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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: ATLANTAMarch 22, 2012Kenny FreaseTu HollowayMark LyonsChris MackBrad RedfordATLANTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Xavier head coach Chris Mack. Coach, we'll have you start with an opening statement and then open it up for questions. COACH MACK: Well, we're excited to be here. We set a goal in our locker room early on to not only make the NCAA Tournament, but to advance. Here we find ourself in the second weekend against a really good Baylor team who presents a lot of problems. They're very long. They're extremely athletic. They're talented. They're well coached. We're going to have to be at our best tomorrow night, and I expect that I will be. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Mack. Q. Coach, looked like Dez was able to participate some today. Do you have any update on how he's doing? COACH MACK: I saw what you saw. That is, he's just trying to get ready to play tomorrow night. It's going to be a game‑time decision. It really hasn't changed from the beginning of the week. I'm hopeful that he'll give it a go. I think he's very hopeful that he'll give it a go. But how effective he is will be another story. We keep our fingers crossed and say some prayers. Q. Andre, I understand, didn't participate at all in activities today. Is he okay? COACH MACK: He's fine. He's had some migraine headaches over the last couple of days. It's just smarter for us, especially with a fifth‑year player who's been through the rigors of college basketball and knows what the NCAA Tournament is all about, to just sort of stay back and continue to get rest so he can be able to go tomorrow night. Q. Coach, how aware does your team have to be of a Brady Heslip? COACH MACK: Extremely aware. I think everybody that plays him probably is aware. We have to do a better job with their first two opponents in terms of being there on the catch. I think ESPN was running something across the bottom line that talked about how many catch‑and‑shoot 3s he's had in the first two games of the tournament. He's lethal. It's one thing for you to be a lethal shooter, it's another thing to have teammates have are very unselfish. Whether it's in transition, Coach does a great job of freeing him from set plays they run. I have great respect for him as a player, and certainly I understand he's a big part of why they're here as well. Q. Obviously, Tu faced a difficult decision last year whether to come back or not. Where is he both as a person and as a player now compared to where he was when he made that decision to come back? COACH MACK: He continues to develop. It's hard not to develop when you're at Xavier. It's a very tight‑knit community. It's a small school with just under 4,000 undergrads, a very caring faculty. I think he has great comfort in knowing that was the right place for him. Prior to coming to Xavier, he'd been so many different places for short periods of time. I think he's really found a home at Xavier. He's really played well here, not only in the NCAA Tournament but in the Atlantic 10 tournament. He's one of the best guards in the country no doubt. Q. Just following up on Andre, are the migraines something related to his injury in Greensboro, the first part. And the second part is can you talk about the challenges of Baylor's front court? COACH MACK: You'd probably have to ask David Fluker in terms of whether it's an ongoing deal from the Notre Dame game. As far as Baylor's front court, they're really long. They're really athletic. They lead the tournament in second‑chance points, and that's a big deal. We have to do a great job of blocking out. We start a guy that's 6'8", 6'9" at the 3 and is extremely athletic and can slide over to the 4. We know who they are. Whether we can keep them off the glass is going to be another story. But that's the goal going in. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about everything that Holloway gives you all. It looks like he leads you all in about half the statistical categories. COACH MACK: He's probably one of the most experienced players in college basketball. He's played in big games. From the time he was a freshman‑‑ I remember we played a tournament in the Virgin Islands against Missouri, and we advanced to eventually win that tournament, three games in four days, and Tu was the big reason. He was at the line the last two minutes of the Missouri game, and as a freshman, goes 10 for 10. I think that was the third game of his career. You fast‑forward the next year, sophomore year, and we're playing Kansas State in this game to go to the Elite Eight, and he hits three free throws with no time on the clock to send it into overtime. The moment's never been too big for him. I think he relishes playing on this stage. I think he has some teammates that he believes in and they believe in him as well. He's very productive. We put the ball in his hands a lot because he makes really good plays. And we're going to continue to do that. Q. Could you talk about your team's resilience