NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - NEW MEXICO ST. VS ARKANSAS

March 18, 2022

Eric Musselman

Au'Diese Toney

Trey Wade

KeyBank Center

Arkansas Razorbacks

Media Conference

Q. This question may be for both of you guys. I'm sure you've gotten into your New Mexico State prep at this point. Just curious your thoughts on number 0, Teddy Allen, and then how do you feel like you're equipped with this bigger starting line-up that you have to defend him? Looks like you have a number of bodies that match him from a physicality and size standpoint that you can throw his way.

AU'DIESE TONEY: Teddy is a good offensive player, so a lot of focus is going to be on him a lot, so the big line-up we have, we can switch one through five. Anybody can guard him, especially in transition. I feel comfortable with the versatility we have to be able to slow him down a little bit.

TREY WADE: Like he said, we can switch. We have the ability to do that, and just him scoring over length all night, I think that will be a big challenge for him, so we're going to make it as hard as we can for him.

Q. Devo came off the bench and scored 14. I have to add it up to know all the stats. I think he said that Devo is averaging 14 in the NCAA tournament games, including last year. So I think five games. He is averaging about eight in the others. What do you think it is about him that makes him score so well in the NCAA games? Maybe Trey and then Au'Diese can take that?

TREY WADE: I guess I have no idea. I guess he is just real good in postseason. He is a great spark that we need, and we hope he can continue to produce.

AU'DIESE TONEY: Just picking off what Trey was saying, Devo is an amazing player. He is just a gifted player. He has games that he can just snap and go off, and that's what we need from him. Last couple of games, he has been doing that. He has been doing that very well coming off the bench.

Q. J.D. has picked up a couple of fouls in the first half and come back and had a pretty big second half offensively. Just what do you guys make of those runs, and just kind of how he can get on one of those sprees kind of after refocusing at the break?

TREY WADE: That's J.D. He is a scorer. We expect that from him every game, and we just -- we do our best ability to get him good looks. He struggled with fouling early, and I challenge him all the time to kind of fall away from that, but, yeah, he is our scorer, and we expect that out of him.

AU'DIESE TONEY: We expect a lot of our J.D., Especially if we know like if he is not going because he is in foul trouble or just know the next man up, but once he comes back in the game, we know he is going to be that spark and get himself going again. He is just an amazing player that he can get himself going any way.

Q. Just wondering how much did last year's experience help you or might help contribute to you knowing where you are and knowing where you need to get and maybe settle you guys in some ways? For either of you.

TREY WADE: Neither of us were here last year.

Q. That's my bad.

TREY WADE: It's all good. Neither of us were here last year, but we rely on those guys that have that experience to kind of carry us and help us with anything we need, but that experience from them making that run last year definitely helped his team a lot.

Q. I guess in that sense, Trey, how much do you lean on those guys in knowing they've been there, and what are some of the things that they tell you at this point?

TREY WADE: They don't really tell us much. Just as far as those guys, they matured a lot over the past year, and it showed, and it's helped us a lot. So that's the biggest thing they can do is just kind of lead by example and experience.

Q. Does this surprise you guys that Muss found time to get to the Bills stadium and spend time with the Bills' head coach?

TREY WADE: Not at all. Muss is always doing interesting stuff to excite the team and the fans, so it's pretty cool that he did that.

Q. What did he share with you guys about going down there?

TREY WADE: He didn't -- he actually didn't tell us anything about it. I just kind of seen it on social media like you guys.

Q. Just kind of laugh at it?

TREY WADE: Yeah, yeah.

Q. Au'Diese, how is your first NCAA tournament experience been so far? Is it kind of what you expected? Anything surprised you?

AU'DIESE TONEY: It's exactly what I imaged. It's bright lights. It's amazing. It gives me chills just by walking in the building and seeing March Madness everywhere because when I was younger, I always watched it on TV, watching teams growing up, but it's just amazing just to be able to play in the tournament my first time.

Q. Then, Trey, how does Coach Musselman frame conversations about not overlooking some of these lower-seeded teams, especially a team like New Mexico State that's pulled an upset?

TREY WADE: He has been there before. He emphasized it a lot the past few days through film. He has been there before. He has played against certain teams, and he knows how important it is to really dial in and break down these teams because, obviously, they're pretty good. He emphasizes that a lot.

