Question: I asked the players this question. I'll pose it to you as well. How do you feel about the fact that as opposed to match-ups with Syracuse and Kansas, you guys are on more equal footing? You don't have a West Coast Swing in front of it and you haven't been 36 hours going around the West Coast before coming into this game. It's all equal footing, neutral court. How excited are you guys about that chance?
Greg Kampe: I appreciate you making excuses for us. That's really nice, because those games didn't turn out very well. Those games were a long time ago. And you know as a coach your job is to make your team get better. And we put a challenging schedule in front of us always. And then we try and get better.
And I think our team has done that. We've won 20 of our last 21 games. Of course, we haven't played a Kansas or a Syracuse or whoever in that 21. But I think we're way better today than we were back then. I'm not answering your question because I would view that as an excuse for the way we played in November or December. Those teams beat us. They beat us good. Okay. We learned from it and we got better.
Question: Can you talk about the challenges of denying Ashton Gibbs the ball and trying to keep him down a little bit?
GK: I'll say this and then he'll get 30. But we've got a guy that I think can guard him, Johnathon Jones. And the reason I say I think he can guard him is because he guarded Sherron Collins, when Michigan State had Drew Neitzel and the year he was their whole team, we lost 74-71, I think, to them, and Neitzel only got nine shots in the game. So we've got a guy that we think can guard that. Now, us thinking it and him doing it are two different things. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
But we feel good going into the match-up that we have someone who can hang with him.
Question: In the day and age when you see a lot of coaches jump into the next job year after year what's kept you at Oakland and what is kind of your goals here at that university?
GK: It's amazing how often I get asked that. It really is. I've tried to change the answer just for the fun of it. But it really comes back down to the grass is always greener on the other side. And I'm just a guy who -- I come from Defiance, Ohio, little town. My dad put fertilizer on his yard and he tried to make it as green as he could make it. So pretty much my background -- this is my job, not to chase other jobs, but to do my job as best I can. And I really view that my job is to make Oakland a special place. I've said that many times and I'll say it again. And when I'm done with this thing I hope that people think it's a special place that kids want to go there. And we won a lot of games and we won them in the right way with good people and with good kids. And I'm also lucky that I have pretty good job security.
I have a great president, who I think he believes in me. At least that's what he's told me. And I have a pretty good contract. It's pretty nice to stay. There's also something to be able to walk across the campus, to know everyone on the campus from the janitors to cooks. That's kind of a good lifestyle.
Question: Do you feel like you have the weight of the league on your shoulders, representing the league in the tournament?
GK: I think our league gets crapped on, yeah. I think it's not warranted. I think basketball in our league is really good. Our third place team this year beat New Mexico, who is in the tournament, ranked in the top ten. They beat Missouri, who is in the tournament. They beat Stanford at Stanford.
Our second place team beat a really good Atlantic ten team. They won last night in the post season tournament. Our league's really good. The problem is that you have to win in the NCAA tournament, and the last time a team -- we won a game in 2005. But you people won't count that. It counts in the record book but winning that opening round game counts, but it doesn't view as a win. So not counting that, we haven't won since Valpo went to the Sweet 16 in the late '90s. I think we get that. We're a 51 RPI and we got a 14 seed. So obviously there isn't a lot of respect for our league. Because they say your RPI is so important, and we're 51. And we're a 14th seed. So I think it would behoove us to win a game in the tournament, and I think it would really help our league, the prestige of our league.
GK: What people don't understand, and because we're in Michigan, and Michigan State and Oakland have a very good relationship, as our programs have been close for many years, I see this there, too, and you get it being in Pittsburgh, is your team goes every year. And because you go every year, I think you view this different than we do. I mean, this is a reward for us. Our kids sitting up here, me being here, this is a reward for a great season. We're not going to cut the nets down, and I said this to somebody in Pittsburgh this week -- we're not going to cut the nets down in Indianapolis. We know that. Our kids know that. They have a goal to make it to the Sweet 16. We got to storm the court, cut the nets down at our league tournament. That's where the pressure was. You don't realize what pressure is when you can win 26 games and if you don't win that last one you're not going, that's pressure. So our kids went through that, excelled, achieved and they're here. We don't think we're the underdog. We don't have a chip. We're so happy to be here; and because of that, I expect us to play free and easy and expect us to go have some fun with it. They say are you going to change your style of play? No. But if it gets in the last three minutes, if we have a chance to win, we'll change. But this is a reward.
Question: Is that a concern -- getting back to the free and easy -- that your kids won't do that? Do they come out tight? Here's the NCAA tournament, and they're looking for somebody else to shoot, not them?
GK: I've got a veteran team who has tried so hard and tried so many times to get here, I don't see that happening. It happened in the league championship game. We were pitiful the first five, six minutes we couldn't make a shot. But that was because of the pressure to get here. We're here. I don't expect it. If it does, I'm going to blame you, Tom.
Question: You talk about the pressure, can you compare your pressure that you deal with and the goals getting to the Sweet 16 to the pressure maybe a Pitt is facing that they're not expected -- everybody -- it's guaranteed a victory, first round victory? And the Sweet 16 isn't good enough. Just put yourself in Jamie Dixon's shoes.
GK: That's exactly right. You've hit it right on the head. If we win -- Jamie Dixon is a great basketball coach. He's proved that. He's proven himself. He doesn't have to beat Oakland to prove that. But if somehow we won, there's going to be a bunch of people in Pittsburgh that think what's wrong with him, this was a bad year. All that stuff. They lost a lot of players off a great team last year. They had a fluke shot. Don't tell Villanova I said fluke -- a great shot that knocked them out. And they could have been in the Final Four. That's their pressure is to get there. Our pressure is to get here. So it's completely different but it's the same. Our kids feel the same amount of pressure that their kids do. I feel the same amount of pressure that he feels. He's just on a bigger national stage, and ours is just within ourselves. But if we were to win, yeah, they'll be devastated and people will be upset about it. If we were to lose, everybody's going to clap their hands and say you had a great year. I understand that.
