The UCF-Duke matchup is upon us.
There are plenty of storylines to go around in this one. Johnny Dawkins and Coach K. Tacko and Zion. Danny White and Kevin White.
The day after the Knights' first-ever NCAA Tournament victory against VCU, UCF AD Danny White spoke about the impact of that win and also about Sunday's meeting with No. 1 seed Duke, where his father has been the longtime AD.
On the first NCAA Tournament win:
"Such a big deal. I'm really proud of our players. They've worked so hard the last couple years. They battled adversity and some injuries. To compete the way we did against a really good team last night, it's a program-building moment."
On B.J. Taylor saying they wanted in the football team's footsteps of producing on the big stage:
"The way we define a championship culture is our student-athletes paying attention to and caring about the success of all of our teams. I love the fact B.J. is watching what's happening in football. I hope they're watching what's happening in volleyball, soccer, women's basketball is doing their part. We want to build a top 25 athletics department across the board. At UCF, in Orlando, with the best recruiting base in the country, we can do that."
On whether he's talked to his dad about the Duke matchup:
"We've been texting back and forth. He's on the NCAA committee. He's in Jacksonville. He can't be here because of the conflict of interest. I'm sure he's a little conflicted for tomorrow."
On whether he has a friendly wager with dad:
"No. It's more awkward than anything like that."
On whether he thought Johnny Dawkins could get to this spot in such a short period of time:
"The minute Johnny Dawkins said yes to becoming the head basketball coach at UCF, I thought we won the lottery. We were very fortunate to have him. I didn't know how long it would take. It's unrealistic - I don't put timelines on these things - I want our coaches to build it where it's sustainable and built the right way. I love what he's doing with our program. Our kids are learning a lot from him. He's developing student-athletes. He does it the right way. Obviously we're way ahead of schedule competitively."
On the feedback from last night:
"People are excited. It's been a special couple years for us now to be in the national stage again. This matchup, there's so many storylines, it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll have a boatload of people coming up from Orlando tonight and tomorrow. A lot of people watching on television as well."
On what was going through his mind during the closing minutes vs. VCU:
"What I was thinking about, in the last 12 minutes, I kept looking at the clock and our lead. It's kind of a dangerous spot in basketball to be up that much with that much time left. In my brief stint coaching, I coached a team as an assistant that played a lot like VCU does. We actually came back in the NCAA Tournament against Florida with a similar (way). We were down by 17 points with eight minutes left. I was thinking about that the whole time. This is a very real possibility this team could come back. Our guys showed some maturity. They made the right plays when VCU had all the momentum. I thought we really handled it well."
On whether his dad being at Duke led to him hiring Johnny Dawkins:
"Any time I'm in a coaching search I'm going to use any relationship and asset I have. One of the things I like to take pride in in coaching searches is knowing what I don't know. Even though I have a basketball background, I don't know today what's happening in basketball circles, but basketball coaches do. I rely on my brother, but Coach K has been a resource as well. Mike Brey, who played for at Notre Dame and is part of the Duke tree, they do it the right way. They recruit high-level players and they develop them the right way. They treat them right. They get the most out of them. Obviously, Johnny's reputation is elite. Everybody I called to talk to about Johnny Dawkins said, 'Are you kidding? If you can get him to UCF, that's a grand slam.' I felt the same way."
On the national stage of playing Duke:
"It's a big stage, big game. I know our guys are ready for it. We're going to play to win. I'm excited to see them compete."
On the attention UCF is receiving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar tweeted about Tacko, plus SportsCenter was hyping the Tacko-Zion matchup:
"I figured it would be, if we could win the first one. It hasn't disappointed. I know Kareem has been great with Tacko for the last couple years. He has a close relationship with Dr. Richard Lapchick, who runs the DeVos Sport Management Program at UCF. He spoke at our graduation recently. He's been an awesome friend to UCF and Tacko. I love seeing people with that kind of legacy in the sport of basketball to take some interest in UCF Basketball. We're building our tradition. It's really all ahead of us. We've certainly had a pretty exciting run in football and now we're starting our run in basketball. There's not a sport at UCF that we can't be highly competitive in."
On how playing Duke would be like playing Alabama in football:
"It's interesting, isn't it? It's great to compete in a tournament that a National Champion is determined on the court. I'd love to see that happen in football. I think it will. I think football is rolling downhill on that. I'd love to see more of the leaders in college football make sure that happens. It certainly happens in basketball. Our team is going to have our chance to hopefully advance tomorrow."
On his initial reaction when he saw that UCF and Duke could meet:
"I was sitting right across from Johnny and Tracy Dawkins. Obviously with their Duke connections that go way deeper than mine. We all kind of had that unique reaction. We saw that lineup potentially happening. The first reaction VCU is a heck of a basketball program and we've got to figure out how to get through that game."
More:
"It's close to home. Any time you have such close relationships in our business. College sports is a small world. I don't want to play my brother in basketball. I know Johnny doesn't want to play Coach K in basketball. I don't want to play my dad if I can avoid it. We'd like to support each other and want everyone to do well. If you play each other, that's kind of impossible."
On the committee's stance they don't consider storylines when making selections:
"I don't know. I think it's a great national story with the matchup. Do they consider in the seeding? I really don't know. I think we had some opportunities down the stretch to help ourselves and get out of the 8/9 game. Our schedule, the way it played out, it's due in large part to how highly predicted we were in the preseason rankings. We finished with a gauntlet. That was going to make it difficult to get out of the 8/9 slot."
