NCAA Tournament - San Diego State and UConn speak on National Championship matchup
Players and coaches from Connecticut and San Diego State spoke with members of the media as they prepared for their matchup in the National Championship of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
Video Transcript
[CROWD CHEERING]
BRIAN DUTCHER: Our opponent is ourselves. And that's almost John Wooden. You know, it's like be at your best when your best is required. And that's what we're going to try to do. We're going to try to play our best basketball. And if they beat us at our best, then we're going to congratulate them and shake their hands. But if we play at our best, we'll have a chance to win the game.
LAMONT BUTLER: It still feels amazing. Still unbelievable that we're in this position. But our focus on winning a national championship. So I mean, we celebrated last night, but we're back focused, and we're going to get it done.
I thought we'd been underdogs this whole tournament. That's the mentality went into it and the mentality went to every game. So we're going to keep that mentality and keep on proving people wrong.
DAN HURLEY: Yeah, I mean, they're physical, they defend. They play really, really hard. The good thing for us is we do that every single day. Like we play-- we practice really, really hard. We come from a really, really hard playing league. So I think it's just going to come down to, obviously, who out plays the other.
ANDRE JACKSON JR: I would say guard the ball one on one and then also being able to guard the ball screens, and the way that they're going to be dunking in our bigs making sure that we can-- we cut off those drives and not let them get points at the rim. Also, keeping them off the offensive glass and defensive rebounding the ball.
DAN HURLEY: Yeah, I mean, the heavy favorites haven't fared very well in this one. So I don't really-- we're just going to try to ignore that tag, with the experience and the physicality and the age and just how well-coached the San Diego State team is and the teams they've beaten to get here. We expect a much different type of game. Much more of a fight.