Q. Maybe Trey and then Au'Diese. I think it was the LSU game in Tampa, I think Devo only played five or six minutes, pretty uncharacteristic. A lot of guys might not deal with that too well, and then he played pretty well against A&M. Obviously played well last night. What did you think about that? What does that say about Devo that he can not play very much, and then it doesn't seem to impact him negatively?

TREY WADE: Not so much just Devo, but our whole team. You never know who is going to have a good game, and I think that makes our team very special. You just never know who is going to be the guy that night, but as far as for Devo, that's just him. He is hungry. He is always going to be hungry. When the opportunity presents itself, he takes it like the rest of us.

AU'DIESE TONEY: Especially knowing you're not playing a lot. You know it can frustrate you a lot, but you can tell with our team and the guys we have on our team, they don't let it affect us that much. We just will be ready when your name is called. Coach always says just be ready. You never know when your time will come, and he always capitalized on that even when he is not playing that much or not playing as good as he wants to play. He still stayed locked in.

Q. You guys only had five turnovers as a team last night. I didn't know. That's an NCAA tournament record for Arkansas. Arkansas has played 70 NCAA tournament games. What was the key to handling the ball so well, and Stanley played 40 minutes and did everything except turn the ball over. What did you think about what Stanley did and what you did as a team?

AU'DIESE TONEY: Coach has been preaching to us a lot, even at the beginning of the season about taking care of the ball. And with Stan playing 40 minutes without no turnovers, it's amazing because it's hard to play a 40-minute game without turning the ball over, and once are you doing that, you are doing something great, you know?

TREY WADE: I just think a lot of the times of us being unsuccessful in games is us beating ourselves by turning the ball over, so Coach emphasizes that a lot, and I think that was a big key of us winning last night was not turning it over.

Q. Trey, I do have a basketball question, but first, I wanted to ask you, did you see Coach Mus wife's Instagram of him jumping on a table at the Bills game? Did you see that one or no?

TREY WADE: No, didn't see that one.

Q. The basketball question is this: You guys come into the tournament yesterday. We saw all the upsets. How difficult is the first game for the top teams and do you feel a little more comfortable just in the surrounding and the tournament now? Is this going to be a little bit more of a regular game even though New Mexico State is a 12 seed kind of like Vermont was?

TREY WADE: I hope so. I hope we got our first game jitters out playing in front of the crowd, playing in this atmosphere, and hopefully we can come out a little more relaxed and play a little better than we started off, but, yeah, I hope those jitters are gone. That's all we're going to look forward to.

Q. For Au'Diese, since you missed the Tennessee game with -- I guess it was more of a foot injury than an ankle injury. You played 38, 39, and 40 minutes. Can you walk us through kind of the recovery process there and how it's felt the last few games?

AU'DIESE TONEY: Since the Tennessee game I missed, I have been doing treatment, like, four to eight hours a day just trying to recover off of that, doing whatever I could just to keep the pain tolerance down so I would be able to play. Matt, our trainer, he did very well at doing that, so with treatment every day. I'm still doing treatment now. It's just to keep the pain tolerance down and be able to move and things like that how I usually do.

Q. For both guys. I can't remember exactly when it was. It was in the second half. Vermont took a shot, and Finn Sullivan jumped way up. He is number 15, and Devo got under him accidentally and knocked him over, and the guy got up like he was -- wanted to fight, and Devo got right in his face and thankfully cooler heads prevailed.

I wonder what you remember about that, and what does that say about Devo? He doesn't seem like he is going to take much of anything off somebody else? He is ready to defend himself if need be.

TREY WADE: Obviously, it was an accident. He jumped up and kind of landed funny on top of Devo, and but Devo isn't going to back down from nobody. I actually expect that reaction from him. It's the heat of the moment, but at the end of the day, we're trying to win a ball game.

AU'DIESE TONEY: It was just the heat of the moment that both -- I mean, the guy from Vermont thought he did it on purpose, but it wasn't intentionally, and Devo wasn't going for anything the man was trying to say to him. He was just trying to take up for himself and just had to get the situation under control.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Just we're excited to still be alive and have great respect for New Mexico State. Obviously, we had the opportunity to watch them for most of the game yesterday, and, yeah, we had a great -- we've had a couple of different film sessions, and in between the film sessions, I was able to go over to the Bills practice site and meet some people as well as go into the stadium.

