Month: March 2021

Below is the transcript created by Zoom’s robots during Wednesday’s online video conference. It’s a good thing that no reporter will rely on it for writing a preview of Friday night’s game.

For one thing, Scott Richey almost certainly didn’t begin his portion of the call with “executives curvature the champagne.”

Reporters rely on the materials uploaded by Sports Info staff. That’s true before, during and after the season. The NCAA has a huge Digital Media Hub which got really active today as SIDs began loading PDFs and JPEGs and M4A audio files into their team’s folders.

Unfortunately, Drexel’s folder didn’t get the M4A of today’s Zoom, It got a 5 MB file of silence. The video was slightly larger (5.9 MB) but just as blank.

Your faithful servant engaged Drexel SID Mike Tuberosa in a dialogue about the problem, and Mike finally got through to a media specialist at Drexel, who retrieved the video file from cloud storage.

So here you go, reporters. Here’s the pre-game presser. And if you want to be ultra confused about what was said, read its transcript below.

Mike Tuberosa

Hello everybody thanks for coming today.

We have coach Spyker drexel university he’s going to start off and when he is finished with his opening statement, these. After your question say your name and where you’re from Thank you.

Zach Spiker

Alright guys thanks for coming today we’re very excited about this opportunity to participate in a tournament very proud of the players in our program to have earned this right to be here.

It was a challenging difficult season on many levels for all of our programs, and all of our young men and our programs and really if you go back a year from now, to think about and I try to see things to the perspective and lens of what our players are experiencing.

You can’t have a more emotional or full year and everything that has gone on and i’m happy that they’ve gotten to this point, and they get to experience success on the basketball floor and very happy feeling.

You know i’d also add before we take a question just that in a pandemic situation there are so many people behind the scenes, they work so hard to get us to this point i’d like to just.

Thank the doctors at Drexel university that came up with the protocol to put us in place to be successful, Dr marlin goal, Dr Tucker Dr Cruz.

and also our athletic trainer Mike West tougher when you’re in Philadelphia our code restrictions and protocols are much more different than most of the country.

And we’ve been testing daily since October, with the exception of the Christmas break and that group has kept us safe and allowed us to continue to practice when others weren’t.

and happy that they get to see that return on the investment they made an appropriate.

Mike Tuberosa

Okay first question Austin.

austinpetolillo

hey zach hope everything’s going well out in indy arm, as far as the Illinois goes obviously tough team will we see a little bit more timmy to kind of combat coburn down in the post.

Zach Spiker

Well Illinois is it physically imposing team, as we all know, we’ve all seen a lot of tape of them they’re on national TV all the time.

And I think we need to be ready to have a couple different options. TIM is one of them.

But you know their their their offensive attacks from a defensive perspective is not just one player coburn is terrific and physically dominating down low.

But they surround him with a number of other players that are good in transition, and also very good catch and shoot three point shooters so.

Certainly playing a team in the tournament all teams are good and successful, and if you take away one thing they’re going to be able to hurt you in a different way, so we’re going to need all of our players available to combat the athleticism and the scoring ability of Illinois.

austinpetolillo

And sure can you know, obviously, everybody knows that iowa is one of the best players in the country for you guys, how are you going to take you know.

what’s the strategy defending him, and then on the flip side, what do you guys going to look to do on offense.

Camren Wynter

You know just on different bodies Adam you know we have a lot of defenders so just showing them different looks making everything tough warm.

Not trying not to give him any open looks and our friends. Just just doing what we do we move the ball out, we find the open man, we shoot threes a lot, so you know just being us on offense.

austinpetolillo

And for you what’s life, like in the bubble up what do you guys doing the kind of stay active and not just kind of sit around all day.

Camren Wynter

You know coach keeps us active all day.

Some players say a little bit too much, but yeah play video games, you know with each other. Online and then you know just hang out.

austinpetolillo

And last one for me zach obviously you guys had to practice today. Did you like the look of the team that I.

Zach Spiker

Have you know you talking about our team and our practice today.

yeah, I think, like any day certainly you like some segments better than others, but I did think that.

You know you’re here, we had earlier practice slot which was two different we normally practice in the morning, but little slow start, but once we got going I thought we were pretty good and again Austin i’ll refer to this a lot.

Deeper we’ve got into the season, the more communication has been player to player and I think if guys aren’t in the right spot we’re able to our players able to hold each other accountable and today we gotta get going here and then that’s an area where i’ve seen A lot of growth and cam winner in the last month and a half and there’s no mistake, no, no, no mystery that we played better basketball last month and a half as well, so well I liked our practice today.

austinpetolillo

Alright, thanks guys take care.

