March 18, 2014
Mike Davis
Aaric Murray
Jose Rodriguez
DAYTON, OHIO
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by our Texas Southern student‑athletes Aaric Murray and Jose Rodriguez as well as the head coach of Texas Southern, Mike Davis.
We'll open up the floor for questions for Aaric and Jose.
Q. Jose and Aaric, can you just talk about what Coach Davis has brought to the program since he's been here in terms of kind of turning around the mentality and some of the problems that had gone on in the past?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Number one, I think Coach has brought like a lot of intensity, a lot of discipline. He makes his players listen and, like, he pushes us to our highest limits and just learn how to respect the game and love the game.
Q. The same for you Aaric, you've only been here for one year?
AARIC MURRAY: Yeah, I think Coach like for me personally, like Coach just helped me like on and off the court with my personality and like my attitude and stuff.
But like as far as TSU, I think he brings like just like a winning attitude. Like he played for it all once, and he knows how to coach. And he knows how to win games. So he brings that to TSU.
Q. Aaric, how appreciative are you of the opportunity to play in the tournament, and are you more so than a lot of people? You can't speak for everyone else, but from your journey do you think you're more appreciative than a lot of people in this tournament?
AARIC MURRAY: Yes, because like a year ago I was like facing a lot of like bad stuff, difficult times, getting dismissed from West Virginia, not knowing where I was going to end up. But then I got to Texas Southern and Coach told me about‑‑ I listened to him and let him guide me that like the future is like promising. And I have just been listening and doing what he says to do, and now we're here at the NCAA Tournament.
Q. Does Coach Davis' experience, because he's been at the NCAA Tournament a number of times, been to the championship game, do you think that's a little bit of an advantage for you, particularly against a team that's making its NCAA debut?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Yes, I believe it's a good thing for us, because it helps the whole team buy in and listen to him. You don't have no doubts. You know he's been to the biggest game in college, the National Championship game. He fell short, but his offense, his defense, his whole approach to the game makes the whole team buy in, and that's how we are here now.
AARIC MURRAY: Yeah, just like to hit on what he said, Coach Davis, when you ask about‑‑ when you hear about Mike Davis, it's, oh, that's the Indiana coach. For us players it's the same way. It's like how can you not listen to a man that like played for it all and knows what it takes to get there, you know.
Q. Jose, how much does conference pride kick in here? The SWAC had a few teams disqualified and underdog going into tomorrow according to the line and stuff like that. How much does conference pride kick in tomorrow?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I mean, people can talk down the SWAC, but I feel every team in the SWAC plays hard and they gave us a good challenge and helped us to get ready for tomorrow's game.
AARIC MURRAY: I mean, a lot of people before coming to this conference a lot of people told me I would go there dominate, I would go there destroy the conference, but like now that like the game's been going on, I think I like had an easier season non‑conference than conference. I was averaging more in non‑conference than I was in conference.
So like for all the people who say ‑‑ talk down towards the SWAC, SWAC is a great conference and has great players in it.
Q. When you guys were 10‑14 and finish 9‑0, what's the biggest difference between those two teams, the one that was 10‑14 and the one that's gone 9‑0?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: First, I feel like we all bought in. And also we started sharing the ball and playing as a team and just playing defense, playing with a lot of intensity and just listening to Coach and everybody being a family and clicking together, hanging around each other, just being a big family and bonding.
AARIC MURRAY: I feel like when we were like losing those games, we had a bunch of talent but we didn't like know what to do with it or we didn't know how good we were. And then like after losing games and everyone's like getting on you Coach getting on you, like what is the problem, we had to talk to each other, like what is our problem?
And it was defense, and we picked up our defense and we support each other more now. And everything's starting to like come around, come together.
Q. Aaric, your tattoo says No Worries, but I'm curious where you are in life with worries, priorities, things in and out of basketball.
AARIC MURRAY: When I first got the tattoo, it was because I was like coming into LaSalle as one of the highest recruits, and they were talking about me going to the NBA after one year. So like during that time I had no worries. It was like why should I worry? I'm going to get drafted, stuff like that.
But then I started like making bad decisions. It was now like I do need to be worried.
And it's like now I look at the tattoo as like motivation to always be worried, to always like know people are watching me and I need to do the right things.
Q. Was wondering if both of you had an example of kind of the team's relationship with Coach Davis. Talked to some of your players, and they talk about how he can be tough on the court and then right afterwards he's hamming it up and joking with you guys. Is there anything that sticks out about his style and how he has a relationship with each of you?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Honestly, he's like a father figure to all the players, I feel like. In the locker room, his door's always open. If you want to come and talk to him, he'll talk to you about anything you want to talk about, your family back home, teachers, class. He will talk to you about anything.