Q. When you watch tape and see a guy like Teddy Buckets, Teddy Allen, and some of the unorthodoxed ways that he can score and do things, what do you -- have you had a player like that before in your time, and what do you do about containing somebody with such an unorthodoxed style?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: He is really good, but I have also game planned for Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. I mean, he presents a lot of problems because of his ability to draw fouls. He has unlimited range.

Much of the difficulty for opposing teams to guard, J.D. Notae is when guys take difficult shots, and then have the ability to convert those into baskets. Certainly the performance that he put forth last night against a really, really good defensive team with a great defensive coach in Coach Hurley, I mean, it was a remarkable performance for sure.

Q. To build off of that, how do you feel like this match-up looks for your guys with a unique line-up that you have, a lot of guys that are similar maybe to Teddy Allen in size and physicality that you throw at him?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think the thing with New Mexico State, he is a dynamic scorer, talking about the best offensive player in their league, but they also have two other All League players as well.

Their point guard Rice gives them great size and great length and three-point shooting, but I think our philosophy has always been I think that when you -- every game you have a decision to make. Do you try to make the opposing team's best players take difficult shots and maybe spy on them a little bit, or do you try to shut down the other players and let those guys, as some coaches say, get theirs?

I think the people that have followed our team know that we put a high premium on trying to let our guys know that we want to try to contain or make difficult decisions and difficult shots by guys that are star players on the other side every team.

Last night, Vermont's two best players had good games, although the second half was a different half for Davis, and it became a little bit more difficult for him. Shungu, we didn't maybe do quite as good a job.

It's such a short turnaround time. Unfortunately, I'm not going to feel as comfortable going into this game as I did even yesterday. I mean, we had some days to prepare for Vermont. That's not going to be the case. I mean, we didn't get back to our hotel room until 1:00. By the time we ate, I mean, up until right now, there hasn't been a lot of sleep with anybody on the coaching staff. We've always liked to go out to dinner, for instance. Tonight we're not going out to dinner. We have to eat in the hotel just because of time constraints and wanting to be able to watch more film.

Our preparation even from this moment on is going to be much different. The way we practice today will be a lot less taxing than any practice that I've had since I've been at Arkansas.

Q. Since Au'Diese missed the Tennessee game, he has played 38, 39, and 40 minutes.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Is that all?

Q. Like to play him a little bit more?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Should have played him a few more.

Q. What do you think of the way he has bounced back from that foot injury? I guess he has given you a lift offensively. You count on him a lot defensively too, and maybe he has been even a little better lately than maybe pre-injury sometimes?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think he has knocked down some big threes for us, which is always important, Scotty. Last night late in the game, obviously, there was a concern when he tried to come out of the game, and the other four guys on the floor brushed me off and said, leave him in. It's a little bit maybe tender, but, obviously, he is going to play. He is really vital to us because of his offensive rebounding ability, his ability to basket-cut, his ability now, like I said -- he has hit some really big threes for us, and that stretches the game out for his four teammates as well, but defensively is -- people don't understand. Half the game is on offense. Half of it's on defense. Half the game, he is our most valuable player. Like, literally, has been our most valuable player at the defensive end.

Q. Whenever you're going up against an opponent who the last game had one player take almost literally half of their shots, he had 24 of their 50 shot attempts, do you feel like that is something that makes New Mexico State maybe a little one-dimensional? Especially whenever you see the imbalance in the scoring just on the stat sheet?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: No, I was really impressed with it. I thought it was really cool, to be honest with you, that New Mexico State found a hot hand, and the other four guys on the team were so selfless that they kept feeding him. Sometimes teams will come down the floor and do that for two or three possessions, and then somebody will take a shot just because they think it's his turn. I thought what Coach Jans did and the guys on the floor was really cool. It was reminiscent of teammates understanding that a guy was cooking and to let him roll.

I don't look at it like it was one-dimensional. I look at it like it was freaking genius, to be quite honest. If we have somebody roll like that, we're going to stand around and watch him too go off.

Q. I wanted to ask you a couple of things about Devo. One, he played 20 minutes against Tennessee. I know he didn't play very well, and then he only played five against LSU in the tournament. I think that's the fewest minutes he has played in back-to-back games. Some guys who play as much as he does, they might sulk or pout or whatever. It didn't seem like he did that. He has played really well the last couple of games. How do you think he handled that?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think that every game takes on a new identity. Every game takes on new match-ups. I came into the game last night when I looked around the locker room. We're going ready to go out and playing in a building on a national stage, who do I know that's done this with me? It's Jay Will and J.D. and Devo.

