Tourney Talk: HoopsHD interviews Holy Cross SR SG/SF Eric Green

CLICK HERE for Jon Teitel’s most recent Bracketology

CLICK HERE for the most recent Championship Week Video Notebook

If you do not like picking #1 seeds then you will LOVE Holy Cross.  They entered the Patriot League tourney as the #9-seed on March 1st, yet 8 days later they had a 3-PT win over Lehigh in the title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Crusaders became the 5th team to ever make the NCAA tourney with 19+ losses, but hearing your name called this Sunday is the only thing that matters.  Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Eric Green about coming back from an ACL tear and how his 1st-year coach was able to lead his team to victory when it mattered the most.

You were among the conference leaders in SPG during your 1st 2 years on the court: what is the secret to being a good defender? You need to have anticipation, both in seeing where the pass is going and watching how the play develops. You have to look ahead to your opponent’s next pass.

In the 2014 CIT you scored 14 PTS in a win over Brown before losing to Yale: what did you learn from that experience that you think will help you in the postseason this year? We learned that you we have to stay loose when playing in March, even though the NCAA tourney is new to us. Since we played in March before, that should help us out a little bit.

You missed the 1st half of this season with a knee injury: how bad was it, and how were you able to get back on the court? It was pretty bad: I actually injured it in the conference tourney last year when I tore my ACL. I spent all summer rehabbing my leg, which was hard. I had some doubts that I would play this season, especially at the start of the school year. I tried to work hard in my final year here and my teammates/trainers helped me out a lot.

Your team had a 33-PT loss at Kansas back on December 9th: I know you did not play but how impressed were you by the Jayhawks? I traveled with the team to the game even though I did not play. It was a great experience to be in their arena and Kansas is 1 of the top teams in the country for a reason.

You were winless on the road in conference play this year: how were you able to win 4 straight on the road in March to clinch the Patriot League title? As the #9-seed we just came together and figured that after a tough season we would just give it everything we got. It actually helped us to be on the road because it was just the guys on the team who had to lean on each other and we just kept making big-time plays at the end of close games.

You did not start a single game during the regular season but started each of the 4 postseason games: what is the biggest difference between being a sub and being a starter? The only difference is that as a starter you have to set the tone so I just tried to play as hard as I could. It is important to stop the other team when you are on defense so that you do not fall behind early.

You ended up making the conference All-Tourney team: could you have ever imagined that happening a couple of months ago or even a couple of weeks ago? No way! When somebody told me that after the game it was unbelievable: it was a major accomplishment for me this season.

You play for Coach Bill Carmody, who was 2004 Big 10 COY at Northwestern and whose 78.6 W-L% as coach at Princeton remains #1 in Ivy League history: what makes him such a good coach, and how was he able to come in and lead you to the NCAA tourney in his very 1st season as head coach in Worcester? We have come a long way after learning how to run the Princeton offense and have gotten better and better at it. Coach is big on patience and spends plenty of time at practice working on the little things.  Paying attention to the details was a big part of our success last week, especially in close games.

You are 1 of only 2 seniors among the top-10 scorers on your team: how much pressure has there been on you to be a leader this season? I do not feel that much pressure. I am not very vocal but try to lead by example. The juniors know what we have been through and we all keep each other in check rather than having our younger players only looking up to the older guys.

What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I think we will end up with a #16-seed but we shall see.