And he just wants to win. He's not a mean coach. He's a hard coach, hard‑nosed coach, but he just wants to win overall. He'll do whatever it takes. If it's get on you, scream at you, curse at you, whatever it takes, he'll do it. Just know after the game he welcomes you in with open arms and he'll like hug you, he'll love you, he'll love you like his own son. So I love Coach for that.
AARIC MURRAY: I mean, Jose pretty much like touched it all. But for me, personally, like I never had a coach that I could‑‑ not to downplay any coach I played for, but I never had a coach that I can take a bad shot or make a bad play and then look over at the bench and he's just winking his eye at me, just making me feel comfortable and like continue to go on playing and not like always having to look over your shoulder if you hear the buzzer, you don't know if you're coming out or not. Just.
A great guy to play for.
Q. Aaric, is the NBA still in your future?
AARIC MURRAY: It's still in my head, but I don't want to worry about that right now. I just want to play our next college game.
Q. A week ago Cal Poly was 10‑19 and probably making tee times, I think, instead of NCAA plans. Do you look over at them and kind of go: That's a pretty cool story, that here they are 13‑19 in the NCAA Tournament, they've never played in the tournament before, and here they are all of a sudden because they pieced it together at the right time. Do you see there's similarities between the two of you, too?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. I feel like a lot of schools look at us like underdogs and like don't expect us to be here. But it's great for them, great for us.
I feel it's going to be a hard game. Both teams are going to play really hard. And I'm just looking forward to it.
AARIC MURRAY: I didn't really know too much about them until just now. You just basically gave me some info on them. I mean, I'm excited for them just as much my team, like people doubting us.
Congrats to them and congrats to us, both.
Q. Aaric, Morgantown is not too far from here. Did that sink in coming here at all? Or when you get on planes, do they all look the same? When you get off the plane, it's all the same?
AARIC MURRAY: I mean, I don't think it's a day that goes by that I don't think about Morgantown. So no matter if I'm 900 miles away or three miles away, I'm always thinking about Morgantown and my friends back there.
Q. Aaric, do you know how many tattoos you have and do any of the other ones have meaning like the No Worries one?
AARIC MURRAY: I lost count at like 67. But I do have other ones with meaning. I can go on all day. But if you just‑‑
Q. One or two that mean the most?
AARIC MURRAY: Yeah, or three. I got a picture of Jesus Christ on my back and then a picture of my daughter's baby picture on my back, and then this No Worries one.
Q. Either of you, do you know the history of your school? Probably around the time you were born, maybe a little bit after, TSU nearly upset Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament. But they've come close but never had a win, what that would mean to get that first win in program history and maybe put something together off of this small history that you guys have had?
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I didn't really know much about TSU history or them upsetting them. But, I mean, we're just going to go play hard and worry about Cal Poly first and then go on from there.
AARIC MURRAY: Yeah, I never really looked too far into TSU's history, basketball history.
But like for us, just winning the game, our first game period and moving on is exciting and we can't wait to have the opportunity.
THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for our student‑athletes? All right, Aaric and Jose. Good luck tomorrow night.
We're now being joined by the head coach of Texas Southern, Mike Davis.
Coach, an opening statement and then we'll open up the floor for questions.
COACH DAVIS: We're excited to be here. We feel like we have an opportunity coming to play in the First Four. We had an up‑and‑down season. But we're playing really good basketball right now, and right now is the time to play well.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Davis.
Q. You were here the first year, the First Four, right? What do you remember and what do you think about the concept?
COACH DAVIS: Well, the first year we were here I was at UAB, and we played a really good team in Clemson. It was first class. They flew us in, we got an opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament.
This year I was telling my team and some of my staff members that it is really big time. It's really first class. They flew the band and cheerleaders down and some staff members as well.
So I think it's really upgraded a whole lot since the first time we've played. And our guys‑‑ I was so excited. I'm trying to downplay it with them. But they have opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament, and that's a lifetime memory for them.
The band has an opportunity to come and participate, and the cheerleaders. So there's a lot of opportunity in this event.
Q. Coach, the experience that you have, that you just talked a little bit about, is that an advantage, do you think, that you can impart to your players, particularly when you're playing against a team that's never been here?
