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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 8, 2018

Kansas City, Missouri

West Virginia - 78, Baylor - 65

THE MODERATOR: We are ready to begin with the Mountaineers from West Virginia, Coach Bob Huggins, three student-athletes, Jevon Carter, Daxter Miles, Jr., and Esa Ahmad. Questions for our student-athletes?

Q. Guys, the half-court shot, what kind of momentum did that give you into the second half?
JEVON CARTER: It gives us a little bit of momentum. They had a put-back dunk. A dunk can change the game. I guess that 3-pointer just killed them right there with it. That's a big momentum changer. It was big for us going into halftime. We came out and played with the same energy from the first half.

Q. Guys, what exactly does it do for you guys when Dax is hitting threes like he did tonight?
ESA AHMAD: It's big, you know. We got a lot of threats out there on the perimeter, Jevon, Beetle and Dax, once he gets hot you've seen what he can do. That was big for us.

JEVON CARTER: Same thing he said, when Dax is hitting it makes the game much easier for everybody else because he's an unbelievable scorer and when he get hot there ain't no stopping him.

DAXTER MILES, JR.: My teammates was finding me, and I was just trying to find the gap.

Q. Esa, I was wondering about what you thought your responsibility was when Sags sat down, what you thought you needed to do to help the team.
ESA AHMAD: Sags is a big presence in there. He rebounds the ball, and I wanted to be aggressive on the glass and put a body on their big man. You know, just trying to be a presence down there.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, guys, congratulations and look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Questions for Coach?

Q. Coach, I was wondering about the press and how effective that was and what you thought the key to that was tonight?
BOB HUGGINS: Well, it's accumulative affect and we had one stretch where I think we got the ball three times in a row and that's when we kind of were able to open the game up a little bit and that's what we hope it does for us. It's going to be interesting on Sunday with basically four teams from the Big 12 on the bubble. What do you make of the decision the committee has differentiating between the team you just played and three other teams that are going to be on the bubble as well?

BOB HUGGINS: Why are they on the bubble? I don't understand why we would have four on the bubble. We have been all year long, the best conference in the country. When you play in this league and you play everybody twice it's not like -- we're not one of those leagues where they play the best team like once every three years, you know?

We play everybody twice. Familiarity, this league has great coaching, not good, but great coaching and we've got really good players. So I don't understand that. You put any of those other people in here that are so-called "bubble teams" and see what they do playing 18 games in this league.

Q. Looks like Esa has hit a groove the last four or five games. What does it do for you guys differently when he's scoring and rebounding like he's been over the last two or three weeks?
BOB HUGGINS: Gives us another threat and he's a guy who can -- he can score inside and outside, and we really need him to rebound. Baylor outrebounded us the first two games even though we were fortunate enough to win, but they outrebounded us and that was a big emphasis this week was to make sure that we rebounded the ball and it was a big emphasis to Esa. But he was better in the press. He gets three steals. I thought he played really, really well. And he was the guy who I think when we struggled a little bit against the zone to start with he was the guy who we were really trying to throw the ball to.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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