in reaching here after the fight? Obviously, that's an incident that could have undermined a lot of aspirations, and yet you guys were able to put it aside and get here. COACH MACK: It wasn't easy. We've dealt with it wherever we've gone. I think our guys‑‑ we have competitive kids. We have kids that continue to believe in one another, and despite what the outside world presented to us, we continue to try to work to get better. We had some ups and downs. We lost to some teams, by the way, that were really good, and we just couldn't get over the hump. Over the last three or four weeks, a big part of the reason why I think we have gotten over the hump is that belief but also because of the play of Kenny Frease. He has really become a low post presence for us on both ends of the floor, he stayed out of foul trouble, and he's a big reason why we're here. Q. Coach, just want to ask about Dee Davis. What's he done for you guys in his first year here? How do you see kind of his future with this program? COACH MACK: He's got a great future. Dee is behind a couple of really talented All‑Conference guards in Mark and Tu. But I think you can tell, when a guy gets into an NCAA Tournament game and plays 29 minutes last game because Dez Wells goes out with an injury, he really kept us afloat in the first 10 to 15 minutes against Lehigh when we couldn't score. He took two big 3s, took three big charges in the first half. He's a different type of point guard than a Tu Holloway, than a Mark Lyons. He's a really pass‑first point guard, run‑the‑team‑type point guard. That's what we expect out of Dee. I think he would tell you he learned a great deal in his freshman year, like all freshmen do. The challenges he faced every day in practice, I don't know if he could have got it with any team in the country with the two guards he had to face every day in practice. He's going to have a bright future with us. Q. I'm just wondering, with Holloway and Pierre Jackson in this game, D.J. Cooper over at Ohio, Erving Walker at Florida, a lot of guys six feet and shorter make an impact in this tournament. When you're evaluating point guards, how critical a factor is this height in terms of the measurement process? COACH MACK: I think it really depends on the rest of your roster. We've got an incoming point guard that's about 6'3". Dee's a water bug. So I think we look for competitive character in our kids, guys that when they're down ten points, are they going to wilt or try to raise the level of play of their teammates? I think to a man we have that. I think, if you look at our scores, whether we get down 15 against Lehigh, 10 in the second half to a stalling Notre Dame team, we continue to stay with it. That's the first thing we look at rather than inches on a point guard or any position. Certainly need size when you're looking at the front court. But the size of the heart is bigger than the size of the body a lot of times. Q. If Wells can't go, how would you address to your lineup? COACH MACK: I don't know at this point. Actually, I do. I'm just not going to give it to you guys. Q. Coach, can you talk‑‑ well, you talked about the length of Baylor. In terms of keeping them off the boards or limiting that, is the big responsibility on Frease, or is it a full team effort? COACH MACK: It's an entire team effort. It starts with your guards. Can they keep the ball in front? Can they guard the basketball? If they're getting beat off the dribble and the shot's going up, now you have your bigs coming over to rotate, and they're in no position to block out. Again, they rebound it from three or four positions on the floor. If Kenny does his job against his matchup but Jeff Robinson misses a blockout, Dez Wells misses a blockout, then it's irrelevant. It's an entire team effort, and we've got to do it on every shot. We can't just pick and choose possessions to block out. If you do that, you start to put a little bit of pressure on an opponent to make their first one. That's a big goal of ours. It's going to be a tough one. But that's what it is. Q. I'm curious to what degree do you think your success in the postseason has helped recruiting, and also to that end, is there still kind of a ceiling or difficulty getting the ultimate‑‑ you know, the blue‑chip guys because of where you are as a mid‑major? COACH MACK: I think we're getting Blue chip guys. We may not be getting guys that some of the other programs are getting, but Dez Wells was pretty highly recruited. Kenny Frease was really highly recruited. And some of the kids that we have coming in a year from now are extremely highly recruited. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. C.J. McCollum from Lehigh was not highly recruited, and he's pretty good. Some guys make mistakes. You really have to understand who you're getting and how they fit into your team. We feel good about the players in our program, and it certainly helps when you play deep in March to go out‑‑ when you're evaluating kids, they know you play in the tournament. This is our 11th NCAA Tournament in the last 12 years. Our fourth Sweet 16 in the last five years. That's something we're awfully proud of, but it doesn't ensure you're going to get kids to come to your school, but it certainly lets kids pick up the phone call a little bit easier. Q. One more follow‑up on Dez. Noticed he was wearing some great shoes out there during shooting. Were those normal? COACH MACK: He had a certain tape job on his foot that allowed him to shoot it as well as he could. Just trying to see if he could get through shooting drills without too much pain. We don't want to set him back during shootaround. He did what he could today during practice and at the shootaround we just had. We're comfortable that he's going to play, but it's not a certainty. Q. Coach, I understand you live in northern Kentucky. I'm wondering what your neighborhood is like in terms of Kentucky fandom, and how would they feel if you guys won two games here this weekend. COACH MACK: I wouldn't care how they felt if we won two games here this weekend. I don't know if my house would be standing. No, you can't live in Kentucky and not live next to a Kentucky fan. It's impossible. They've got a passionate fan base. It's nice because I can sort of slip in and be anonymous and do my deal. I've converted a couple of them, and they're half Xavier, half Kentucky. Probably 51 percent Kentucky, 49 percent Xavier. So I know who they'll be rooting for if we play and are lucky enough to play on Sunday. But a passionate fan base for sure. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach Mack? Thank you, Coach. Good luck tomorrow. We'll take questions for the Xavier student‑athletes. Raise your hand, and we'll get a microphone to you. Q. This is for Tu. Obviously, you faced a tough decision last year about whether to come back. With all the ups and downs of the season and now being here, are you happy with the decision you made to do it one more time? TU HOLLOWAY: I'm not only happy with the decision I made as far as coming back, I'm about to graduate from Xavier. Also, we've been through a lot this year. Not only basketball, but the things we've been through is going to help us all out as people later on in life. Q. This question is for Tu and for Mark. How much respect or how aware do you have to be of a Brady Heslip who seems to be red hot right now? TU HOLLOWAY: Any guy that can score 27 points in the NCAA Tournament without dribbling, he's a really good player. He dominated the game last week against Colorado. He's a great player, and we have a lot of respect for not only him, but the Baylor team. MARK LYONS: Just like he said. He's a great shooter, and we have to be able to chase him and make him take tough shots, because, if he gets an open shot, more than likely he's going to go down. You just got to be ready to chase him. Q. Kenny, any special preparations this week for Perry Jones? KENNY FREASE: I know he's a great player, and I think that it's going to have to be a whole team defense for us, especially when he gets the ball in the post, being able to keep him in front. We know the guards are going to be able to help us from the top, but we've got to take that responsibility on ourselves to try to contain him as much as possible. So it makes the guards' jobs easier so they're not closing out in bad situations and things like that. I think that he definitely is going to pose a couple of problems for us, but it depends on how we're going to handle those problems. Q. For Tu, specifically about your game, in terms of your game, where do you feel you are now compared to your first three years? What have you worked on specifically, and where do you think‑‑ how do you think you've improved compared to previous years? TU HOLLOWAY: Just like every summer I work on my jump shot, and I shoot over like 20,000 shots. So I just try to be more consistent with my mid‑range game. This year wasn't more about shooting long 3‑pointers, it was just about working on my mid‑range as much as possible. Q. For Kenny and Tu, can you talk about the experience factor at this stage of the tournament. You come into a different size arena and a different kind of stage in terms of the spotlight. You've been here before. What difference does that make? KENNY FREASE: I think that it's just being able to recognize how big of a stage it is and not‑‑ and not make it any bigger than it is. I think that Baylor's a great team and we're a great team, and I think that's going to be the main‑‑ that's what you have to pay attention to, not all the things that are going on around you. Just being able to play your game. That's the main thing. You can't let all the other hype around the game really get in your head at all. Just go out and play like it's a normal game. TU HOLLOWAY: Kenny and I and also Brad, we've been here before. So we just can't let the moment get too big. We've got to try to focus as much as we can. It's a different venue playing at Georgia Dome, but it's not really too much different from where we just played down in Greensboro as far as the way it's set up. We just can't let the moment get too big and just try to take our time with