Takeaways: Red Raiders embrace the Final Four atmosphere

It was all smiles with Texas Tech’s players and head coach Chris Beard as the Red Raiders embrace the fact they have made it to the Final Four and are now preparing for a tough matchup against Michigan State on Saturday at 7:49 p.m. Redshirt senior guard Brandone Francis, redshirt senior forward Tariq Owens, redshirt senior guard Matt Mooney, sophomore guard Jarrett Culver, sophomore guard Davide Moretti, redshirt senior Norense Odiase and Beard all spoke to the media as they prepare for the Spartans.

Culver, Moretti and Odiase

- Culver started off saying the Red Raiders watched the game between Duke and Michigan State.

- Moretti on having his family there during the Elite Eight game against Gonzaga, “It was special. I’ve always wanted my family to see me play and especially my little brother because I love him so much, and I hope he’s going to be doing the same thing I’m doing right now, so I really want him to watch me play so bad.”

- Odiase on going to the Final Four, “It’s just perseverance, man. Putting in the hard work every single daily grind you’ve got to love it. It’s just paying off just to say the least.”

- Culver’s takeaway from the Duke-Michigan State game, “Two big time teams with a lot of talent. Big players. Good guards. So, Michigan State, they’ve got a great team and we know it’s not going to be easy. It’s the Final Four so we know we’re going to have to go out there and compete.”

- Moretti tries to make at least 100 free throws a day. When asked, since he tries to make 100 free throws, if he shoots like 105, Moretti responded with this, “No, just 103.”

- When Culver would play with his brothers, he said he was not always the biggest one which helped him as he grew up and had to compete against bigger players at the collegiate level. “I knew I was going to have to work harder to compete with them.”

- Culver on the welcoming home reception with the fans, “It’s something you always dream of, always coming back and having success and everybody being proud, so Lubbock, they came out supporting and it was a lot of love so it was amazing to have that.”

- Moretti also spoke on the reception and said the only thing he could remember doing was trying to find people to hug.

- Odiase also spoke on the welcoming home reception, “It was crazy. I remember, I was right behind Jarrett, coming out of the bus, and I was just telling Jarrett, ‘move!’ like ‘keep moving, keep moving’, and he wouldn’t move but I’m just saying I kept seeing more and more people walking out. Thank the fans for coming out at like 2:30, it’s something you dream about.”

- Odiase also talked about the moment Zach Smith surprised the team in the film room after they got off the bus, “We came in from the celebration obviously people here at 2:30 for us, we went to the film room like we always do, Coach did his little talk and he talked about some keys, talked about how proud he was and at the end of it he just looked back and Zach is sitting in the back and we’re like, ‘what the heck, Zach is here!’”

- When asked how he felt making the last couple of three-point shots to win the game against Gonzaga, Moretti said, “Which one?” and after the room busted into laughter, he continued, “The second one was really confident because J.C. actually looked at me first so I was – he looked at me so I had to get ready and the first one, the shot clock was running down, so I had to get it off and saw the defender was backing up instead of getting to me so I had to shoot.”

Francis, Owens and Mooney

- Owens acknowledged he was out of bounds on the big sideline block and save he had but said he did not hear a whistle, so he just kept playing.

- Mooney on transferring to the team and what was the most difficult aspect of that, “I would say having to prove yourself all over again to a new group of guys, your teammates and your coaches.” Owens shared the same view of transferring to Tech.

- Mooney said the difficulty of learning Tech’s system was both defense and offense but on defense, he said letting the ball go to the middle and trusting his teammates to be in the right spot was one of the difficult things with the system and also ramping up his aggressiveness defensively.

- For Owens, he said it was learning the motion offense and how to read the defense, when to screen and what screens to set. He credited Francis, Odiase and Andrew Sorrells for helping him learn it.

- Mooney credited his ball handling to back when he was younger and practiced in a concrete basement with a hoop, “I put a headband on and I always thought I was Allen Iverson and dribble those little balls and when I was growing up, my dad used to make me still dribble with those smaller basketballs because it’s harder to dribble with a smaller ball.”

- Francis said he is most impressed with Owens and Mooney with how unselfish they are and said it was hard for them for a week or two when they came to Lubbock, but it got easier for them.

- Owens said he is most impressed with Francis is how he handles adversity. “He does all the little things. From a leadership standpoint, that’s big.” Mooney said Francis was one of the reasons he came to Tech.