COACH DAVIS: We played really nervous in our conference championship game. And I think being in the NCAA Tournament, if you focus on the event, you will have some nerves. But if you focus on it's just another game that you're trying to get better‑‑ what I try to give my basketball team, get them to understand, is it's about getting better every game. You want to play your best basketball in conference tournament play. That's where you want to be at your best.
So right now that's our same focus, is to get better as a basketball team, play to our strengths, not our weakness, and try to take away the opposing team's strengths. If you play to your strength in games like this, if you win, great; if you lose, at least you play to your strengths. And that's my focus.
Q. Mike, Charles was saying that when you took the job, it was strictly going to be coaching and not having to worry about the business side of things. But when you took over a program that had some things that it had to turn around, did you do anything differently in terms of setting some rules, some guidelines for your players, especially with the APR and stuff, to get them on track to where you guys are now?
COACH DAVIS: Coach was always‑‑ coach was more important than strategy. What I try to do is be their father figure for all our players on and off the court.
On the court, I'm very demanding; off the court, I'm like a father figure to them. I try to treat them all like they're my boys, that they're my sons. And as parents we're very demanding of our children, but we still love them. And not loving them never crosses your mind no matter how tough you have to be on them.
So with this group and last year's group, we went 1‑12‑‑ 1‑12, and I never changed off the court, on the court. The next day in practice I'm going to be very demanding. But to be 1‑12 is very difficult.
So they never saw a change in me in my approach, and I think that helped them. And as I say, you have to change the culture first and they have to believe in you and trust you. Young people, it's easy to lose trust in adults and it's very hard for adults to get that trust back once you cross that line.
So going 1‑12 showed them they can trust me, they can depend on me to be that person off the court, outside of basketball.
So I was really on the same page, the same level every single day. It was tough going 1‑12. And the SWAC, if you ‑‑ kind of like Cal Poly, 13‑19. And what people don't understand is you go into a lot of bye games and it's going to be very difficult to win those bye games, so you're always going to have a poor record coming out of non‑conference play. Once you get into conference, it's a mindset, changing their mindset, trying to get them to focus on not what happened in non‑conference but focus on what happens in the conference play.
I always say this. I think that every student‑athlete should work first before they go to college. They should pay their own rent, whatever they may have, buy their own clothes, and then you'll have an appreciation of college and that experience.
So now when you go to the cafeteria the food tastes really well because when you pay for it you don't waste it. And so I think in coaching, it's the same thing.
Coaching in the SWAC has been a great experience for me. If you win 14, 15 games in the SWAC, you've done a great job because you have to overcome so much in non‑conference to get to conference play.
So with these young men at Texas Southern, what we went through, them being put on probation in September, the mindset was just off the charts. Some of them wanted to leave. Some wanted to stay. But I think by me playing for a National Championship it gave me an opportunity for them to trust me as a basketball coach.
Q. You talked about flying up here. Is it a lot of bus trips in SWAC?
COACH DAVIS: Like I said, you should coach in the SWAC before you coach anywhere else. I enjoy bus rides. We play in Montgomery, Alabama, at 7:30, 8:00, whatever time the game starts. The game is over at 11:00. We get on the bus, drive all night back to Houston, Texas. So sometimes we get back at 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 in the morning and you have to go to class the next day.
So it's difficult. There's some very good coaches in the SWAC. It's really hard. You're dealing with a lot of student‑athletes that is not used to flying first class. Like I said, it's so much‑‑ I'm so excited for our school because to see our band on the plane, cheerleaders on the plane, our players, to fly on a charter flight here, get off the charter flight right to the bus to the hotel. We walk in the hotel. I'm quite sure they never had fans cheering for them when they walked into the hotel room.
I experienced it at Indiana. It's great for the NCAA to give Texas Southern that chance to experience it.
Q. Along those lines, is this a big day for the SWAC tomorrow? You know, conference pride. This was kind of a tough year off the court with the APR stuff and Southern. Is it important for the conference to get a win tomorrow night on national television?
COACH DAVIS: It's important for us just to‑‑ first of all, we had all 10 teams participate in our conference tournament, which I thought was a terrific idea, because a lot of the schools that has APR problems, not one young man has caused an APR problem. So to give them an opportunity to play in the Toyota Center and play in the conference tournament was really good.
It was really good that it turned out to be Texas Southern‑Prairie View in the finals, two teams that have an opportunity to go and play and participate in the NCAA Tournament.
It's a big day for the SWAC every day, every day we play and participate against another team outside of our conference. It's a big win if we win. We beat Temple this year. I think Jackson State beat Air Force and Evansville. There was some really good wins in the SWAC. Every time we have a chance to win a non‑conference game against a non‑conference opponent in the tournament, it's always a big day for us.