Going into the game whether it's fair or not, probably not fair, those were the guys that I was going to be comfortable with during the course of the game. Obviously, the minutes that Devo played were starter minutes, probably more minutes than a lot of guys that start across the country in this tournament so far.

I had belief, Bob, that he would be a competitor, try to help the team win because the one thing our locker room understands is when you lose, you're done, and nobody gets notoriety. Nobody -- it's over. Our guys want to continue. Everybody likes the limelight, or everybody likes the spotlight, or everybody likes to play another game, and the only way to do that from this moment on is to play as a team and to play with great competitiveness, and he exemplifies that.

Q. Devo is averaging 14.2 points in five NCAA tournament games. I think he is averaging seven or eight in the rest of the games he plays, not bad, but not double.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Maybe we can put the NCAA logo on our floor and dress up the locker room with the same signage we have here.

Q. They make you put your Pepsi in a cup, though.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: How do you know it was Pepsi?

Q. Might have been Coke, whatever, whatever you're drinking. What do you think it is about him that he did it last year and now he is doing it again? What do you think it is about him that he goes off like that in these games?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Some guys just have that "it" factor. Some guys just -- some guys when they walk in a room are cool, and some guys on a basketball floor when the lights are bright play. Up to this point, meaning last year -- it wasn't just last year in the tournament. I thought he stepped up like at Kentucky when he is walking out of a huddle and saying I'm going to get a steal and gets a steal and a dunk. He -- because he is really confident, that's why he is able to do that. He has no self-doubt in his ability to play well.

Q. Eric, before my real question, did you see your wife's Instagram story today?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I don't really know how to use Instagram. I shouldn't say that, but whenever I go to Instagram, I need one of my two sons around me. What did my wife do now?

Q. You were -- your head was super-imposed on a tailgater jumping on a table outside a Bills game.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: We sure it wasn't really me? (Laughing).

Q. The real question is, the Sabres I cover, they have forged a relationship with the Bills coaches and with Brandon, and coaches in general like to pick each other's brains. What did you want to get by going over there today, and what was your impression of just meeting with them and talking to them?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: So it was kind of set up a few days ago that I was going to go over there and see the stadium and see the practice site. My wife is actually friends with Lorenzo Alexander's wife, Manjanique. She was trying to help me meet Sean, and then someone on staff, Hays Myers, is actually related to Kyle Williams, so Hays was working his angle with Kyle Williams, and Danielle was trying to work her stuff through Lorenzo, and so we were able to go in and see the stadium, see the practice site, and then Coach was nice enough to come as was Brandon, and we talked philosophy for quite some time. I thought maybe we would talk for three or four minutes, but we talked -- we really got into some leadership stuff, which was really, really cool. Completely blown away with how nice and the time that both those guys gave not only myself, but my son, and we had a few other staff members.

We exchanged phone numbers. We've exchanged text messages since I left. I look forward and I truly believe that sometime down the road, we will end up either doing a Zoom together with maybe some other coaches or maybe just the two of us talking philosophy because we talked about dealing with media after a win or after a loss. We talked about a whole bunch of things, which I know I learned -- he probably didn't learn anything from me, but I learned some stuff from him for sure.

Q. Feel free to tell me if I'm maybe off base here, but do you get maybe some Mason Jones vibes watching Teddy Allen just in terms of maybe not the most vertically gifted athlete, but crafty and just wired to score?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Yeah. I think that's a great comparison, Scotty. It really is. I don't know where you want me to go with it, but it's -- I give you an A-plus on that observation.

Q. (Off microphone).

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I was just giving him the ball every time and trying to tell everybody to get out of his way, so I mean, I guess -- I mean, both guys will break plays, and create for themselves. I mean, we showed a whole highlight clip today of his passes too. He can -- he knows how to thread the needle on a bounce pass in pick and roll coverage if you jump out there too early or too quickly.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of -- his transition ability to score, like where are you going to pick him up? Are you going to pick him up at half court or at the three-point line? Are you going to pick him up two feet outside the three? Those are all decisions that you've got to make, much as the decisions that opponents had to make with Mason.

