NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - XAVIER VS TEXAS

March 24, 2023

Rodney Terry

Tyrese Hunter

Marcus Carr

T-Mobile Center

Texas Longhorns

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Texas - 83, Xavier - 71

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the University of Texas Head Coach Rodney Terry. Student-athletes are Tyrese Hunter and Marcus Carr.

Coach, congratulations. You're in the Elite Eight.

RODNEY TERRY: Yes, sir. We're excited about it. I would like to start off bypassing my condolences and prayers off to Willie Cager. We lost him this past week. He was a true pioneer in college athletics. He was on that 1966 National Championship team in El Paso. Boy, no one loved basketball more than Willie. I wanted to make sure I recognized him tonight.

Excited for our guys. I thought we played one of our better defensive games tonight than we played all year. Played against a really good Xavier offensive team that really pushes the ball hard in transition and makes you really have to go at it on offense. They play with great pace of play. A lot of respect for Sean Miller as a coach and his program.

I'm proud of my guys, how they really put their will on this game from start to finish. It was a really good team win for us tonight.

Q. If the decision were up to you, would you make that man your permanent head coach? And also, what has he done to help you all get to this point after everything you endured?

TYRESE HUNTER: I mean, we're just living in the moment. He tells us every day, seize the moment. Live where your feet it. We try not to look too far down the road and see how much better we can get each and every day.

He's helped us since day one, since the summertime, keeping it real with us and helping us develop our games. Getting us ready for moments like this.

MARCUS CARR: For the past two years for me, since day one, meeting R.T., he's been nothing but an amazing coach, a guy that's pushed me to get better. He is my head coach.

Q. I'm sure you had somebody scouting the first game. What is your intention on stopping Nijel Pack?

RODNEY TERRY: You're not going to let me enjoy this for one night, huh? (Laughter).

Nijel Pack is a good player. He is an All Team Big 12 performer a year ago. He's a guy that everybody in the league we had to game plan for him a year ago with K State. Really good shooter. Really good offensive player. Just a really cerebral basketball player. Knows how to play the game the right way, pays with great pace.

But he's got other great teammates over there. That's a great over there. Their guard play is really good. They share the basketball really well in terms of passing the basketball. Their interior players played really well today against a really physical Houston team.

Nothing but respect for Coach Larranaga and what he's been able to do over the course of his career. His teams just win. We know we have our hands full with a really tough Miami ball club.

Q. How is Dylan Disu, and what are his chances of playing Sunday? For each of the games guys, when Dylan went down, how did that change, if it changed anything, how you approached the game? And what did you do to make up for his absence?

RODNEY TERRY: Our training staff has done a great job all year long. We've got the best in the business. We've been working with Dylan all week long, and we showed some good progress. Then we take a step back, showed some progress.

Nevertheless, they worked it all week. The last thing you want to do is put a young man out there that's not ready to go full tilt.

I wanted to give him that moment, though, to start the game and have a couple trips because he's worked so hard and he's earned the right to be here in a regional and play in a regional.

But we knew we weren't going to have him very much in this game tonight. We'll continue to go day to day with his progress. We've got the best in the business working with him. We won't put him out there unless he's full tilt to go.

I thought these guys here have been great teammates all year. We've played all year long next man up. They had his back tonight in a big way. He's carried us. These guys had his back tonight.

Q. Rodney, I know you talked all year about everything starts for you guys on defense. Just talk about the job you guys did, especially on the perimeter, to limit tonight Souley the way they did. Kunkel and those guys didn't get going until late.

RODNEY TERRY: We did a great job not giving those guys a lot of separation. Tyrese was terrific early in the game on Boum. He did a great job on Souley not letting him get comfortable, get to his sweet spot where he can score the basketball. Really made him uncomfortable for a better part of the first half.

We knew he was going to come out. He's too good player to completely shut down. You just want to continue to contain him, and the competitor that he is, he's going to continue to play. But we did a great job guarding their perimeter players tonight. A lot of that goes to Marcus and Timmy and Terry, all those guys. Every guy that came in really tried to play hard defensively.

We know what Tyrese was doing from start to finish with a really good offensive player.

Q. For all three guys, you had some foul problems. You knew Dylan was going to be limited. You just didn't let up. What does it say about the resolve of this team? And for you, Coach, what kind of advantage is it to have old guys that don't panic in moments like this?

MARCUS CARR: Like you said, we knew before the game that we wouldn't have Dylan for the whole game. So like Coach said, all year long we've had that next-man-up mentality. A couple of weeks ago, we didn't have T.A. in the Big 12 championship, and other guys stepped up.

We really wanted to play for him. We knew how much this would mean for him. We all got emotional in there just knowing he wouldn't be out there. We all knew the job we had to do for him.

C.B. obviously stepped up in a big way and played to the ability we know he can. He helped us a lot. Everybody out there really stepped up their game in place of Dylan, and we're going to continue to do that.