Zach Spiker

Thank you, our.

Mike Tuberosa

next question for Carter.

Carter Hill

hey coach.

Mike Tuberosa

We’ll come back to Carter

justin.

Justin Jackson

justin Jackson with morgantown dominion post those questions for coach Spyker coaching you know, obviously Your journey to get to this point, you know the years spent as a Grad assistant, and you know working your way up the West Virginia And army and and you know.

Unknown Speaker

cornell.

Justin Jackson

That journey to get to this point what’s it meant to you and, and you know what will it mean for you, moving forward.

Zach Spiker

hey justin good to hear from you again, you know every coach has a story all right, and behind that story, though, are successful basketball players and players that make that story possible so.

There is a story in a journey but i’m honestly more focused on the story and journey cam winner Tata scariness Zack walton guys in our program and Thomas and zach are seniors i’m focused on making this the absolute best experience it can be.

There was a bit of memory lane getting here to indianapolis staying in the hyatt this exact hotel was my first final for years ago coach mark down at my hometown introduced me to damon Stevenson, who was on the staff at Winthrop at the bottom of these escalators right over there. And that’s how I got the opportunity to go to winter and beyond the coaching staff there and to be back here 21 years ago I didn’t even have.

My to stay in a hotel I stayed with a friend of my sisters and mark Stat is a friend who kept in touch and excited to maybe lead him a couple tickets 21 years later, and thank him for help them help help me get started, but other than that guys honestly I think the emotion enjoy that some of you may have seen at the end of the game.

In our Conference tournament was about the men in our program and our managers and our training staff, everyone has sacrificed and work so hard this year so.I joke, a lot of people like I was fine to a winter, I saw tears and winters face and then that same time I walked by the scorer’s table and somebody happened to be chopping up some money into the scorer’s table, so my arm my I started to water, a little bit.

Serious it was it was a great moment and I think it’s one that everybody in our program on our campus and honestly even former basketball players really appreciated the magnitude of it for our basketball program and our university.

Justin Jackson

I imagine you’ve been getting a lot of support from the people back here family background work down.

Zach Spiker

yeah it absolutely absolutely again those things don’t happen unless you have great people in players in our program and as we’ve talked about.

After tough losses why we’re going to get through some things because of the character of our players so justin Those are all accurate things I appreciate you asking, but certainly happy for that moment, but more focused on our guys haven’t helping them have a great experience sure I guess I don’t want to do too much the sun hang out in their rooms and play video games right.

Camren Wynter

All right.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you.

Mike Tuberosa

next question for Scott.

Scott Richey

executives curvature the champagne us because that I was curious kind of your thoughts on Andre Kerr bellow maybe what he’s Mattel might, especially in the last two weeks.

Zach Spiker

yeah Scott i’m known for a long time not personally but i’ve watched him and seeing them play recruited that program and I didn’t have the opportunity to see him play I think he’s incredibly crafty with the basketball he’s got a very good feel for the game physically a little bit different than other guys on the team, but also allows them to get into tighter spaces, I think he really delivers the ball to coburn.When he’s open as much as well as anybody on the team, and then I also think that really quick hands defensively so People may try and attack him at times, but I think he’s he’s very sleight of hand is crafty like he had a steal one of the Games, I saw you just kind of hanging back and laying around sneaks up behind the guy so I think he’s if you’ve got that guy i’m contributing to your program alongside is a role player compared to everybody else you’ve got a really good team and, certainly, you know my does, we all know that.

Scott Richey

Any mentioned know, maybe not just being Kofi and not just io in six guys in double figures in the big 10 tournament champion tricky championship game that’s the challenge, maybe there when it could be any one of them.

Zach Spiker

yeah I mean it could be frazier it could be Miller could be Williams, I don’t want to put your george’s last name, it could be him as well, so.

Now it’s a sign of of a nationally ranked team that’s well balanced they’ve got multiple weapons and multiple threats and they’re really, really good basketball team they’re very well coached they’ve got some great schemes, they execute and what we need to do to be successful, is be at our absolute best and hopefully keep them off balance and go from there.

Scott Richey

And they want for Cameron as well, just as kind of upset filled as the CAA tournament was you guys kind of just embracing maybe the chaos that can be March.

Camren Wynter

yeah you know we always say March is a special month, then you know you can make special things happened in March, so I think every day we come into practice with that mentality that that we’re the underdog and we can make a special thing happen.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you, both.

Mike Tuberosa

Carter we’ll try again.

Carter Hill

hey coach you hear me OK now.

