NCAA MEN’S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLE
March 21, 2019
John Calipari
Tyler Herro
Keldon Johnson
Reid Travis
Jacksonville, Florida
Kentucky – 79, Abilene Christian – 44
JOHN CALIPARI: You know, our defense made it difficult. I told Coach Joe, what a year they had, winning their tournament, winning their league. That is so hard, especially when everything rides on that one game. And he’s done a — just turned it around.
But I’ll tell you what was special: I went to get a pizza today. You won’t believe that. And a guy comes up to me and said, “I used to coach at Abilene Christian, and Coach asked me to come on the trip.” And he’s an older gentleman. I apologize, I didn’t catch the name. But I told Joe before, I said, that’s more impressive to me than anything. I said, too many in our profession forget where this all started, and the guys that came before us who made the path for our families to be able to do what we’re doing and be paid obscenely, and it’s been guys like that.
So I told Joe that of all that’s happened, that impressed me more.
Q. Reid, you waited five years for this moment. I’m curious what it felt like.
REID TRAVIS: It felt good. Like you said, it’s been a long time. This has always been a dream of mine playing college basketball, is to be in the tournament and advance deep in it. This is the first step. I’m just glad I can enjoy it with my teammates.
Q. I’m curious, Tyler, since you have a potential match-up on Saturday, certainly not a given, with Wofford, have you heard much about Fletcher Magee just because of his shooting prowess? 500 threes over a career is just obscene.
TYLER HERRO: Yeah, I’ve watched his highlights. I’ve heard he’s a very good shooter, so I think it would be a good match-up. Both teams that we’ll potentially play are really good. So we’re going to have to prepare for how we play.
Q. As a follow-up to that, how do you feel like your team does when you have the occasion to defend somebody who’s really proficient from three-point range?
TYLER HERRO: I think if we just stick to our assignments and whatever the game plan that the coaches give us, as long as we stick to our assignments, I think we should be fine.
Q. In a game like this, what keeps you guys motivated to keep the pressure on throughout the entire time, maybe Keldon talk about that?
JOHN CALIPARI: Can I say something? He didn’t keep the pressure on. He can tell why the rest of the guys did, but he didn’t quite —
KELDON JOHNSON: Just knowing Coach Cal is going to stay on us regardless. Regardless of the score, if we’re up 20, 30, or even if it’s a close game, if we miss an assignment he’s going to be all over us.
JOHN CALIPARI: Not missed shot, how about you break down defensively, don’t grab a rebound, throw the ball to the wrong guy on the other team. Yes, I’m going to — you missed plenty of shots and I don’t say anything, so don’t say that.
Q. He did say “missed assignments”.
JOHN CALIPARI: Oh, you’re right. I thought he said missed a shot.
Q. Reid, what was it like not having PJ in there today?
REID TRAVIS: Obviously it’s tough not having PJ with us. He makes our team better all season. We feel like we play off of each other really well, but I feel like with my injury a couple weeks back, guys had to step up and fit into different roles and really just build their confidence.
Unfortunately he’s out and we’re happy to have him back when he gets healthy and all that, but we had guys build their confidence over the last couple of weeks with me being out, but I thought it was good. Guys stepped up and we were able to play good minutes.
Q. Tyler, coming into the season there were concerns about like your defense and stuff, but since then you’ve made major strides throughout the season. What have you done to improve that? And what’s the next step in your development?
TYLER HERRO: I think the coaches have been on me since day one, just in practice every day. My teammates push me to be better defensively, so just continue to get better every day.
Q. John, can you elaborate a little on PJ’s condition and availability going forward?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, first of all, the option was a boot or the cast. The cast would speed up the healing, so we said, put the cast on. Whether they’ll take it off tomorrow to check it, I don’t know. If they don’t, he won’t play Saturday, and then they’ll probably try to take it off Tuesday or Wednesday of next week to see how his foot feels.
Everything was negative as far as the X-rays, but they just want — it was a sprained foot, so they just want to keep it calm, so that’s what it is.
Q. Coach, before the game you talked about ACU being a good three-point-shooting team, 40 percent. Tonight you hold them to about 22 percent. Is that a victory in your game plan tonight?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, the one that we were worried about, the two guys were 5 and 15, and when you look, my man pulled up, he went 1 for 9, and there were a couple open. After we really guarded he took some tough ones, he missed ones that you all said, “He never misses that.” But it’s hard when you’ve got long players.
