I've read that stress can lead to a worsening of symptoms. With that in mind, how do you handle a situation like this when you're at a big event like this and there is a lot of stress? BILLY KENNEDY: You know, it hasn't had a negative effect on me. I'm pretty laid back. I'm from New Orleans, the Big Easy. I've coached a lot of games. I've been blessed that the stress really hasn't been a factor. This disease affects people in different ways and hopefully that won't be a symptom as we go further down the years in my career. Q. Somewhat along those lines, the fact that five years after the Parkinson's diagnosis you're coaching in your first Sweet Sixteen as a head coach. Is there a message in that? BILLY KENNEDY: It's no different message than Michael J. Fox or Janet Reno or so many other people who have had the disease in stressful jobs and have gone on and been successful. I've been totally blessed that the symptoms aren't greater than they are, and I've got great doctors. I see them once a year. I've been fortunate I only have to go once a year. I am thankful that I'm in a position where I get the best care and best support, and my wife is awesome. She's a nutrition junkie, unfortunately, but it's helped me in fighting this disease, and we think it's a big part of why my symptoms are so mild. Q. What is the biggest challenge you face with this Oklahoma team? BILLY KENNEDY: Oh, we're playing Oklahoma now? No, I'm just kidding. Buddy Hield and their guards. Their guards are really good. You've got to get back defensively and protect the three-point line. We're a defensive-oriented team and that's something we spend a lot of time on, but we haven't played a team that's as lethal offensively on the perimeter as they are. Q. Billy, you talked about Oklahoma's guards. But I'm curious about your impressions of Ryan Spangler on the inside for them? BILLY KENNEDY: Spangler is, you know, an engine that protects the paint and keeps them going. He hurt us on the glass when we played them a few years ago. He's got a great motor, great energy guy. He's a blue-collar guy. He understands that for them to be successful, him and Khadeem have to do a lot of the dirty work that the guards don't necessarily do, although they've done a lot, also. But I think Spangler's a hidden key for their team. When he's playing with great energy and making threes, they're really hard to beat. Q. I know you're looking ahead now to Oklahoma, but did you allow yourself at all a chance to look back, we're talking about an historic comeback the other day? Have you allowed yourself to take it in as a fan? BILLY KENNEDY: Yeah, I watched it on the plane, and then I got home -- probably we got home 1:30 or 2 a.m. Sunday night or Monday early in the morning, and my wife and I we watched SportsCenter, we watched everything, and tried to enjoy it for about two hours. Unfortunately we were up till about 3:30 or 4:00. They replayed the game actually on CBS when we got home, so a lot of our guys even watched it. So we were able to get that behind us and enjoy watching it and recognized how blessed we really were to win. Q. The few times that Buddy Hield has been, I don't want to say shut down, but had not the kind of games you're used to seeing from him, have you been able to learn anything from some of those games such as West Virginia in the Big 12 Tournament? BILLY KENNEDY: We watched that game. Obviously I thought West Virginia did a really good job of taking him away. It's really hard to do because the other guards are so good. When you do that, sometimes they beat you with the other four guys. But you can't let Buddy -- he could go for 40. He's a guy I would think of a LeBron James type. You better not let a guy like that go off on you. So we're going to pay a lot of attention to him and hope we can limit his touches, like most people have tried to do. Q. Billy, how would you describe or evaluate Danuel's season, his performance to this point? BILLY KENNEDY: I think he's had a good season. He hasn't had the greatest season compared to last year how well he shot the ball from three. But I think some of that has to do with the expectations that were on him and him pressing too hard and trying too hard early on. I think recently he's done a better job of letting the game come to him. But he's obviously Second-Team All-SEC. Last year he finished as First Team. But he's done other things to help us win and not just rely on scoring. Q. To follow up on your answer earlier about the symptoms that you have, what are they? And how have they impacted your life? BILLY KENNEDY: I've got tightness. I get tight, and then that's how I was diagnosed. I had stiffness in my shoulder in Murray, Kentucky when I was coaching, and the doctors said, hey, it's an old football injury maybe or athletic injury, bone spurs. "Coach, you're getting old." So I said, I'm getting old. So I kept lifting and working out and doing things. Took the job at A&M, and I would see a chiropractor and I'd feel good for a while and it would get tight again. And I changed my exercises in what I do lifting. Then I saw a doctor at A&M, and it's been well written, they diagnosed me with the disease. About a year later I started taking medication and it's helped with the stiffness, and that's really