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NCAA MEN'S 1ST ROUND: DAYTON

March 15, 2011

DAYTON, OHIO

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by USC student-athletes Nikola Vucevic, Donte Smith and Jio Fontan.

Q. Jio and Donte, getting into the Pac-10 tournament last year -- or this year after having not being able to go last year and getting into the NCAA Tournament this year, is there more of a sense that you guys -- that you don't want it to be just happy to be here because you didn't have this opportunity before and that you want to go on, or what's your guys' feeling about just being here, I guess?
JIO FONTAN: I think definitely it is. I think that for the most part, we are definitely happy to have this opportunity to play in this tournament and it's been our goal since the beginning of the season.
But we're going to take it one game at a time, try to get as far as we can. We feel we have a great shot at winning the tournament. We definitely want to approach this with the mentality that don't just want to celebrate because we're here; we want to get far.
DONTE SMITH: I feel like the same way. I feel like we're happy we're here, but at the same time we've got to handle business. We're not here just to be here. We're here to make some noise in this tournament, and I feel we have a chance we can do that.

Q. Could you kind of go over your travel arrangements, how you arrived here? You obviously found out Sunday evening, or Sunday afternoon there, that you were in the tournament. Can you kind of take us through these next 48, 72 hours?
DONTE SMITH: I mean, we found out -- it was like a quick turnaround. We found out and we knew we had practice that next morning, and we had to be packed before our practice because we was just going straight to the airport right after practice.
So it was like get our minds right, right when we found out, and we just had to -- it was a quick turnaround. And we knew that. So, I mean, it's like that all tournament. It's like this schedule, I mean, we've been playing like this all Pac-10, like we played on Thursday, we play Saturday. And like we play -- we play Wednesday, we win Wednesday, we play Friday. So our bodies are kind of immune to it, so we're ready.

Q. Jio, VCU likes to press. Have you seen them on tape and how will you attack that?
JIO FONTAN: We saw them on tape. They're a great team doing what they do. They get up and down the court, they play a lot of guys. They're definitely a team that's going to try to speed the game up.
I think we're going to approach the game with the same mentality we approach all teams with. That strategy is to slow ourselves down defensively, get stops because it's hard to press. They don't really spread too many baskets. And offensively just do what we do, get the ball inside to -- I know people are tired of me saying it, but to the Player of the Year in our conference, Nikola Vucevic, and feed off him.

Q. Can you talk about how K.O. addressed the situation with getting suspended within the team, how he addressed that with you guys and maybe some of what the sentiment of the emotion was like?
JIO FONTAN: His approach to it was real sincere. You can tell that he really felt like he let us down. And he apologized for his actions.
It's something that I think he's glad that he went through for the learning part of it. And we feel like as a team it's kind of something we benefited from, brought us all together, brought us all closer and we definitely got to see another side of coaching staff that we would not have seen if that altercation hadn't happened.
It's a blessing in disguise. I think K.O. learned a lesson from it. I think our team learned a lesson from it. I think our coaching staff became stronger as a unit and something we look to take on as positive energy.
DONTE SMITH: I felt the same way. He was very apologetic to us. Called a meeting right after the game. Like Jio said, our coaching staff did grow as a unit. It made us -- it's another adversity we went through again, and he just apologized to us like he really cared, like he felt like he let us down. But at the same time we went out there and played hard against Arizona and we knew like as a unit we really wanted to get that win, but we came up short.
But we're here now. So it is what it is.
NIKOLA VUCEVIC: You could see that K.O. felt bad about what he did. And but the way -- the fact that he called a meeting right after the game meant a lot to us. And he apologized like many times to everybody. So it meant a lot to us. And it made us stronger, made us closer together. So I think we should look at it as something that helped us and not made it something bad.

Q. According to most of the experts you were one of the last teams into the tournament. Do you feel like you have something to prove or prove wrong by being in here and the way you play?
JIO FONTAN: I don't think I'm personally or our team even is paying too much attention about that now. I think the fact that we're in the tournament, that was just our biggest thing.
Now that we're here, like Donte said, we're here to take care of business. Whether we were the first four in or the last four out or whatever the case may be, we just want to play VCU, go out there and approach the game with the same mentality and try to win and not really pay much attention to where they have us in the standings or how far they have us in the tournament.

