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Brad Underwood - Elite 8 Presser Illinois · Coaches Corner

• 0:02
  If you want to take a second coach, that's Coleman knocked himself out back
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  here by the way, Yeah, Brad Domaldmory from the Hartford Current. Uh.
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  Various coaches through the years have offered the idea that the regional final,
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  the Elite eight is the toughest game, the hardest game, the most pressure
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  pack game of the tournament to get through. I was wondering if in your
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  experiences or conversations with if that, what if you had any thoughts on that
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  idea. Yeah, I've been in one when I was at Kansas State and
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  it was Butler's first trip to the final four. You know, I don't
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  know about that. I think they're all I think the opening game can be
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  really really hard. You know, none of them are easy. You you've
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  got to be prepared. I think there's a sense I could see where some
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  people think there's a sense of leaf to get to a final four. But
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  uh, yeah, I you know, every everybody's got to challenge their quick
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  turns. You know, you've got to flip the script mentally. But you
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  know, it's it's still an unbelievable opportunity to to do something great. And
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  and we're one of eight. Uh, that are they're still standing with an
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  opportunity to to to to go to Arizona right here, coach Doug Shan Rivals
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  dot Com coach, you get to this, this level or this you know,
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  in the tournament, it seems like all these games turn into possession games.
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  Laid. Do you find yourself calling more plays, dolling the Moore plays
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  from the bench rather than just letting the ball find Mark Marcus or Fine Terrence
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  in certain situations? You know, I think that we understand that that you
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  know, we try to you know, in league play, we tell our
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  team seventy five percent the game is going to be two possessions, so we
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  try to prepare for those and and have ideas. Every game's got a different
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  identity to it. Last night was no different. But uh, you know,
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  we're we're gonna we're gonna try to go to match up. We went
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  to Dane quite a bit with uh uh with with t J on the bench,
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  with Fowls. You know, I don't worry as much about the offensive
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  end as I do the defensive end. Uh. Sometimes, so it can
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  get fairly complex in terms of the chess game that you play in late game
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  situations right here in front, coach, right, what makes Yukon so unique
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  and so challenging. Really good players and they're really well coached, and I
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  mean it's it's really and and the fact that they their point guard got six
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  offensive rebound yesterday. You know, they they they puny shoe on the glass
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  and you know we try to do the same thing. We try to make
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  you hurt on the offensive glass. They run in transition, they get a
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  ton of threes in transition. We love to run in transition. We love
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  to score under seven seconds, you know. So it's it's it's some mirroring
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  styles. I've got tremendous respect for for how hard they play. You know,
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  they've got a little bit of everything. In terms of Castle being an
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  elite defender. You know, Caravan at six eight sixty nine is just a
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  a deadly three point shooter, and especially in transition. So you know they've
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  got size, they've and and they play really fast and they play really hard.
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  From here, coach that left Gavin Kifam in London day, just one
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  of your impressions are as Steph Castle, He's a freshman kind of making an
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  impact when the when a lot of older teams these days. Yeah, he's
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  not kind of making an impact, he's making a big impact. He's uh,
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  he's he's an elite defender. Elite. He competes really hard. It's
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  very hard to find freshen that play that hard, that know how to play
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  that hard. Usually they've been coddled and and and told how great they are
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  for the first six years of their being in basketball, so they think they're
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  great and arrived that one knows how to play really, really hard. He's
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  a great slasher. His offensive game is developing, but he's impactful. The
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  job he did on Boo Booi in our leg and from our legue and the
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  NCAA tournament game was was very impressive. So just really impressed with him.
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  Danny's got him playing so hard and that's that's impressive for a freshman. Beck
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  right here, coach Hey Brad Rob Dosserfield of sixty eight, it seems like
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  your team is pretty uptight and nervous for this game tomorrow. We are,
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  We're jittery. What is the What is the value of having a group that's
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  this loose? It doesn't seem like the moment is going to be too much
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  for them. Age, old, maturity, again, you know, I
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  mean Marcus, Marcus is a two thousand point score. He's been in you
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  know, Quincy's played in one hundred and sixty games. There's nothing that they
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  haven't seen. The question was asked, Quincy's seen Yukon. You know,
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  it's there's just some some value in that. You know, it's not like
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  you're running a bunch of young guys out here who you don't know what they're
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  going to do. I know what this group's going to do. I know
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  how they're going to react. We've been through the trials and tribulations of a
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  long season, so you gain confidence from that. But Coleman's been four years
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  ties in his second the other two guys are transfers with tons of experience,
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  so I'm you know, they've won me over and they and they're all very
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  very very very competitive. Here you go, John Fox Sports Brad, When
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  you say you've been through the trials and tribulations, what's a tryle where every
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  coach experience is one of those with their teams, not a couple of those
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  where you were most impressed with how this group responded. And perhaps it's easy.