And then their center, Hayden, went 2 for 6, and we left him like twice, and he missed a couple open ones. But we’re a team that tries to get you to drive because we can block shots. We want you to come to the rim. We don’t want you just shooting threes.
Q. John, you’re down one big already; what goes through your mind when you see Nick get undercut and go down?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, the two practices we had including the practice down here, very little contact, mainly because if we get another guy hurt, our staff is going to have to start playing. So you just say, we’ve got to do conditioning, we’ve got to do individuals, we’ve got to script five-on-0, but you can’t really go at it. So when Nick went down, that’s why I said, “Move your arm around.” He did. “You’re all right, rub some dirt in it. Let’s get going. Let’s go.”
But yeah, we’re down to seven, eight guys, and it makes it hard.
Q. You guys win the battle of the glass tonight 44 to 17. How happy were you with that stat line?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, we talked about it. We thought we had an advantage there mainly because of our size, and Reid’s strength, and it was one of the things we said, if we’re going to beat these guys, our rebounding has got to be really — we’ve got to separate from them in that, so I thought we did it.
Q. Coach, just in a game like this, how important was your start to never really let ACU feel like they were in it and to kind of get on them early?
JOHN CALIPARI: In this tournament, it’s really important. What happens when teams are desperate, they’ll do stuff they don’t usually do, and if you let a team hang around, something stupid, crazy, like what just happened, can happen.
But I’ll tell you, after the first game, you know, every — somebody told me almost every game today was like a hard-fought game. I don’t really watch the games. And I expected this to be some of that unless we got to a good start, which we did, and we got out of the gate really guarding and blocking shots and did a pretty good job and shot a high percentage.
Q. Seton Hall and Wofford are playing right now, so what do you feel about a potential rematch about Seton Hall, and what will you and your team do differently to get a different outcome this time?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, if PJ doesn’t play, we’ll have work to do with either team, and let me tell you, there’s no given that the Seton Hall, Wofford, they’re both like — Seton Hall already beat us. You talk about a well-coached team of veterans that just march through that league, and that league, when you talk about Greensboro, we played Greensboro. You know, they had like four teams in that league that could beat anybody in the country, and so we know how good that team is, too.
I’ll go back and watch this game tape, and I’ll wait to see who’s going to win, and then I’ll start watching tape on that team.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Joe Golding
Jaylen Franklin
Jaren Lewis
Jacksonville, Florida
Kentucky – 79, Abilene Christian – 44
THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you could, just some opening thoughts about this game tonight here in Jacksonville.
JOE GOLDING: Yeah, Kentucky is all that. They’re really, really good, the best team we’ve played this year, them and Texas Tech. We wish them the best of luck.
I’m proud of our guys. They didn’t quit. They represented our university and our city in a first-class manner tonight and they’ve done that all year, so I’m extremely proud of them.
Q. Jaylen and Jaren, how tough was it kind of adjusting to what Kentucky has personnel-wise?
JAYLEN FRANKLIN: It was pretty tough. We just couldn’t make shots, shot 19 percent in the first half, and then the second half we pretty much shot 45 — 45? Yeah, I guess. And just the first half, turning the ball over first half really hurt us.
JAREN LEWIS: Yeah, it’s tough adjusting to all the length at the rim, and we knew what we had to do, it was just a tough challenge for us getting on the glass. But yeah, the turnovers killed us, and then we just couldn’t see anything fall in the first half, so it was tough.
Q. Result notwithstanding, what was it like being out there and just kind of experiencing that and in this setting and this time of year?
JAREN LEWIS: I mean, it was a great experience being out there for March Madness and everything. It was great knowing it was the first time in our school’s history, but at the end of the day, it stings losing like that and being me, Jaylen and Hayden’s last game, it hurts, but it was a great experience, probably something we’ll never forget.
JAYLEN FRANKLIN: Going off what Jaren said, it was a great experience. Something we’ll never forget. Just knowing we were out there with Kentucky, one of the biggest schools in the nation and we were just out there competing.
Q. Kind of off what the guys said, not the start you guys would have wanted, but just what was it like watching this group of guys get to experience what they did tonight?