things. Q. This is for Tu. Can you talk about the difficulties in defending Pierre Jackson. Have you faced many guards that quick? TU HOLLOWAY: Actually, I went to camp with Pierre Jackson this summer out in Los Angeles, I believe. We went to the adidas Nations Camp. I watched Baylor a lot this year, and he's the guy that really makes them go. So you're in the Sweet 16, so there's a whole bunch of big time players. You know that Pierre Jackson is just another one that we're going to try to defend as a team. Q. So that being the case, Tu, is that something that you look forward to? You seem to be a pretty competitive dude. Are you looking forward to the challenge? TU HOLLOWAY: It's all about challenges now. I know he's looking forward to the challenge of playing against the Xavier guards here. So we're just ready for the challenge. That's what we signed up for. They never said things are going to be easy. This is the Sweet 16, and that's what we're here for. Q. Mark, just what's Dee Davis done for this program so far in his first year basically, and how have you guys tried to teach him and bring him along for the future of this program? MARK LYONS: He gives it his all every time in practice on the court. As you saw last game, he gave us a huge spark off the bench and really came and picked our team up because we were down 15. When he got in the game, he brought the energy and the spark to push the lead closer to halftime. He's just been a great player for us all year and competitive. He's an Xavier player. He's supposed to be here, and we're happy to have him. Q. For Kenny, we were out there watching, but what was your view of what you saw from Dez? How did he look to you? KENNY FREASE: Dez is a really tough kid. We're going to obviously let him rest as much as he needs to. If he's able to go tomorrow, obviously, he's going to be 100 percent, and he's going to be the same dude that he is all the time, getting double‑doubles in big games and really pushing the pace for us and just being that high flier that we need him to be. If he's able to go, he's going to go. So we'll see what happens. Q. Do you think that because Xavier has been to so many Sweet 16s in the recent past, compared to other mid‑majors, maybe, getting to this point isn't in itself exciting enough for you; that you want more, this is kind of just a step in the process, whereas some programs this might be the goal? BRAD REDFORD: Every college basketball player wants to get to this point in the NCAA Tournament, and we came here to Xavier to not only get to the NCAA Tournament, but to advance. Yeah, we're excited and happy to be here in the Sweet 16, but we want to go farther. This program has yet to be to a Final Four. We've got some extremely tough teams in front of us, but it's a matter of just handling the game that we have tomorrow against Baylor. Q. This is for Tu again. Sort of piggybacking on the last question, anytime somebody sees a double‑digit seed, they tend to refer to that squad as a Cinderella, but you guys obviously have been here before. If somebody calls you a Cinderella, would that almost sort of offend you? TU HOLLOWAY: Sometimes I'm offended. We're still, quote, mid‑majors, but we continue to have success throughout the major teams that we play against in the power conferences. It is what it is. At this point, we're just here to advance. If we're being called the Cinderella, okay. Just time to go out there and play ball the best way we can. Q. For Kenny, obviously, Perry Jones is a big part of the inside game with Baylor. Just curious, though, what you've seen from him on film because he can post some big numbers, and there are other times where he kind of seems to drift and the numbers don't come. Just curious, if you noticed that kind of inconsistency in his game a little bit. KENNY FREASE: We've watched a lot of film on him. He's an extremely talented player. He can do things from 17 feet in and score around the basket. His mid‑range jump shot is great for a big man. He poses a lot of challenges for us. Whether or not he's been inconsistent throughout the year, this is a Sweet 16. He's going to be on the top level of the top level of his game, and we've got to be on the top level too. Q. Forgive me if this was asked already, but going back to the game in Cinnci to now in the weeks and months that have passed, have you guys taken anything important out of that incident? What's the major thing that you learned from that? TU HOLLOWAY: Sometimes we take playing on ESPN or playing on big‑time TV networks and having the opportunity to play here at Xavier for granted. After that game, it made me realize how many kids I was a role model to at home. Now we turned the corner, and we're trying to do better for ourselves and our families and things. We're just trying to look forward from that point, but we're going to continue to remember that we're always role models. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. We appreciate your time. Good luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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