DES MOINES, Iowa (WDRB) -- Louisville basketball coach Chris Mack met with reporters on Wednesday to talk about his team's Thursday NCAA Tournament opener against Minnesota.
The following is a transcript of that news conference provided by ASAP Sports. For player comments or the news conference of Minnesota coach Richard Pitino, click here.
CHRIS MACK OPENING STATEMENT: Thank you. Glad to be here, and obviously a big challenge here tomorrow against a very physical opponent in Minnesota, and, you know, it's odd to be the first game of the tournament. But that's how the draw works. So we're excited to be in Des Moines and start off the tournament.
Q. Chris, this is the first game of the tournament. There are a lot of people that think this match-up was designed for ratings or story lines or that. As you process all that, A, what do you believe along those lines; and, B, have you used some of the perceptions about it as motivational fuel for your players?
MACK: I haven't even talked about it with our players. I just feel like it's such a special experience to make the NCAA Tournament for a few of our guys for the very first time and only time in their career. So to focus on anything other than trying to be at our best against a really good Minnesota team I think would be robbing them of the experience of being here.
You know, I don't mind, and I understand why media are going to ask about it. But here is the thing: I took over for a Hall of Fame coach. I get that. He's a terrific coach. I asked him his advice on Louisville when I took over the program, and he was nothing but gracious to me. But this is about the players and the coaches' experience in the tournament and that's it. It's no more than that. I think the Committee could have probably had a little bit more self-awareness so we don't have to be up here answering these type of questions and focusing on the student-athletes and the coaches' experience and the fan base's experience, but, you know, I can't control that.
Q. Coach, a lot of people haven't seen you play very much this year. They're going to see you play tomorrow. For people who aren't familiar with your team, how would you describe this particular group, what they've done to get here?
MACK: That's a great question. I feel like we're a resilient group. We've been through a lot. I think we're a very together group. Sometimes that may not come out on the floor in terms of making the right play or being at our best, but the intention has always been clear with our group. We are a very, very together group, a close-knit group. It's no secret that when I took over there wasn't the greatest light around the program. I told our players in the very beginning when I met with them that they weren't the cause for it, but they could certainly be the cure for it. I think anybody that's watched us play this year, I've asked our players to be this way. I want fans or people that watch our team to say, wow, those guys play hard. They play together. They play the right way. We haven't been perfect, but I'm really proud of our group because they've done that all year long and that's all you can ask for as a coach.
Q. You've acclimated yourself to the Gophers. How much has Jordan Murphy stood out and to be 6'5" or 6'6" to be able to produce?
MACK: He's that short? I haven't been next to him, so I don't know that. But he looks like he's 6'11" on film. He's very, very strong. I think like all great players he knows who he is. He has an identity in terms of how he plays and he doesn't try to get outside that identity. You know, you hear him in his interviews. You can tell he's really smart. He would be a great leader. I mean, to be where he's at in the history of the Big Ten rebounding the ball says a lot about the type of player and the will that he has. We're going to have to do it collectively. Some teams in the Big Ten have put their 5 on him. I've seen him seek and destroy 4's and 5's, so we have to be able to do it as a team. He jumps out on film. Like a lot of teams that make this tournament, he's not their own threat, not even close. He's just a part of their machine.
Louisville coach Chris Mack talks with reporters during his NCAA Tournament news conference
Q. Not to look ahead, but the first Michigan State game was kind of a breakthrough for your program. I think people perceive that you were further ahead maybe than they expected. In your own mind, did you see this potential that early? What told you that this had the makings of a tournament team?
MACK: Yeah, this will have nothing to do with who is on the other side of our pairing or bracket because we're not naive enough to think that we're going to get past Minnesota. We're focused on trying to play the Gophers. I really had this belief in the summer when I worked with our players I saw their work ethic up close, their skill level. I saw the strides they were making, and I think they all, and I'm talking about our players, they all became a little bit more believers in themselves when we went to New York and played in the Barkley's, and even though they didn't win two games I remember Mike DeCourcy saying if Louisville doesn't play bad and doesn't get decimated by Tennessee or Marquette, which was a valid point from an outsider's perspective early in the season.
But we played Tennessee tooth and nail and the last five minutes couldn't score against their zone, and then we had Marquette. We had control virtually up to the last two games and I don't feel like anybody in our locker room felt like we played perfect in either of those. So when we left we felt like we could have done the job, should have done the job. Now we have to figure out what we need to do to win those type of games.
Q. Chris, you have so few players who have done any of this at the NCAA level. They haven't been through any of the trappings of the tournament. What kind of a challenge is there beyond that?
MACK: It's basketball, and we try to be the same people whether we're in the practice facility at Drake today, at the Yum! Center or Chapel Hill, doesn't matter, you could point to all kinds of teams. UMBC last year I don't think they had ever been to a NCAA Tournament. It's not a rock in a sling shot. It's basketball. We have to be prepared like we are every game, and then we have to try to go execute that game plan to the best of our ability against a really good team.
Q. When your team has been good, it's done some pretty special things against some really good teams, maybe not for forty minutes. When you look at that, is that kinda the upside for this team? Are they that much above their heads or is it a matter of them getting to that more consistently?
MACK: I tell our team all the time that we don't have to be perfect. Nobody that we play is going to be perfect. It's not going to require a perfect effort to win or a perfect game plan. It's just our effort and our energy and our resiliency. Those things have to be perfect. Those things have to be perfect. You might miss a shot, might miss a free throw, turn the ball over. But our effort and our energy needs to be better than our opponent's, and it needs to be consistent each and every night. That's hard. That's hard to do for a long stretch of games from October all the way through now. That's very difficult. A lot of teams can't do it. I think our team has done a great job of that. We're not always, again, perfect, but I think we've done our part.
Q. A lot of the teams that are seeded 1 or 2 are familiar to you, ridiculously so --
MACK: I would like to thank Kenny Klein for that scheduling.
Q. What is the value at this point in the season for having gone through that gauntlet?
MACK: I know our players feel as though there won't be a team that we'll face where we will wonder whether we can compete with them or not. I think there are a lot of teams that come into this tournament that say, hey, we want to win some games. But, man, if we're matched up against a few teams can we really play with those guys and give ourselves a chance to win? I know our group feels like we can because we have been. We've been forced to because of our schedule. We have come out on the short end of the stick, and there is a reason why they are the best teams in the country. One of the teams we played, I believe, will be holding a National Championship trophy if it's not us. That's the type of schedule we have played. I think it should give our guys great confidence if we stay within ourselves and play with great energy and do what we work on every single day, that would be good enough to keep us there down the stretch to win a game.
Q. If it's not you, who?
MACK: I don't know. It could be different teams on different nights.
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