Jae Crowder — Selection Sunday – Crowder
On rebounding from Louisville loss…
“It’s just going back to what we did the first part of the season: just playing great defense, playing within our offense, believing in our coaching staff, and just doing what we do each and every day. I felt like we got away from it there in the tournament a little bit, and it showed.”
On the media attention of the NCAA Tournament…
“It will be a lot of hype. It’s part of the NCAA Tournament. Last year it was a lot of Juco guys and things like that, so it’s always something. They’re going to find something. You got to block it out, and at the end of the day just know that you’re just playing basketball, the game you’ve been playing all your life.”
Vander Blue — Selection Sunday – Blue
On the difficulty of preparing for two teams…
“I feel like it’s going to be tough on the coaches. They got to put a scout on both of them instead of one. I’m not familiar with any other teams, and I’m pretty sure none of our guys are familiar with any of those teams. But whenever we get started on film, we just got to make sure to lock in, and handle our business.”
On the importance of their seed…
“When it gets this time around, I really feel that the seeding and the placement really doesn’t matter. Any team can win on any night because everybody is playing as hard as they can. So now, we just got to stay focused. We can’t afford any major lapse because we know what we’re playing for and we want to be the last team standing.”
Buzz Williams — Selection Sunday – Buzz
On the parts of the season…
“There’s four parts of the season. There’s non-conference, we were 11-2. There’s conference, we were 14-4. And then the Big East Tournament, we were 0-1. Now we’re 0-0 again just like every other team playing in the tournament.”
On the importance of their seed…
“I don’t think seeding matters when you get to a tournament. I think your body of work gets you the seed, but once your seed is established, it’s win or go home.”
On preparing for two teams instead of one…
“You can’t give away Sunday evening until Tuesday night, and so it’s kind of double work because you’re not preparing for a team, you’re preparing for two teams. And then from Tuesday night to whatever time we play on Thursday, obviously we can lock in then. We just need to make sure that we’re prepared in the appropriate way.”
On how they’ll approach scouting both teams…
“You have to have a good feel for both teams, and your team has to have a little bit of a feel for both teams. But, you can’t inundate kids with too much information, and then Tuesday night half the information you’ve given them is wrong, because Thursday night they’ll say, ‘Coach, I thought you said…’ (and I’ll say) ‘No, that’s the team we potentially could have played.'”