JOE GOLDING: Yeah, we couldn’t score the basketball. I mean, that was the key. I thought we ran some good stuff there for a while, we just couldn’t finish and we couldn’t score. Honestly watching tape, I thought we could score if they didn’t switch us 1 through 5, but Coach Cal knows what he’s doing. It’s obvious. He’s got really good players, and he’s won a ton of games. They switched 1 through 5 and we couldn’t see the rim.
That was the frustrating part, I think, but when you look overall at the game, I was really proud of our guys and the way they competed in the second half. It’d been real easy to lay down. Kentucky doesn’t have their bench, with guys hurt. They’re continuing to play the same dudes that played the whole game. I thought we did much better in the second half of competing, and we seen the ball go gown. So I was proud of them the way they finished.
Listen, these two and Farquhar, these three seniors, they’re going to be celebrated at Abilene Christian for the rest of their lives. They’re first ones to ever do it. There will be second, there will be a third, but there’ll never be a first. We’re going to celebrate these guys and we’re going to have a lot of fun celebrating when we get back to Abilene.
It meant a lot. When I looked up there, we had more people in Jacksonville, Florida than at our game back home. I’m telling you we had more people tonight and that meant the world to me. Abilene Christian and March Madness filling up a whole section. If you know where our program came from, that’s really, really awesome.
Q. Nearly a thousand dollars have been raised on a GoFundMe page for those ripped pants. What are your thoughts on that?
JOE GOLDING: Well, the suit is done. We are going to retire it. It wasn’t very good luck tonight, man. It’s been a heck of a run with it all year.
We are going to do something fun with that money. I’m obviously not going to spend that money on a suit. I’m going to find a charity or something out there and we’ll figure it out.
Q. This has been one of the best seasons AC has ever had. I’m emotional because I’m going to be leaving you as a senior and I’m glad you waited until this year to do it. I’ve been enjoying covering it. But just talk about this season overall. You’ve broken a lot of records, a lot of firsts. Just talk about the emotions of this season.
JOE GOLDING: Yeah, it’s the second year we’ve been eligible for postseason play. This is just beginning. This is the beginning, man, it happened really fast. I’m really glad our university can experience this. I’m glad our players can. It’s going to help our program. It’s going to help recruiting and going to help our university exposure from it. We’re going to celebrate it.
But I think it was the best season in ACU history. I don’t think it was one of the best, I think it was the best season in school history, and we’re going to celebrate those three seniors and this team like it was the best because they deserve it.
Q. Not to close the book too quickly on this year, but what does this do for you next year and down the road to bring back a group of guys that got to experience this?
JOE GOLDING: Yeah, I mean, time will tell with that, but we have a bunch of young kids back. We’re also losing three really good seniors, but we’ve got some good young kids back. We’ve got to recruit, losing those two four, five weeks ago made recruiting a little bit different now. We’ve got to go sign four guys, we thought we were just signing two.
We’ve built this on high school kids and a culture and really developing, evaluating talent and trying to develop, and so we might have to get creative in recruiting here through grad transfers, JuCo or something, but we’re not going to change who we are, and I think our program is going to move forward just like our university is going to move forward.
I think our president and board, they had a plan. They wanted to put ACU on the national map and for the last 48 hours we were, and a lot of that is due to the University of Kentucky. We owe the University of Kentucky a lot, for being able to have the opportunity to compete with them, and when they talked about Kentucky, they learned about Abilene Christian, and that’s what I’m most excited about.
We’ve got a university that we’re really proud of. It’s good people there. It’s a good school. It’s good academics, it’s a great town, and I’m glad it was celebrated the last three days.
Q. Just again to clarify on the suit, this is the suit you’re wearing, the one that was ripped, and did you get that repaired or managed your way through it, keeping it hidden from everybody?
JOE GOLDING: Yeah, I just wore the jacket tonight. If you knew me well, I don’t usually wear the jacket very long but I kept it on today. But yeah, there is a hole in there. There’s no question about that. Obviously it got a lot of sound bite, and I’m glad it brought some attention to our university, but I want to make sure moving forward that this team is celebrated. It’s not my hole in my pants, it’s our team, and it’s our university because they deserve it, man. These guys have been incredible, man. I’m fortunate to coach them. They took me on a hell of a ride, one that I’ll never forget the rest of my life. And you know, and again on the pants, we’ll do something with it. We’ll have a little bit of fun and hopefully we can raise some money for a charity or something down the road.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