Zach Spiker

We can hear you everybody.

Carter Hill

Okay awesome Thank you, Sir, thank you alright so first off part of your fifth quarter i’ve invited to say for a while, so happy to see you guys finally get in the tournament but you’re kind of in a unique situation as a mid major in a in a major city in the country, so is there a sense of pride to represent the the city of Philadelphia with drexel basketball, as you head into the nc double a tournament.

Zach Spiker

Absolutely, I mean this win this championship, and I run a conference tournament.

Is not just for our players but it’s for all of our former players, I mean you’ve been some really, really good teams Carter drexel.

I think back to a couple of teams abreu coach oh six or 711 and 12 quite frankly we’re tournament worthy and did not get a selection so when we play on Friday we played a represent everyone has ever worn the uniform at drexel but also our student body or university administration but, as you said.

You know, we talked about it a little bit you know when we need to when we play other schools in the city that. You know our guys may or may not have gotten the same attention to the same group of schools, but we get that opportunity and.

We see challenges at drexel as opportunities and we play those teams it’s a great opportunity for us to prove what we’re capable of doing and I think we were able to do that the last couple years when we play those Games.

Carter Hill

Thank you.

Mike Tuberosa

next question for rob.

Rob McColley

First, for Cameron, the one of the big story, so far as how you’ve been eating and whether you’ve had enough to eat so i’m curious about what your your meals have been like the last couple of days, can you tell us what you had for dinner last night.

Camren Wynter

I think we had pasta, with with some sauce chicken parm. potatoes, maybe.

it’s Buffet style now now that we’re out of quarantine when we were first in there, they were delivering meals to our rooms, so I think that’s what people might be complaining about okay.

Rob McColley

So you can choose how much you have to eat.

Camren Wynter

yeah

Rob McColley

Okay, good

for zach i’d like to know about what technologies you’re using to scout watch clips.put everything together, do you have enough, do you have screens that are big enough.To project

what’s it been like.

Zach Spiker

Excuse me, you mean like like screens for like film for our team.

Rob McColley

yeah for coaches to put together scouting reports and for teams to get together and watch.

Zach Spiker

You know what it we’ve gone about our process, like any other game.

The screen part is kind of irrelevant, we just maybe I don’t know different programs are different, we just use the wall right

we just take the projector and back it up don’t get really big and it’s on the wall and it’s like a drive in movie theater honestly it’s plenty big.

You know I tell you back on cam to I think one of the not the enemy has been bad, but the chicken I had to second night that was delivered to my room during quarantine was terrific.

Right, it was really good so we’re a program that we you know we’re built on our core values of gratitude respect and compete appreciate what’s given to you appreciate the opportunity to have respect how hard you have to work to be successful respect listening to your teammates you’ve got locker room covers the entire world learn about other people, and what their perspectives are

And then try and be at your best and compete, so I don’t think you would hear many i’ve heard rumblings of it outside of our circle, but

The food’s been fine we’re going to have a great meal tonight from Harry and disease we’re excited about that we’re going to have a great Barbecue meal tomorrow afternoon.

And we’re doing everything candy give our guys the best possible experience, knowing that we’re in a very, very controlled environment so hope call this basketball terminology.

Rob McColley

Just one more for me, because he played a few games December January march how has how have you seen it in terms of conditioning and response execution.

Zach Spiker

yeah rob Let me follow up to I didn’t totally answer your other question mean it’s still got access to synergy right we use synergy we use Ken palm Bart terrific calm another another website analytically.

I personally use evernote to make notes in different times but we’ve got where we need we got to practice playing software always used us for 10 years now and Now that we use every analytic piece, we can make sense it’s still funnels down into the same simple things for our guys right and it always comes down to taking care of the basketball transition the and doing what you can from personnel standpoint so to answer that question from a technology piece we’re fine we got what we need, certainly as our coaching staff would love to have ipads and different things and make things better from film standpoint.

Maybe we’ll get to that, but again appreciation is at a high level our expectations and low level and we’re just thankful, where we have will make it work to be the best we can Right now

the other question you’re asking did we see a deep conditioning issue with all the pauses rob our pauses were based on testing from our opponents, we in fact cam craving for now we don’t think we had any positive we had days off from practice That we gave our team, but to our guys credit we’ve always talked about the most disciplined teams going to win our guys were incredibly disciplined.

They live across the street and that’s getting a car to drive the gym or practice or go get food everything’s in walking distance they live in our own bedrooms.

