Buckeyes coach Thad Matta met with reporters on Thursday in advance of his team's tournament game at the Bradley Center. Here is a transcript: 

Question: Thad, yesterday I guess some of the players were talking about the mindset going into last year's first round game and how I guess they kind of felt they were happy to be there. And I just wondered, with you, having your finger on that, what did you think going into the last year's first round game? Did you think they were ready or did you have a concern about that?

Coach Thad Matta: I thought we were ready until the ball got tossed up, and I remember turning to the bench and saying, "We don't look the same." And I thought we fought through that there in the second half, 12 or 14-point lead. But for whatever reason in that game we weren't as sharp. I mean, Siena was obviously a very, very good basketball team.

Question. Do you try to diffuse all this talk that's going on in reference to Glen Rice and Danny Manning and the one-game thing and now Evan starting his run. How do you handle that whole thing? Because clearly you don't play that many other guys, you've had a lot of other valuable contributors.

CM: To be honest, I need to be in tune with more what's going on in the world because I hadn't heard that. But I think these guys have a tremendous understanding of when Ohio State plays their best basketball, there's five guys out there playing together. And I think there's been a trademark for this team throughout the course of the season of five guys both offensively and defensively playing together. I think with a guy like Evan Turner, who is very intelligent, and he's a very team-oriented guy, he's never shown throughout the course of this season any signs of that being a thought process for him. And I've seen guys that have become selfish or something along those lines. But Evan knows he needs everybody on this team to help us win and I think that's what makes him what he is. I think that's why he's continued to elevate his game every time he takes the floor.

Question. Villanova almost got upset as the No. 2 seed. What do you tell your players to keep them overlooking a No. 15 seed?

CM: Well, I think in all seriousness, the way we've done it -- and I don't want to change now because of the position we're in -- but the focus is on us. And we can't determine what happens in that game. The only thing we can determine is how we come out and play, and do we execute? Do we have a toughness about us on defense? As you coach a guy as long as the season's been, we're going on to our 126th practice of the year. You've got a pretty good feel for them. And this isn't a team that I've found that needs outside motivation to play well. I think they're more tuned into what we have to do. And the fact that that game was close, overtime, maybe it heightens their awareness, but I don't want these guys to be motivated by something that happened yesterday to affect today.

Question: You talked yesterday about some problems you had with flu running through the team. How is everybody right now from that standpoint?

CM:: Getting better. I think the guys that had it on Sunday appear to be better. They're putting more weight back on. Jon's the one that had it last, I guess you could say. We're trying to monitor everything that he's doing and getting the right foods and hydration and all those things. But he had a lot more color when he walked into the locker room here than he had the day before yesterday and the day before when he missed practice.

Question: What does the scouting report tell you about Santa Barbara and what you need to do to be prepared against them?

CM: Lots of things. And first and foremost we have to do a great job defensively. And obviously with the player of the year, Johnson, Nunnally, you look at those two guys as two prolific scorers, the numbers and the consistency they've got ten their points with and how they've gotten them from 3s to drives, to post-ups, to fouls. But the thing that we've noticed from December until March is the other guys are playing great basketball, too, which is why they're here. And so it's a team effort of defending and the big challenge for us is not giving them a lot of easy baskets, a lot of easy opportunities. And you do that by taking care of the ball on offense and taking great shots on offense. I think that's one of the things that we've got to do is really take care of the ball against their defense.