Q. I know you're primarily concerned about your own business, but is there part of you as a basketball fan and somebody that spent your life in college basketball that you kind of look at a team that was 10‑19 a week ago and here they are in the NCAA Tournament for the very first time and what it must mean to them?
COACH DAVIS: I think it means to them, as it means to us, like I said before, you're not going to have a good record from the smaller conferences going into conference play if you have to play bye games.
And so if you play 10 bye games ‑‑ to give you an example, we end up having two home games this year, which we wasn't scheduled to have any home games. And imagine playing no home games in non‑conference.
So I don't know Cal Poly's schedule, but I know they played some bye games. So your chances of winning on the road is 25 percent anyway. When you play a bye game, it goes down to probably about 5 percent.
So you can't really look at their record when you're coming from a small conference. If somebody‑‑ if someone wins‑‑ Southern won I think 20 games last year. They won 19 this year. Alabama State won 19. We won 19. So to win 15 or more games overall in these smaller conferences, as a coach that's been at a big school where you can bye games‑‑ when I was at UAB, we had to play bye games. And so but when you are the ones who are bying, your record should be a lot better than most teams.
So I don't look at that record, to be honest with you. I just look at the way they're playing right now, and to win three basketball games in a row is like Prairie View. I think they only had eight wins going into the conference tournament, and they went on a three‑game winning streak. When we played them, they was playing really good basketball and we really had to play to win that basketball game.
Q. What were some of the standards you set for Aaric to be able to join your program, and how has he handled that throughout the course of the year?
COACH DAVIS: Aaric is going through the John Lucas program. He's been drug tested once a week. He goes to counseling almost every day. We communicate all the time, and I told Aaric when he came to Texas Southern I was going to treat him like my son. I don't think he's ever been treated that way.
We text a lot. We talk a lot. I try to be as positive as possible with him throughout the course of the game, in practice and off the court.
I think he really appreciates me and respects me as a father figure. I'm not his father, but I'm that father figure to him. I communicate with his mother from time to time.
And so what I wanted Aaric to do is feel comfortable, feel more‑‑ feel appreciated not from just basketball, from just a person in life.
As I tell all of my players, that when you leave Texas Southern, you're not going to compete in the real world against other SWAC people for jobs. It may be a person from the SEC, ACC that you want this job. They want the job as well.
So as their leader and as their coach and father figure, I have to show them what they're going to have to do to be able to survive in the real world.
And basketball is not Aaric's problem. He's one of the most talented players I've ever coached. I've coached Jared Jefferies, I coached D.J. White, I've coached NBA players. And from a talent standpoint, he's definitely an NBA player.
And I was really proud of him for adjusting his game once we got to conference play.
He averaged more points in non‑conference than he did in conference, and I asked him not to get in foul trouble in non‑conference. And it looked like he wasn't playing defense. But once we got to conference, he won Defensive Player of the Year because he shut the mill down and played.
To make that commitment and sacrifice from Aaric tells you a lot about his maturity and where he's coming from since he's been on our campus.
Q. What have you seen on tape just from their main guy, Chris Eversley, and what he does? I don't know if you remember, but when you were at UAB he was at Rice, and I don't think‑‑ he wasn't a starter, but he was on that team. If anything sticks out from what you've seen so far?
COACH DAVIS: The first thing that jumps out to me: That they are very good defensively of taking away drives, taking away open left. They will take charges on you if you're out of control. They put a wall up on one side of the court, and so you have to make sure you reverse the basketball from side to side to be successful against them.
They'll double team the post, which we expect that because everybody we played this year doubled us except for Temple. We played Temple. So Aaric is a guy playing really well and passing the ball out of the post.
But they have shooters. Anytime you've got guys that can make 3‑point shots, four, five feet behind the 3‑point line, that's a dangerous basketball team.
So it's a game that we can win. It's a game that they can win. So neither team is like a sure shot to win the game, it's just the one who plays to their strengths and plays the best basketball that they‑‑ and I say this all the time when I was at Indiana‑‑ we had three guards never dunked a basketball in their college career, we only had one guy on that basketball team that even went to an NBA camp. It's not about having a lot of talent, it's about being the best that they ‑‑ playing relaxed and playing to your strengths.
You only have to win one game, so the 40‑minute game should be the best basketball game you play. If you do that, you have a chance to win and move on.
THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for Coach?
Coach Davis, appreciate it and good luck tomorrow night.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
