VCU Head Coach Phil Martelli Jr Joins the Show!

0:00877-8591-32. That's it! I'm Seth Madness! VC New comes all the way back to defeat North Carolina in overtime! Now, back to you better you bet with Nick Costos on Westwood One Sports. Ah, the great eye and eagle with the call yesterday on CBS! If you're a VCU, a nothing finer than an upset of North Carolina. This segment sponsored by Progressive Insurance save on commercial auto insurance from Progressive, get a fast quote at ProgressiveCommercial.com. This is why you love the NCAA Tournament.

1:00Even if you had North Carolina in your bracket, you bet on North Carolina and North Carolina and Survivor. You have to love the madness of the NCAA Tournament. VCU, 19.5 second-half come back, stare in North Carolina in the eye, not backing down, and knocking out one of the blue blood programs in college basketball to move on to the round of 32, setting up a date with the Align Eye of Illinois, and joining us now to discuss. They're awesome, awesome head coach, and I'm so happy for them, and you know, just human interest stuff. Like, I love the fact that his dad's there in the eye. Like, just such a great moment. Just as human beings, you can appreciate that. Phil Martelli Jr. here with us on the show, fresh off the upset over North Carolina. Coach, congratulations, you better you bet Nick Costos on Westwood One Sports. How are you feeling today on this Friday morning? Nick, I appreciate you having me on and all those kind words. How much feeling right now? I'm feeling like I haven't slept, but in the best way possible.

2:01And I said to somebody else this morning, I said, when you get to this time of year, and you have a smile on your face because you haven't had any sleep, and you've been staring at the computer screen watching film all night long, that means really good things are happening. So we're all excited. That's... What's it been like for you since the game went final? I thought you were on sports center. I'm sure you were doing other media. Like, how much did you sleep? How much did you sleep? Yeah, not very much. You know, we were doing a bunch of media stuff. It helps when you play the first game in a bracket like this because then that second game's going on. My brother, who's on my staff, who's my associate head coach, and Chris Cole, who was with me at Bryant and he was with me at VCU. Those guys went out to scout. They had, you know, Illinois and Penn as the next scout. So they were out there scouting. We were bopping around doing it. The media stuff got back to the hotel.

3:02There was only a few minutes left in that game. So I started Illinois prep then. And, you know, that game went final. We gathered the guys around midnight to kind of give them the schedule. Because we didn't know game time. You know, we didn't know who we were going to play. And then didn't know game time for Saturday until super late. So once we got all that, we got them together for about 10 minutes and about midnight. Went through the schedules, sent them to bed. And then, yeah, we were down in that meeting room. I finally left. It was like survivors. Like one by one. We had about 10 or 11 people in there. And by, by 4 a.m. I think there was three of us in there. And then I left at about 5 30. And my brother and Mike Parmy, our M. Lewis guy, we're still in there. I came up here to my room and was finishing a motion film. And I did lay down for probably about an hour and a half. So maybe like 5 30 to 7. I don't know if I swear I did lay down at least. That is, that is, that is exceptional. And I, I, I hope you know that I mean no disrespect when I say this.

4:03I think a lot of people would agree with this. Maybe the only people that wouldn't would be you and your players. It felt like this game was over in the second half. Like Carolina's having their way. And Carolina's high flying going up and down. And all of a sudden, right? The game starts to turn. And it didn't happen all of a sudden, right? Because you guys had to, you know, overcome a 19 point deficit. It took time. You had to go through the whole overtime period. And what point during this coach? And maybe your answer is just like we knew the whole time. But at what point did you really think like, yeah, we can come back here. Like we can do this. Well, we've been, we've been a really resilient group all the way through. And our second game of the year, we played Utah State. It was obviously playing today. Really good team. They were a really experienced team coming back. And, you know, we, we always choose to play a really hard non-conference. I'm always a believer in that. Play a really tough non-conference schedule to get you ready. You know, for what's to come. And, you know, so the opportunity came to play them on a neutral in Texas.

5:06We did that. And it was a very similar game. And we went down 17 in that game in the second half, stormed all the way back. You know, tied the game, had a chance to win it. Ended up losing on the last possession. But I knew walking out of that. I was like, yeah, that was something with nine new guys, new staff, second game of the year. That, that's so easy to just give in. Right. It's so easy to stop point fingers, blame somebody else to say, uh, the game's over. It's only the second game of the year who cares. Any of those things, you know, it like would be normal. And these guys didn't do that. And I was like, man, we just have something, like we just have something. And I tell, I would tell them all the time through that non-conference. Like, these are the games they're going to prepare us, you know, for when it really, really matters. And yeah, it'd be nice to just go through non-conference and go, you know, 16 to 0 or 17 to 0 and have a great record. And we still have a really good record and we want some really good games. But those games all prepared us for this. And, you know, losing that game on November 7th, yeah, it sucked, right?