Q. Jio, since you transferred in and obviously you had a lot of options, when you meet K.O., his reputation for a lot of yelling and the profanity and that kind of thing, does he lay it out there, this is who I am, or do you kind of find that out as you go along?
JIO FONTAN: No, he laid it out there. I think that's one of the things I liked the most is that I didn't really come to this school and was sold a dream, nor was I sold the image of him that wasn't real.
Going to their shoot-around, I seen the image he had when I transferring in on my visit. Just being out there and being vocal and getting after guys. It's important you do that at this level. I think it's something that benefits us, and we can all take criticism. So it's definitely easy to take criticism from each other. And he's been a great teacher.

Q. Jio, he laid it out there, or laid it all out there, what does that mean? What did he lay out there about his style?
JIO FONTAN: Just about his plans for the team, where he wanted the program to be headed. His style of coaching. He was going to be on guys, that he was going to coach you. He was going to be on you 100 percent. He wanted to bring the best out of you and he was going to be there to support off the court.
That was my biggest thing was knowing I had somebody I could trust and go to speak to off the court, more importantly, because I felt all the coaches that recruited me at the time did a great job of showing me what they can do as far as coaches on the court.
And my relationship with K.O. is something that's a blessing for me. I feel I've been granted an opportunity of a second chance when I got the opportunity to leave Florida and to play at USC. I thought there's always been something special about this program. A lot of people second-guessed my decision turning down probably two or three schools that were preseason top 25, but we're here now and I still -- I don't look back at all and regret anything.
I think I made a great decision, and just to have these guys with me, my teammates with me and the university behind me has been something I've been able to talk to my family about and all been thankful for.

Q. Nik, nationally you've sort of been under the radar. Do you feel this opportunity, this tournament is an opportunity to have a national coming-out party, if you will?
NIKOLA VUCEVIC: I think this will be a great opportunity for us to show people who we are, what we can do. I think people don't know about us too much, but this will be a great opportunity for me and my teammates to show people that we deserve to be in this tournament, that we're a great team, and we can compete against anybody.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
We're joined now by Coach Kevin O'Neill. Coach, opening statement.
COACH O'NEILL: Let's get it out of the way right off. I want to apologize once again for getting suspended during the Pac-10 tournament. Pat Haden in our administration did absolutely the right thing at the right time. I'm held to a high standard. The highest standard as the leader of our team. I didn't live up to that. Suffered the consequences.
Thankful to be back coaching our team. Looking forward to playing in the NCAA Tournament. And we have a group of guys that are looking forward more to playing in the NCAA Tournament than a lot of people in the country, because they've overcome a lot of adversity. Really played well for the last two years and played hard through a lot of sanctions and different things.
And we're excited to get going. Thank you. See you later. All right.

Q. Is it kind of an interesting dynamic when you talk in terms of motivational, you know, whatever kind of fires you guys up, because you guys have overcome a lot. Obviously last year you couldn't even have been here, it was impossible. And then for VCU, them kind of being one of the last teams in it as you guys were, but even then after that people were second-guessing them, you know, how dare they get in, that kind of thing. Is it an interesting dynamic of how you guys each are motivated and how do you think that will play out?
COACH O'NEILL: The one thing I want to say, I hear this every year how this team shouldn't be in, absolutely not -- the guys that make these decisions sit around for a whole year and do this. And they're not wrong very often. You can make a case for some teams being in, some teams being out, maybe us being in or out. The bottom line is all of us that are here are here. We're still standing. There's 68 of us. Somebody's going to win it all.
I think VCU has a very, very good basketball team. I've seen them on and off throughout the whole year. We know it's going to be a great challenge for us to play them.
And we know we'll have to play a great game to have a chance to win going into the last couple of minutes. So whether guys deserve to be here or not, everybody's going to put on their short pants and go out there and play and try to advance, and we expect them to do that and we're going to try to do the same.

