WATCH: UCLA Players Preview Northwestern NCAA Tournament Game

UCLA men’s basketball point guard Tyger Campbell, guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. and guard David Singleton spoke with the media Friday ahead of the Bruins’ Round of 32 matchup with Northwestern. The trio talked about their NCAA tournament experience, the challenges the Wildcats pose and what they are doing to bond as a team.

THE MODERATOR: Our student-athletes from UCLA, David Singleton, Jaime Jaquez, and Tyger Campbell.

You've had a chance to take a look at tape with Northwestern, what are your impressions of that team?

DAVID SINGLETON: They're a very good team. There's a reason why they're here. They have impressive guard play, big man all the way around, 7-footer. Their bench is pretty solid as well. They're just a great team all around.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Any of you three can answer because it's the same for all of you. You played a lot of tournament games the last three seasons. How much does that manifest itself in the course of a game? You're going to get in a tight game, how does that experience help? How exactly does it manifest itself?

JAIME JAQUEZ: I think it's just like you said, we got a lot of experience here. So when it gets down to the crunch time of the game, I think we just developed a trust over the years, a trust in one another, a trust that we can take care of the ball and get a great shot or get a defensive stop as well.

A lot of that experience is going to be crucial in times like tomorrow where we're expecting a really good fight.

Q. Tyger, Boo is a really good point guard. You're also a really good point guard. I think a lot of people are seeing that as a big point guard battle tomorrow. What are your thoughts on the game plan guarding him and playing against him?

TYGER CAMPBELL: Well, we know he's a great player. But we're mainly just focused on UCLA versus Northwestern because it's going to be a team game. We're going to have to have our freshmen come through for us. We're going to have to have good bench minutes from our bigs and all those things.

I think we're more worried about how we're going to stop them as a team as opposed to just stopping one person because they have a good group of guys over there and they play really hard.

Yeah, so we're just preparing for all of 'em.

Q. David, when you come into the tournament and you see teams you've never seen before, you have little time to prepare, can you talk about balancing preparation and film, also relying on what you guys do well.

DAVID SINGLETON: What we do well is we pay attention to detail in film. It really just goes hand-in-hand. It comes into one.

We just have to watch film, get our strategy together, do what we do as a team. What we do is we come up with strategies based on film, game plans, stuff like that.

Q. Do you feel watching film sometimes you can overdo it?

DAVID SINGLETON: I don't think you can never overdo film, but you have to keep in mind they're great players. They might not do everything that you see. Some person might be hot that night. There's always going to be adjustments and audibles in the game itself.

But I don't think you never overdo film.

Q. Jaime, the Big Ten has a rep for playing particularly physically. In watching Northwestern, are they a physical team? How do you match up against that?

JAIME JAQUEZ: Yeah, I think you said it best: Big Ten is known for how physical they play. Northwestern is no exception to that. They're a very physical team.

But I think we're also a very physical team. It's just going to be a big matchup down low, the rebounding battles are going to be intense. That's something we're going to have to prepare for and I think we're looking forward to.

Q. I know you talked last night about playing the game for Jaylen Clark because he's not here right now. Are you still in touch with him? What's it like talking to him even though he's not here?

DAVID SINGLETON: It's an interesting feeling, having like one of our brothers not here right now, sharing this moment with us. In a sense it makes us play harder.

Yeah, we call him, text him. Always ask him how we're doing. Sometimes like he doesn't tell me, but I know I'm annoying him, trying to keep up with him, everything like that. He says, I'm fine, I'm good, don't worry about me, worry about the games.

In a sense he's part of our fuel, motivation, to end this season strong.

Q. You said it's more of a team game. Northwestern has the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in Chase Audige. Are you expecting a low-scoring game? How do you account for that defensive strength?

TYGER CAMPBELL: We think we're preparing for a slower game, just being prepared. Like everybody has pointed out, in the Big Ten it's a little bit more physical play, grind it out. Where we're from, it's more get up and down and get shots up.

We're just trying to scout. Of course, we got to go back and watch a lot more film on 'em. So we're just preparing for that type of game.

Q. Your thoughts on the minutes that Kenny provided yesterday, how that's going to help you moving forward if he continues that type of game?

TYGER CAMPBELL: They were big for us. Shout-out to Kenny. He had his career high. I think he had his career high within, like, the first 10 minutes of the game or something. When a player does something like that, it's amazing.

All the rebounds and the blocks that he had, I think it just shows that we're a little deeper than people might think. Of course, not having Adem out there, it's a little different for us right now. But if Kenny can play like that all the time, it will be really good for us. Hopefully help us on this run that we want to have, for sure.

Q. I remember last year Super Smash Bros was the downtime game. Is there a new game this year? What are you doing with all the downtime?

DAVID SINGLETON: Super Smash Bros is one of them, but we play chess a lot. As a team we starting to play chess, so...

Q. Who is the best chess player?

DAVID SINGLETON: I don't know. I'm still like in top five. Maybe Tyger. I know Jaime is up there. I know Jaime is up there. Just from seeing outside...

THE MODERATOR: Okay, fellas. Thank you for your time.

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