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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SAN JOSEMarch 20, 2013Anthony BennettAnthony MarshallDave RiceSAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by student‑athletes Anthony Bennett, a freshman forward, and Anthony Marshall, a senior guard. Q. Can you recall for us the last sequence in the game you played against Cal last time? I think Cobbs was defending you. Did he touch the ball at all, was it an air ball, and did you expect what happened would happen? ANTHONY MARSHALL: Yeah, the second half they came out playing pretty good and there was a possession where they did a pretty good job of defending me. I just tried to get the ball toward the rim and it just so happened that Q was right there to get an amazing put back and one. He knocked down the free throw, so that gave us a win. Q. How different is each team from the first meeting back in December? ANTHONY MARSHALL: Well, for us, you know, it's a game where Mike Moser played the first couple of minutes and he got hurt. He really didn't play the rest of the game. We didn't have Khem Birch down low playing with us, he wasn't eligible at the time. Both teams have gotten a lot better. It was early on in the season where two teams were trying to find their identity, the right rotations, how they wanted to play and stuff like that. And I think both teams have come a long way and it's going to be a battle. ANTHONY BENNETT: Like he said, both teams came a long way. For us, Khem Birch wasn't eligible and Mike obviously got injured in the game. So I'm pretty sure it's going to be a real, real tough game from the jump. Q. As the No. 5 seed, how do you feel about playing so close to Berkeley here? ANTHONY BENNETT: It's great. Close to Vegas, I'll say, so a lot of fans can come out. We don't have to travel that far. We don't have to worry about time difference or anything, we've just got to go out and play our game. ANTHONY MARSHALL: Having the luxury of being so close to Vegas is very helpful, but at the same time it's kind of close to Cal. But we played them at home in December. It will probably be a little similar, but I feel like we'll have a lot more Rebel fans this time around. Q. How excited are you guys to take the court tomorrow? How excited are you to play and be in front of your fans? I'm told 500 people from Las Vegas are going to be here. ANTHONY MARSHALL: It's very exciting. This is what you work hard for, those extra sprints, those extra shots you put up before practice and stuff like that. This is the time that it counts. For us to be here is an honor to be mentioned with the last 68 teams playing, so we're very excited. ANTHONY BENNETT: For me personally I'm excited, first time around, as a freshman, great experience. I heard from my friend Kevin Pangos from Gonzaga that he said it was real fun. So I just want to go out here and do the best, and hopefully move forward. Q. When you look at Cal, and I know you've looked at a lot of tape and obviously seen them in person, what concerns you the most in terms of match‑ups, is there something about this team where we need to worry about this if we're going to be successful, what is it? ANTHONY MARSHALL: I believe we match up pretty well. They have a lot of rotation they can throw out there and I feel we can match it, and vice versa. I feel like it's going to be a battle and a good game. We've got to play a good game of 40 minutes of good basketball. At this level deep in March every possession counts, you really can't take a possession off, because it may also end up costing you the game. You've got to be ready to take on that challenge. Q. What is the biggest challenges that you'll take in defending Cal's back‑court, Justin Cobbs and Allen Crabbe? ANTHONY MARSHALL: They're two aggressive guys that look to score. They play within the team. They don't try to do anything outside the team. But they're aggressive when having the ball. We've just got to take on the challenge of guarding those guys. I feel like we have the depth that we can throw a couple of different guys at each one of them. We're feeling pretty confident about it and look forward to the challenge. Q. For both guys, where does that baseline dunk rate? ANTHONY BENNETT: It was a pretty good dunk, a pretty good move, I'll say, but I try not to talk about the past. We've got a really tough game ahead of us on Thursday. Q. (Inaudible)? ANTHONY BENNETT: I don't even know. ANTHONY MARSHALL: It was a spectacular dunk, I forgot what it was in the top ten. It was a game he was stretching the defense. He had a lot of jump shots. It was a great move by him recognizing the man was coming out hard, so it was a spectacular play by Anthony Bennett. Q. For Anthony Bennett, Anthony, everyone pretty much assumes you're going to be in the NBA draft in a while. I assume you're not going to tell us what you've decided, but how do you try to be not distracted? ANTHONY BENNETT: I focus on what I have to do now. It's a pretty big decision I have to make with my family. So I just try to go hard in practice and just try and win every game. Q. Anthony, you and Hawkins are the first UNLV players to play four straight NCAA tournaments since Stacey Augmon and Jeter, what does that mean to you? ANTHONY BENNETT: It means a lot, anytime you're mentioned with a couple of greats in school history, it's a tremendous honor to be mentioned with those guys. They did some great things. We're trying to move forward and get that first win under our belt and try to go out the right way. Q. Anthony Bennett, I was wondering if you could talk about your relationship with Sim Bhullar, I saw you at the WAC championship game. How do you know him and do you plan on trying, I don't know what your schedule is, are you going to be able to watch them play tomorrow night? ANTHONY BENNETT: I don't know if I'll get a chance to see him, watch him play, I mean. But Sim Bhullar, he's one of my AU teammates, coming from Canada, we're real good friends, come from the same area. So every time I see him it's like basically another family member. Q. Could you talk about what it's been like for Mike this season down the stretch trying to come back from his injury? ANTHONY MARSHALL: It's been pretty tough. He went through a stretch where he really didn't play the best basketball due to the injury. But the last couple of games he's been playing terrific. Throughout the whole season, actually, he never let what happened to him, the injury, affect his attitude. He came in supporting guys, encouraging guys to get better. And out of a leader those are the type of things you need. He's been tremendous. And these last couple of games, you've seen his numbers, he's been hitting double‑ doubles, high rebounding and scoring the ball. So he's been playing and getting back to the old Mike Moser. THE MODERATOR:  We're joined now by head coach of UNLV, Dave Rice. Q. When you were a younger coach, not that you're old, watching Mike Montgomery at Stanford, knowing the restrictions he was under, it seemed like he was among the Krzyzewskis and the Boeheims in terms of the job he did. Can you talk about what he did coming up there? COACH RICE: Certainly a lot of the players that he recruited to Stanford were guys that I played against in high school, guys that ‑‑ or I should say when I was a young assistant coach that I tried to recruit. They were terrific. And I just was a long‑time admirer of the way his teams played, how well the teams played, at the program he was able to assemble at Stanford was fantastic. It was a program of great success. It was a program viewed as doing the things the right way on and off the floor, and they were fun to watch in terms of how they shared the ball and how well they played together. Q. What do you remember about the game in Berkeley earlier this year, both the game and the last play? COACH RICE: Well, certainly the first thing that stands out is Mike Moser getting injured. December 9th was a tough day for our program from the standpoint of losing one of our best players to an injury. But in terms of the game itself, it was very competitive. It was a situation where we had a hard time getting Cal stopped in the first half, they have great players and run their offense extremely well. It was a game that could easily have gone the other way. The lead changed a number of times in the last minute. We were fortunate to make one more play than they did. I know that sometimes becomes cliché, but it really was true completely that we simply made one more play. Quintrell Thomas was in the right spot at the right time to follow up a missed shot and get a basket. Q. How much of the last 48 hours has been dedicated to game planning against the Cal back‑court? COACH RICE: Most of it. But having said that, Richard Solomon, David Kravish, Robert Thurman were very, very good in that game, as well. Richard Solomon was terrific in the first half against us in Berkeley. I think for both staffs there's a familiarity with what we do and having played each other last year and then played each other again this year. And there's a tremendous awareness on the part of our staff and our players how good Cal is. Going back to a previous question, I've long been an admirer of Coach Montgomery and how he coaches, so I caught a number of PAC 12 conference games in January, February, and Cal was the team that was playing as well as anybody in the country. I know going into the Stanford game at home they'd won 7 games in a row and they were playing terrific basketball. So we're well aware of how good their back‑court is. But for us it's not just the back‑court, Solomon and Kravish played well against us as well as that. Q. A lot of Rebel fans coming, making the trip, and a lot of people saying, but Cal Berkeley, they're almost playing at home. But how ready are you guys for tomorrow? What makes you ready to play tomorrow? COACH RICE: Well, certainly we're excited about the opportunity. We understand the tremendous challenge it is playing against a fantastic program with a Hall of Fame coach like Cal. We were excited to be able to come to San Jose. We understand the inherent advantage of playing 45 to 50 miles away from Berkeley's campus, and certainly Cal fans will have access to the arena from the proximity standpoint. One of the great traditions of UNLV Runnin' Rebel basketball is in the NCAA tournament we travel extremely well. So we're excited that our fans have access to the game. And certainly we're excited about the opportunity we have. No doubt there will be a lot of