TYRESE HUNTER: Exactly what Marcus said. We just have that mindset. I mean, next guy is always ready from our bench and being deep. Coaches do a good job of preparing us for stuff like this just in case this happens in a moment like this.

So just go out there and play hard and have each other's back.

RODNEY TERRY: We were here in the same position a couple weeks ago in the Big 12 Tournament. Didn't have Timmy Allen, very productive player for us over the course of the season. We didn't have him for three games. Other guys got a chance to step up and have opportunities. I thought C.B. stepped up and gave us some incredible minutes for the better part of the game. I thought Brock came in and gave us great minutes. I thought Dillon Mitchell did his part in terms of what we needed to do.

This has been a very resilient team all year long. We've been in this position before. When you play in that Big 12 league, you've been battle tested. It's not anything you really haven't faced all year long -- foul trouble, an injured guy. You just keep playing and keep working the game for 40 minutes.

Q. Rodney, obviously if Dylan was out there, he probably would have spent a lot of time guarding their 7-footer. Without him, he had 15, but I think it took 19 shots to get there. What do you think of the job that C.B. and Dillon did and the on-ball defense of Tyrese and Marcus and how that impacted what Xavier wanted to do?

RODNEY TERRY: We knew we were going to try to keep these guys uncomfortable in the full court and the half court. So our pressure defense up the floor to try to take the ball out of Souley's hand and let someone else initiate offense was going to be big for us.

We needed to try to limit their pace of play up and down the floor. I thought the guys did a nice job on that. We worked on that the majority of the week.

We knew the big fella could be a factor in the game. We needed to try to block him and Hunter out. Hunter had been playing well for those guys as well. At the half they had six offensive rebounds. We knew we had to come out and do a better job of blocking those guys out and keeping them off the glass.

Really proud of the way our guys battled. I thought C.B., Brock used his quickness in there. Dillon Mitchell used his quickness. We knew we'd have to use Timmy in the post as well. All those guys by committee got in there and really tried to do the job for us.

Q. For any of the three of you, we talked about the fact you were here two weeks ago. Does familiarity with the surroundings, with the crowd, with the court, with the rims, the backdrop, anything, does that help you as you come back here to T-Mobile?

TYRESE HUNTER: Like you said, we've been here before. A lot of these guys and us, we played in the Big 12 in this arena. So I'd say just having our fans come out, having that support, any team we play is going to be a big game for us. So just come out and just be us.

Q. Rodney, for those of us that don't know, when was Dylan hurt? How was he hurt? It was described as a bone bruise. What is his availability for Sunday?

RODNEY TERRY: Again, it will be day to day right now at the moment. He got injured in the last ballgame. The last ballgame, the next day we immediately started trying to work on treatment and trying to see what we could do to put him in the best position, hopefully at the end of this week, to be in a good position to play.

We had some good progress at one point, and then we had a setback or too. Again, we have the best in the business working with him. We'll put him out there if he's 100 percent, but we're not going to put a young man who has a great future ahead of him out on the floor if he's not ready to be out on the floor.

Q. Two questions, one for Marcus: When you hit that circus shot, when the shot clock was burning down, is that when you knew it was going to be y'all's night? And for Coach Terry, throughout the season we've seen your squad interact with the crowd, interact with the fans whenever there's a run going on. I saw tonight you were trying to corral Jabari and Timmy to the huddle. How do you balance letting them show that confidence as hoopers, but keeping them focused also on the job at hand?

MARCUS CARR: I would say the first couple positions, how we were guarding on defense and our intensity and seeing everybody was locked in, I knew we were here to play. Obviously me hitting that shot, it didn't hurt at all. It was nice to see that one go in and not have that possession be empty.

Really I know whenever we're locked in or have a good chance to win the game is when we're locked in on defense. I see our intensity, and everyone is locked into the game plan.

Q. Coach, you've been coaching these big games at Texas since the early 2000s under Coach Barnes. How do you think those experiences and big games have prepared you for tonight?

RODNEY TERRY: Again, I think you learn over the course of the NCAA Tournament, you have to play the game for 40 minutes. We're a pretty emotional team. A lot of times we feed off of our emotions in terms of how hard we play.

We've got an older team that really understands playing with poise, playing with emotion, but also trying to finish the game as well.

In the NCAA Tournament, you've got to play start to finish. Even if you're up 15, you're up 20, you've got to play it all the way to the end. I think over the course of my career, you learn that in terms of anything can happen in March. That's why it's the madness.

So I think just really trying to steer these guys to continue to try to play for 40 minutes. You can't waste 20 minutes. Every possession is valuable in the NCAA Tournament. And continue to want more. I mean, each round. Don't be satisfied.

We're going to enjoy this victory for one night, like we have all year long, and we'll be on to the next challenge and very quickly with a quick turnaround against a really good Miami team.

I'd like to just say thank God for this opportunity. God put us in this position today. We wouldn't be here without Him giving us this opportunity today.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, Tyrese, and Marcus, thank you for being with us.