Q. We cover New Mexico State because it's about 30 minutes up the road. We also cover UTEP and a guy that was on your staff last year, Earl Boykins is obviously at UTEP now. They played New Mexico State twice. Did you hit him up at all for some film or advice on how --

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Earl was on speaker phone last night.

Q. Was he really?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Sure. He might not want me to say that, but he was on speaker phone.

Q. Now the whole world knows.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Yeah. I hope his jumper is still good like it was. Hope he is not losing his touch.

Q. I was just kidding about the NCAA cup. You are cool with that.

I think you were drinking Diet Coke. I think that's the official soda or whatever. You guys only had five turnovers last night. I didn't know. Mike told me. That's an NCAA tournament record for Arkansas.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Mike was actually doing his job?

Q. Yeah. I was sitting next to him. He was telling me stuff. That's an NCAA record. There were a lot of good teams, and before the shot clock and three-pointer and all that, but what did you think about only having five turnovers, and Stanley plays 40 minutes, and he basically fills up every category except turnovers. He had zero.

ERIC MUSSELMAN: It's hard to turn it over when you shoot it when you got it.

Q. What did you think about his game, ball handling-wise, and what did you think about how your team handled the ball?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: Stan was awesome. He keeps getting better and better and better and better with each game. You know, the one area that we wanted him to improve on was taking care of the ball, was ball handling. That's been a big part of his player development since he has arrived on campus, and he is doing ball handling drills throughout the course of the summer. He has basically gone from a power forward/small ball five to playing the two-three for us. He has improved so much defensively and improved on valuing the basketball as well. He has become a complete player.

When he came to Arkansas, he was a dominant offensive player, and I think that's how maybe internally he valued his importance to the team with scoring. Now he understands blocking shots, not turning the ball over, extra rotations, stunting if the ball is dribbled. All those things have become part of his game, and although my dad is not living anymore, we don't play the style that he would like, but he probably would have really liked us not turning the ball over because that was like a staple of his because he was a football coach, and, obviously, in football, turnovers kill you, but to have only five turnovers in the game, especially against a team that -- Vermont is so well-coached. I mean, I can't compliment the execution that they have on both sides of the ball, so five turnovers, incredible.

Q. Chris James was telling a funny story that his first interaction with you was I think many years ago at a Final Four, and you guys were basically working out next to each other on a treadmill, and he basically said, you know, you were lapping him tenfold. Do you remember that at all?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I lap a lot of people. (Laughing). No, I'm just kidding. I do remember it. The cool thing about Final Fours and coaching conventions or if it's the Nike retreat is you develop some relationships and some funny stories outside of the competition. Coach, I have incredible respect for him. His teams are always tough. They're always hard-nosed. They take on his personality. I think he is one of the best coaches in the country.

I like what he does with his team offensively. They're always tough on the backboards, but, yeah, I do remember. He was sweating pretty good too. I don't know if he told you that.

Q. I had a follow-up on Devo too. How much did that run that he helped you guys go on -- he played so well last year in Indianapolis, how much do you think that helped him have a real good game last night?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think for sure, Bob, that he is probably sitting in that locker room pregame, and he is probably looking around, and he is saying, hey, Jay Will and J.D., we got to play. Those are the guys that had proven it at this level, at this stage, and he stepped up to the occasion. With J.D. out, we needed somebody to score and we needed somebody to run our offense and do it with precision and not turn the ball over, so when you bring up the five turnovers and then you add in the fact that J.D. Notae was out for a lot of the first half, who is our primary ball handler, it tells you the job Devo did really on both sides of the ball.

Q. If my research is right, I think J.D. scored ten or more points in the second half eight times this year after he has picked up two fouls in a first half. How does he do that? Is it just you guys being more deliberate with shot selection and he is running things, or is he just really regrouping at half?

ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think he gets to regroup, but if we went and played right now, he would figure out a way to score 15. He could be dead tired. He is just wired different. Some guys like to shoot it at 8:00 in the morning. Some like to shoot at 8:00 at night. I think he is perfectly comfortable coming in the gym at 2:00 in the morning and thinks it's abnormal and why are you asking me why I shot at 2:00 in the morning? I'm just trying to get better. He is just that guy.

To answer your question, Scotty, I don't think two fouls affects him. I mean, I think he is sitting there going, Coach, why am I not playing? I only have two. I'm allowed five. He doesn't understand that we still have 35 minutes to play or whatever.