- Mooney on the welcome home reception, “My first thought was, ‘man these people are crazy it’s like three in the morning’, but the love is real.”

- Then, Chris Beard from the JuCo Junction asked a question to each of the players, firstly with Francis in which he asked what senior Francis would say to freshman Francis right now. This was Francis’ response. “I would say to freshman Brandone Francis to let his guard down, to listen more to those who care about him and to work harder, to be on time for classes every morning, to be a better listener, to be a better teammate, to be a better person overall.”

- The new reporter, Beard, then asked Owens what Bill Russell would think of all of the blocked shots from today’s athletes. Owens responded with this, “I think he would say, ‘you just care about stats, you just care about your blocks’, I think that’s what he would say.”

- Lastly, Beard asked Mooney how many times he stretches a day before he walked out in the middle of Mooney’s response. “That’s a great question, I actually did hot yoga this morning and I stretched for about an hour and 15 minutes, so I stretch a lot.”

- “Usually I look at the person asking the question,” Mooney said after Beard walked out.

- Francis lived in the Dominican Republic for about 17 years. Francis said he knows David Ortiz as well as many baseball players. Francis said his guy is Starling Marte who plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He said Marte had messaged him on Instagram a few days ago.

Chris Beard

- Beard started off saying Michigan State is the typical Tom Izzo team, tough, and not just sometimes tough. “You watch the game for 40 minutes they’re going to make tough plays. I think they’re mentally tough too. How do I know that or why do I believe that when I’m not a part of their team? Just it doesn’t matter, I’ve seen them be down 12 or 14 points, they come back and win.”

- Beard said, much like this year’s “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, last year’s post-game celebration song was “Neon Guts” by Lil Uzi Vert.

- Beard said he has a lot of confidence in his team because it is led by the four seniors and the young guys listen. “Sunday, these guys were in the gym all night shooting and today is just a normal day.”

- The NCAA will allow the teams to practice on Thursday in which Beard believes the reason is to get more offense into the game and the open practice will be on Friday.

- With the welcome home reception, for Beard personally, he said it was cool to see how happy it made his players and he was appreciative with everyone braving the cold and staying up that late to welcome the team home. “Doesn’t surprise me. We have a great fanbase here. I hope everyone’s enjoying this.”

- Beard did say Mark Adams no longer has tickets and is not in the ticket business anymore.

- Beard said Izzo called him earlier and Beard also heard about Dez Bryant’s tweet and said he respects Bryant and would love to coach someone like him. He also mentioned Charlie Strong had reached out to Beard.

- Beard said no one on the team deserves this Final Four trip more than Odiase who stayed the course through coaching changes, injuries and other adversities. “I can’t tell you how hard I am on him in terms of being a leader not necessarily him and his game because he brings it.”

- Beard described the message he gave the team after the celebration was done and they started to prepare for the Final Four, “We just told them we would help them as much as we could. The plan isn’t ‘here, we’ve got to go win the game!’ it doesn’t quite work that way. Michigan State’s pretty good, they’re trying to win the game, our plan is to try and execute exactly what we’re trying to get done, so Sunday was about rest and watching the game on TV and guys getting up individual shots; today's got to be about a really good practice.”

- Beard said he is also relying on the Final Four experience from Glynn Cyprien and Sean Sutton. He also reached out to Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber and Kansas’ head coach Bill Self.

- On a lasting memory from Anaheim, “Had great crab legs and lobster tails. Disneyland being right there think about my daughters like ‘you get out of school, you get to watch March Madness basketball and we win,’ I think they love me more when we win, and then three, Disneyland is right there it’s like trying to think of something that would be similar to me it’s like having the Final Four being in Leakey, Texas, and we can all float the river together and then play the game.”

- With preparation, Beard said he hopes the team continues to be themselves. “We’ve got to match their toughness. You’re not going to out-tough Michigan State. From time to time, we’ve maybe been able to out-tough a guy from time to time. That’s not the plan, Saturday. The plan is to equal their toughness or compete with them and be as tough as them.”

- With his vision of taking Tech to the Final Four, Beard said you can not be afraid to share your vision and the goal is to hire the right people that share that vision and get the players to believe it.

- Even though Beard could not sneak over to Disneyland, his favorite ride is Soarin. “The one I went – the Grand Canyon through California just soaring in the air and the smells change, the climate changes. It’s sick, man.”