You know secretly they love where they live, because the laundry is inside their sweet, so they don’t have to go to a laundromat or a shared laundry facility so it’s just them, and their teammates and and sweets which probably was helpful in a coven world but we didn’t have any deep conditioning issues we were, thankfully, and to kind of twist it and look at it rob

We went off the grid we didn’t have games to play so people didn’t see maybe the progress and things we were doing and adjustments and things and tweaking some return action or different things, we did offensively we came back out, we were much better team now, so you got to the point where i’m watch old games like we’re not we’re not that team anymore we’re much better, I think, can make a lot of our guys felt that what.

Rob McColley

I understood, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

David.

David Malandra

hey coach have things on indie so far.

Zach Spiker

they’re great day good to hear from you man, how you doing.

David Malandra

doing good doing good my question for you is anybody during the CAA season resembles anything that they want annoyed it will be doing that you’ll be playing on Friday.

Zach Spiker

Good question you know, I think And there’s some physicality I would say it’s all different levels right I don’t think there’s an exact replica of in Illinois anywhere, maybe in the country. Big 10 teams and May. speak very highly of Illinois so.

Some of our teams have the physicality piece on our teams have the shooting piece, but I wouldn’t say that will look back and say hey there’s one team that really if we play like we did against charleston will be fine it’s Illinois So there’s there’s there’s elements of those teams Dave but Illinois and elite team for a reason there’s not many people like not many teams like that makes sense.

David Malandra

and final one for me, have any Members of the drexel team from 1996 reached out to you guys wishing you luck this week.

Zach Spiker

Yes, they have we’ve actually.

I think we’re going to play a video tonight at dinner that our alumni associations put together. You know, we did a zoom during the pandemic with monique and he’s been he’s been great with this time and number of other players and other areas as well, so. As i’ve said before it’s a great honor and we take it very seriously to represent our school my university but also any player that is ever put the uniform on.

We play for them.

Mike Tuberosa

austin’s you have a question for him.

austinpetolillo

yeah can I actually I meant to ask you this, after the CAA final and and I think justin brought it up, but The emotion, we saw on the broadcast you know, he was talking about zach with you, you know that was shown on the broadcast you were crying zach said, you can even talk you’re crying so much what kind of went into those emotions in that moment, where you feel.

Camren Wynter

Just all the hard work that we’ve been through since i’ve been here. You know a lot of Dudes in that locker room and the same guys I came in with and just we always talked about, and just to finally do it was just a random emotion from from me and from other guys and yeah it was just just that moment that we all share together.

austinpetolillo

And, given the circumstances, you guys are in, are you guys trying to embrace being in the dance kind of like looking around be like wow we’re really here.

Camren Wynter

I think we’ve got past that point of why we’re here and to now it’s like wow we got to win a game One game, at a time, so I think we’re at the point where it’s like a you know we play in two days, and now we have to be prepared, you know they’re here just the same way, we are every team here is good, and we know that we’re good to.

austinpetolillo

Go thanks Kim.

Mike Tuberosa

Even.

Stephen Whyno AP

It Cameron Steve Martin from Associated Press I got a wacky question for you, everybody knows the the one shining moment song i’m curious as a kid or playing as a kid did you ever imagine yourself hitting a buzzer beating shot or anything being in that song.

Camren Wynter

I think every kid probably goes in their driveway and stuff like that and i’ve been watching the tournament since I was really young.

So just to be in the tournament i’m grateful and i’m just i’m honored honestly to have my dream come true.

Mike Tuberosa

ock you another question.

anyone else justin.

Zach Spiker

Stephen I jump on that question, I used to watch it no one shining moment, I think the first one shining moment might have been Keith smart with indiana right but they used to do videos Prior to that, too, it was different song every year, I thought that was pretty good to. Just just shows you how old, I think.

Justin Jackson

yeah I got a question for camera and, if I may.

Mike Tuberosa

Go ahead okay.

Justin Jackson

Kevin justin josh with the morgantown dominion post obviously a coach baker had been there for a couple years there at drexel when when he recruited him brought you in i’m just kind of wondering.

You know, over the years how have you seen the program grow and and you know what’s it been like to be part of the you know part of that process.

Camren Wynter

Since i’ve came in the program and it’s just kept going up every single year.

Better I wouldn’t say better partners but um you know we brought in, you know Dudes that that mesh with each other good people.

You know everyone just seems to trust each other. We all trust coach Parker and what they have for us and you know we just we just go out there and play as hard as we can form.

Mike Tuberosa

Any other questions before we wrap up.

Rob McColley

Thanks guys.

Mike Tuberosa

Thank you.

Zach Spiker

Thanks guys.

austinpetolillo

Thanks guys.