the gist of the symptoms that I have at this point. Q. Will you care to share with us your defensive approach and what you're going to do with Buddy tomorrow night? BILLY KENNEDY: Well, I'm not going to give you all my secrets. You can't let him get transition baskets. We need to get back and locate him early. That's the first thing. And two, you can't leave him on an offensive rebound when they get one, because he sprints behind the line as well as anybody, and they find him. We've got to rotate guys on him and hope we can wear him down with two, three, four guys. Q. Anyone else you've played this season that brings that dynamic to the game? BILLY KENNEDY: The Murray kid at Kentucky is as good in as in the country. He probably would prepare us for Buddy as well as anybody. Q. Coach, you guys have done a good job of, I wouldn't say shutting down, but keeping the leading scorer below their average. Are there just even generic keys to that that you can give us a hint on? BILLY KENNEDY: I mean, we make a big deal about trying to know who the best two scorers are on the other team, and we game plan to try to limit those pretty much everybody we play against. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The thing that makes Oklahoma so good is their other guards, they've got the green light too. They're very comfortable, and Coach Kruger's done an unbelievable job investing confidence in those guys, and that's where they beat you. You pay too much attention to Buddy -- I've mentioned before, we played Oklahoma just a couple years ago at the Toyota Center, Buddy had six and we weren't guarding him any different than we would guard anybody else. Jordan Woodard had 20. So they're a good team. They've got other guys. Q. Coach, both teams are senior-dominated, starting four seniors. It seems to be a trend this year in college basketball. Can you talk about how that develops when you have a team with that much experience? BILLY KENNEDY: Seniors -- I was at Murray State a few years back and we were the oldest team, I think, in the NCAA Tournament when we beat Vandy up in San Jose. So maturity and older guys definitely helps because guys that have been in the system, guys who understand they're playing maybe their last college game and embrace the opportunity of playing in a tournament, embrace what the coach is telling them, I think that's a huge advantage in basketball. All the way, I'm a San Antonio Spurs fan, so I would say the Spurs have a huge advantage with those guys being in that system for 17, 18 years. The Warriors kind of throw that thought out of the water. But anyway, I think it's a huge advantage. Q. Several times this year Jalen has come out maybe a little out of control, had some early turnovers, you've had to sit him down. How do you balance that passion with wanting him to be under control within what you're trying to do? BILLY KENNEDY: Well, it hasn't just been Jalen. We've had our scorers have a tendency of doing that. The one thing is when I yank him out, he doesn't take it personal. Last year he got frustrated with it and didn't deal with it the right way. This year he's been much better at handling it. We continue to talk about it. It's hard. He is wired and motored a different way, and it's a great thing. But sometimes it can be -- it hurts him. Sometimes it's best to bring him out and say, hey, man, you're going to sit here until you settle down and slow down. The bench has been a great help for getting him right in that area. Q. The scouting report on Oklahoma, at least with Big 12 teams, is to pressure them a lot. Is that something that you guys have done a lot? Are you natural at doing that? BILLY KENNEDY: We're not a great ball-pressure team. We're more of a protect the paint, get back, make you beat us from the three-point line. That's what's going to be one of the key things is can we defend the three-point line better than we have in the past, and will they shoot it as well as they have? That's, I think, 40% of their offense is from the three-point line. They're either first or second in the country from the three-point line. We have to do a better job defending the three-point line than we have. Q. What do you see at your strengths that you can exploit against Oklahoma? What are your strengths? BILLY KENNEDY: Strengths defensively you said? Q. Just team in general. BILLY KENNEDY: Well, one, we've got a 6'10", 275 pound center that needs to touch the ball in Tyler Davis. He's a big body. We've got to keep him out of foul trouble. He picked up two fouls against Northern Iowa in the first half, and that disrupted us offensively. We have to be able to guard the ball screen with him because he is big. They're going to pull him away from the basket, and we're going to have to do a good job of guarding the three-point line with our bigs when they have to step out. Then offensively, we have to be able to be disciplined enough to make them guard us. They're a good defensive team, but they want to play fast, they want to attack, and that's something we can do some offensively. We can play a variety of ways, but in this game, I think we have to be a little more disciplined offensively. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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