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  It's easy, that's easy, that's easy, and Penn State. At
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  Penn State, we were just we had prepared terribly for multiple days for that
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  game and not knocking them, they moved the game into their old arena.
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  It was a sellout crowd, It was amped, and we didn't play very
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  well, but at a ten point lead, and literally watched it just disintegrate
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  in thirty seconds. And bad plays, dumb plays, bad fouls, you
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  name it. We did it. And I didn't have to go into the
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  locker room and say work, I was calm, I was. They knew,
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  but they also knew I was going to get things right. And and
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  uh, the next day or two weren't, weren't, weren't, weren't fun
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  for them, but they were get right moments. And uh, that's been
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  a defining moment all year because that that this group knew, they knew,
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  they knew, they knew what they knew, the preparation leading into it.
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  We didn't deserve to win that game, and uh we tricked it off.
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  Good Jimmy Golf the Associated Press, you mentioned the experience that your players have
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  and they're they're up. Ukon's obviously coming off a national championship. How hard
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  with a portal? How hard is it now to kind of build a team
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  that you know, if you look at them, they can just come back
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  and say, let's try it again. Let's run it back to not just
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  have one year, but have a run of success. He's got a great
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  staff. I think we do too. I think we've had we've found success
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  in the portal at a very very high level based on character, based on
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  not just talent, not just I think it's character and and I think that
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  uh, you look at Spencer character tough, they fit. Their staff has
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  done an incredible job of evaluating the guys that that that fit them. But
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  they've also done it with with with really good recruiting. You know, we've
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  got great carry over in our program, and and so we've added the right
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  pieces, but you know, it's got to be the right mesh and it's
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  and in our case, it's it's just it's been about yeah, they got
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  to be good, but but it's the right character pieces and and uh,
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  you know those two guys justin Harmon have just have been unbelievable to share and
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  fit in you your lift coach, coach, Will Charleton, your eSPI nation.
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  This run that Terrence has been on twenty five or more points in last
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  seven games. Have you seen anything like this in your time as a coach.
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  I was an assistant with Michael Beasley. Mike was pretty good. But
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  he's doing it and we don't run much to him. We're not running a
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  lot of action to him. You know, Marcus gets a ton of the
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  attention. Coleman gets a ton of the attention in terms of offensive stuff.
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  But it's it's I've used the term organic. It just kind of happens.
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  He finds it. And but he's he's He's been great all year. He
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  was great early, and like you said, he had a few struggles on
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  his return, but that was just him. I want to mess things up,
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  but uh yeah, you know, he had twenty nine last night.
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  I didn't know it. And he played twenty nine minutes and miss five free
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  throws and some wide open threes. Otherwise you could add a forty point night.
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  But he's he's a he's a special player, special talent right here,
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  coach hi Tara Sullivan from the Boston Globe. In the big picture, college
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  basketball has withstood plenty, right We talked about it the other day. One
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  and done's or nil transfer portal. I just wonder personally, how it feels
• 10:00
  that gambling has become such an ubiquitous presence in the game, something that it
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  used to be so taboo. If it bothers you, if it concerns you,
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  just how you feel about just what almost like a partner in some ways,
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  what a big part has become in the college game in sports in general,
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  concerns me A lot. Concerns me a lot. We have one of
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  the greatest games games and and it's it's it's the competitive integrity I use that
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  word a lot can never be challenged. I'm so much in favor of what
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  the NCAA is doing, mister Baker in terms of coming out against prop betting.
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  I think that's Uh. We've were in the big ten. Our commissioner,
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  our athletic directors put in place this year, UH, injury reports before
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  games huge. So I think it's a it's a it's it's something we're always
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  gonna have to keep educating on. I think we're we're naive if we don't
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  think that it's not happening everywhere it is. But I think we have to
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  do our part to educate our young people. I think we have to to
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  continue to do everything we can to be preventive. We're not a pro franchise
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  is where we have you know, drive into buildings and drive into gated communities
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  and nobody ever knows. We got college kids wearing boots and dorms, you
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  know, and and and and being seen. So I think we've got to
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  be in the process of continual education. I know at the University of Illinois
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  we do it constantly and making making our student athletes aware of it. You
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  can change the questions for coach. Thank you, Thank you so much.
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  We looked them up. Mm hmm.