Cal fans, but I think we'll be well represented, as well. Q. Marshall and Hawkins this year are the first guys at UNLV to play in four straight NCAA tournaments since 1990, '91, with Stacey Augmon and Jeter. You were there in 1990, '91. The fact it's been 22 years since somebody accomplished that, what does that say about the program and where it's heading right now? COACH RICE: It was certainly a great time to be part of UNLV basketball in the late '80s and early '90s, and certainly there's a great blueprint for success on the court. It started with Coach Spoonhour and Coach Kruger. And I've said many times when I took over for Coach Kruger that he left the program in great shape. And when you think about the number of years that have passed and that Justin Hawkins and Anthony Marshall are the first two guys to play since Chris Jeter and Stacey Augmon, speaks volumes about the progress we made. We know we have a long way to get the program to where we think it could be. It's a big deal to get to the NCAA tournament. I told our guys after they were selected on Sunday, 280 or 290 teams that didn't get their name called, it's a big deal. We need to try to have success in the NCAA tournament, but it is a great deal for us to get in the NCAA tournament and it's a great accomplishment for those guys to do it four straight years. Q. How special a player is Bennett? Could he be one of those guys that carries a team through the tournament? A.He certainly has that potential to do that. His talent speaks for itself. There's not much that he can't do on a court. He can score from the perimeter. He can score in the post. He's a fabulous rebounder. The only thing that he lacked coming in was just experience. And yet the thing that stands out most for me is what a great teammate he is. I tell the story many times that first game of the year he was on the bench. I had taken him out. I subbed someone else and I felt someone walk to the right of me and I thought, who is this, and it was Anthony Bennett coming to give a high 5 to one of his teammates coming off the floor. He has a ritual of giving everyone on the team a high 5. He's a terrific teammate and it wouldn't have worked as well if he wasn't as team oriented as he is. He's a fantastic player, and he's got a great future. Q. In general there's always a few teams like yourself every year where you ‑‑ higher seeds who have to play closer to other teams' homes. What are your feelings on the selection committee's process of doing that? COACH RICE: I think they have an incredibly difficult job, and it's that way every year. I think 2013 is even more difficult. We talk all the time about the parity in college basketball, and then multiple bids from so many conferences. So I'm sure that it was just something that couldn't be avoided. Again, we're excited to be part of the NCAA tournament, and having said that we're not satisfied by any stretch. We understand the challenge of playing against a terrific team like Cal 45 or 50 miles from their campus. But, again, we're just ‑‑ we're excited to be there and we're excited to go out and play hard and try to get a win. Q. Back to Anthony Bennett. You're talking about what he can do on the court and how team oriented he is. Does he remind you of one of your former teammates or is it unfair to compare him to Larry Johnson? COACH RICE: Well, I think both. I think he has many of the similar qualities of being a great talent, a terrific teammate, high basketball IQ, and you're talking about Larry Johnson, of course. So I think if we can compare Anthony Bennett as a freshman with Larry Johnson as a freshman, I think that's a very, very fair comparison. To compare him to Larry Johnson as a junior or senior, probably not fair at this point. But there's no doubt he has the potential to be very, very similar. Times have changed so much that, as you well know that 1990‑91 teams that we had had all juniors and seniors and even some ‑‑ three of those guys were fifth‑year seniors. So the years of experience times are different. But there are definitely some similarities in terms of how they play and how they interact with the team. Q. Your guys alluded to the fact that both programs or both teams are different now than you were back in December, really on several levels. I'm wondering if you could expand on that? COACH RICE: And you would think that most teams that earn berths, large berths into the NCAA tournaments were better teams than they were 2, 3 months ago. Mike Moser is back playing after the injury. Khem Birch has been a big part of our program, was a defensive player of the year in our league. We're the healthiest we've been all season long and the deepest we've been all season long. Cal has played terrific basketball in conference play. We thought they were good on December 9th, but even better now many. Just the year of experience, the explosiveness of their back court, the experience of their front court provides a great and tremendous challenge for our program. While we know each other from a scouting standpoint, it will be different because both teams are playing at a much higher level now, and it will be a terrific college basketball game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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