Q. With the contrast in styles, is tempo the big word for you in terms of trying to slow it down, get the score in lower?
COACH O'NEILL: I think tempo, we definitely play different styles, but we've played against a lot of teams like that. I think VCU, and it's a compliment to them and to Washington, they're very much like Washington.
And we've played those guys a couple of times. Arizona is an up-and-down team. UCLA plays up and down. So we know that we'll have to play at our tempo, which isn't crawling, but it's slower than Washington and those guys play.
We're a team that has to play at our tempo to be successful. We have a formula for winning, and that's defending, rebounding the ball, low turnovers, and taking good shots. On top of that, if we establish an inside presence with Nik and Al, we have an opportunity to control the tempo of the game that way.
That's the same way every game is played. And we have to impose our will on them if we want to have a chance to win.

Q. On top of a lot of other things, you guys also have travel that you've been saddled with. Is that a factor at all and how do you think it will affect everybody?
COACH O'NEILL: Travel, it doesn't bother us at all. What I've said with short turnarounds and travel and all that, we're in the Pac-10 so we're used to travel weekends where you leave on a Wednesday, play on a Thursday, travel again on the Friday and play Saturday. So to us having three days, we feel like we've got a luxury. So there's no excuse for us not playing our best, whether it be travel or the hotel or anything like that.
I don't think that should affect us at all. If it does, we're not the team I thought we were. So I think it's -- the two teams are going to slug it out and see who wins the game.

Q. Kevin, at any point last weekend, how fearful were you that you might lose your job over what happened?
COACH O'NEILL: I think anytime somebody has an incident like that, or if you lose too much, I think coaches are always fearful of those things. I'm fortunate. I have guys that represent our university well. They understand what we have to live up to, what standard we have to live up to. But they're fair guys. Two are sitting here, Steve Lopes and J.K. McKay, two of our senior administrators.
I understand that I let them down and let our university down. If that would have been the consequence, I would have had to deal with it, because those are my actions.
I certainly didn't want to get fired. Nobody wants to get fired, obviously. And the bottom line is they've supported me and my family tremendously through this. And I appreciate it. I thank them. Just like our president, Max Nikias. We have a Trojan family. Guys make mistakes. I made a big mistake, and they've been very understanding, very worthwhile in their support.
Now, you guys would have probably wanted coaches to lose it. Isn't that the way it goes? I'm joking, obviously.

Q. You guys ended the season winning six out of your last eight games. What do you think was the key to that success?
COACH O'NEILL: We started to grow up a little bit. It took Jio a long time. He missed 10 games. Al had a broken hand for 12 games, basically, wore a cast or what they call a soft cast.
And I think we lost at home to Oregon. Everybody was down in the dumps. We didn't have many moves to make because we only played seven guys. We made a change in our lineup. Maurice Jones started coming off the bench. Donte started for the first time all year, and then Jio moved from the 2 guard over to the point guard spot. I think his comfort level went up. I think Donte's confidence went up. And I think Maurice became a little less pressured than playing 38 minutes a game as a freshman at the point. And all those guys, as they have grown, we've played better.
I think we're still growing as a team. We hope we have a lot of basketball left to play. I also think our seniors came up big. I think Donte and Marcus Simmons and Al really stepped up, and Nik has gotten better and better every game. We're a team that's evolved into a pretty solid team.
Because of all the adversity they've gone through they've become men. I told them the other night after the Arizona game, I said, You guys are now a team of men and we know we can count on you, you can count on each other. And we started to develop as a team which has really been great to see.

Q. How gratifying is it to be here also considering the state of the program when you took over, the sanctions and some of the things you had to deal with?
COACH O'NEILL: Well, we feel honored and privileged to be here just to be in the NCAA Tournament, which I think is a great honor for any college team.
I don't care if you're the No. 1 team in the country, No. 10, No. 21 team, if you're playing in the NCAA Tournament, that's a great honor, and it means you have a chance to win the national title when 260 other schools are at home. I think, first of all, that's an honor for us.
And you look historically what's happened to teams that have gone through what we've gone through. It's been long rebuilds and tough seasons and losing records and all that.
I'm not knocking any of those programs, because that's kind of what I expected coming in. The thing I've had differently -- I've had some guys -- last year's team and this year's team -- that are just tremendously high-character guys and tremendously intent on doing well and improving. And even when they play bad, it hurts them and they want to play better.
So the reason we are where we are today is we have guys that count on each other. We have guys that care about winning that have a passion for getting better, and because of that we've been able to improve as a team, be more tough mentally and physically as we've gone along. And really overcome, I think, insurmountable odds to be in the NCAA Tournament in just our second year.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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