6:08It didn't feel good. We didn't want to lose that game. But if it got us ready to win a game on March 19th like that, I'd much rather have than March 19th win than the November 7th win. And, uh, you know, but there was no doubt, you know, because of that, because of those things we've been through in the resilience, those guys just kept talking each other like next play, next play, next play. We just got to win this next play. You know, and then it just started the snowball from there. VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr. on the show coming off their electric win yesterday over North Carolina advancing to the round of 32. You better, you bet here on Westwood one sports coach. I hope you can appreciate this question. I feel like I have to ask it because it's a huge story coming out of the game. And it, and it involves the team that you beat yesterday in North Carolina, where Carolina's players were saying they're tired after the game. Some of your players kind of intimating that they could see it in North. Like they, I was watching the game. Carolina did look like was gassed, especially in the overtime period. Were you surprised by the lack of subs by Hubert Davis during the games of something

7:09you were like, you're paying attention to that in overtime at the end of regulation? Like, talk me through that with North Carolina and how this happened for them. And again, I hope you can appreciate the question given the national story that that is. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know about, you know, their stuff, you know, but I do know that's kind of who we are. Like we, we are built for those types of games, those types of moments. We played a game two weeks ago, last regular season game of the year at Dayton. You know, big game, first place on the line, all these different things. And there was a stretch in that game that went like seven or eight minutes to start the game. I don't think I've ever been a part of a game like this where when seven or eight minutes to start the game with no stoppages. And our guys just kept going and going and going and going. And, you know, we, we have built that, you know, it's the way that we, we train our strength coach Danny Rousse is as good as there is in the country. And, you know, he gets, he gets people trying to pull him all the time, but he loves VCU and does a lot of VCU.

8:12And he could easily be in the NBA or at a power five or whatever, but loves VCU and, you know, he trains those guys hard. And we practice most of what we do is up and down in the full court. So they're just used to that. And, you know, and it's not uncommon for us to see no matter how many guys teams are playing to look across and say, look, they're wearing down. You know, like they're wearing down and we're going to keep going. And, you know, it's really just that mindset that we have. It doesn't matter what the other team has done, what they, you know, what their selves, what they're whatever. I think if you went back and watched a lot of our games, you'd see that in a lot of these games in the second half where that other team is looking around going like, all right. I don't know if I have anything left. And our guys are looking around going like, let's go find that extra gear. You know, and I think that's what happened. I think really that's the story. You know, so I don't think that I didn't sub either. You know, I played five guys down the stretch. You know, most of those minutes and, you know, they just, again, because of the way they've been trained.

9:17They just have an extra gear. Final question for you, coach. When I tell you that tomorrow, you guys are a ten and a half point underdog against Illinois. Your reaction to that and what you will say to your players is you guys enter the game as an underdog is what and why? Yeah, I mean, you know, they, they woke up. I went to bed. Well, use that in quotes, right? I went to bed last night. And when I woke up and refreshed at this morning, they were the most efficient offense of team in the country. So it's not surprising. They're huge. They shoot the three. They chase you on the glass. We're going to have to defend. And, you know, whatever that is, I don't, I don't even look at any of that stuff, right? Like, I don't look yet underdog, favorite, whatever. Like we go, we go out there. You know, for us right now, this is trying to get number two. We always break it down to those numbers. And then in the nonconference, it started with number one. And we got up to whatever we got up to in the nonconference.

10:17And then for the conference play, we reset that and we start with number one. And we got up to, I think, 15 conference play conference tournament. It was number one. Then we talked about number two. Then we talked about number three. You know, for Thursday for yesterday, we talked about just getting number one. And the first thing I said to them after the game was like, now we just focus on getting number two. You know, whoever it is, whatever it is, however it is. It doesn't really matter. You know, these guys have a belief. They've worked really hard. And they built themselves up into, you know, champions first. You know, winning the conference. And now here they are. You know, tomorrow, whenever timing play will be one of that point, probably like 2018, 2017. Something like that. Still playing. It's amazing. And coach, like last thing here, just, again, I said this at the start. I went to Fordham. I was at Fordham when your, when your dad had St. Joe's when they were the number one team in the country with Jameer Nelson in Delante West.

11:17And I worked at the radio station at Fordham. Your dad is a sweetheart. And just like you and I are around the same age, I just like even if, you know, no matter whether anyone listening liked Caroline in the game with their Carolina fan, I think everyone can appreciate like a son coaching his team to a big one in the tournament. And his dad is there in attendance. And we all know who his dad is because we've all been watching the sport. And I know that had to have been a special moment for you. A sincere congratulations to you and your team and the best of luck tomorrow against the Align Eye. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you Nick. Phil Martelli Jr. joining us here on you better, you bet. And he's obviously intimately familiar with that St. Joe's team. Like with his dad, obviously it's St. Joe's. Pretty, pretty amazing stuff there from Phil Martelli Jr. VCU beating North Carolina yesterday. We're a little behind schedule because you know, we had to welcome in a pretty amazing guest, great job by Bill Zimmerman making that happen. I want to bet VCU tomorrow now plus the points against Illinois. A couple no worthy things from that interview that we'll get to on the other side.

12:18And we'll talk about more of the Thursday madness here on this Friday, especially high point taking down Wisconsin. You better, you bet presented by Bed MGM. Your bracket already in trouble. Your favorite team. Nobody's safe from tip off to the final four. We've got every game on the Westwood One Sports app from your official home of March Mactis. Westwood One Sports. My perfect day as sand saltwater and friends. But my moderate to severe plaques rises can take me out of the moment. Now I'm all in with clearer skin thanks to Skyrizzy. Risen Kism at Rizza. A prescription only 150 milligram injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. With Skyrizzy, most people saw a 90% clearer skin and many were even 100% plaque free at four months. Skyrizzy is just four doses a year after two starter doses. Don't use it allergic to Skyrizzy.

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