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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Josh CunninghamGeno FordOmari GrierST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Northern Iowa – 71 THE MODERATOR: Josh Cunningham and Omari Grier represent the student‑athletes for Bradley. Coach Geno Ford is in the middle. COACH FORD: Kind of a tale of two halves. First half, we didn't‑‑ we were able to keep it junked up a little bit by changing defenses and kept them out of rhythm, I thought. Second half just kind of ran into a buzz saw. They didn't miss. That's why they were ranked 10th in the country. That was as well as they've played for a ten‑minute stretch. They do that, they're not going to get beat. I thought that our offensive struggles in the second half exasperated it because it led to run‑outs, and they got some easy opportunities in transition that you can't afford them to get. They're a great team, really, really well coached, excellent players. I think they could‑‑ we may be seeing them play for several weekends in a row. They're really good. Q. Josh, what is it you guys were seeing out there that allowed you to go on that run at the end of the first half. JOSH CUNNINGHAM: We've seen that we can trap the ball screens, and that was working, and we were just trying to fly around and make them get out of the things that they were used to doing to set shots. So that was working for us at first. Q. Omari, you didn't play last night, but did you take that upon yourself to be more aggressive looking for your shot tonight? OMARI GRIER:  Most definitely. Coach Coleman, one of our assistant coaches, always tells us to be ready when your name is called. So when Coach Ford had called me to go in the game, he was just telling me just to be aggressive and to look to score. I just felt like, me being a leader on the team and myself being a scorer, I felt like I had to take it upon myself to be aggressive in order for us to win. So that was my mindset. Q. Josh, your three‑point shot was kind of come and gone this year, but it was on tonight. Were you feeling comfortable with the gym, or what was the difference tonight? JOSH CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I was feeling comfortable with the gym. Coaches always tell me just shoot the ball and don't think about it. Q. Omari, you guys were able to keep Seth Tuttle contained, at least points‑wise for the majority of the first three fourths of the game. Just talk about what you guys were doing to keep him off the scoreboard. OMARI GRIER: I felt like we were trying to limit his touches a bit. We were running a diamond and two, where we were just space guarding Seth Tuttle and one of the other primary players. I felt like us limiting his touches created a little bit of confusion for them, throwing them off, not allowing them to run their offense. So I feel like that was huge for us in the first half, which allowed us to stay in the game for the most part. Q. Josh, not to make excuses, but you guys did play an overtime game last night. Did that have any effect on your legs in the second half? JOSH CUNNINGHAM: No, not at all. I just‑‑ we just couldn't keep the intensity up like we had at the beginning of the game. Q. Omari, you've been with the program now for a while, and you had a great anticipation in this season. It didn't turn out, obviously are the way you guys had hoped. What was the mood like with the team at the end of the game and in the locker room? OMARI GRIER: I just felt like it was very emotional for us. We've been through so much adversity this year, both on and off the court. For the most part, I would just say it was very emotional. We all care about each other in the locker room, coaches as well. Before every huddle when we break it up, we always say family at the end of every huddle, and that's what it is. We all look out for each other on and off the court, and I felt like it was tough for us to go out this way, but we did everything we could. I just feel like that's all you can really ask for. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We'll dismiss you. Stay with Coach Ford for a while longer. Q. Geno, you alluded to the switching up of defenses in the first half. They still seemed to score some, and they built the lead up on you. And then when you hit your run, was there something in particular that triggered that? COACH FORD: Well, we were trapping them, trying to keep them out of rhythm. In the first half, they shot 45 percent, which is below their season average. That would be awfully good for most of us. Might be a season high for us. They just‑‑ you hold them to 45 percent, you don't feel like you did a poor job. It was a little tougher in the second half because the traps we were doing, we were being more random with them in the first half. We were right in front of our bench. So it was a little easier to orchestrate some of the late shot clock traps, and at the other end, we weren't able to do that. They just got it going at such a high level. It's kind of funny because Nate Buss, before the game up there, he was out shooting around before the game, and I just said to him, could you ever miss one shot against us? Just one. And he kind of laughed. It's unbelievable because we played him that night, and he couldn't miss. And tonight‑‑ if he played Bradley every night, Nate Buss would be the Naismith National Player of the Year. He doesn't miss. When he sees us, he hits another level. He's a really, really good player. He plays well against a lot of teams, but the stuff he does to us is just disgusting. He kicks our rear end. He's good, and when he's making shots in transition a couple times. The one difficulty of changing defenses as much as we were doing, in the second half, you're away from your bench. They got two or three little interior dump off layups and dunks because we weren't in the right spot. They can't hear you when you're 80 feet away. So maybe we should have stuck with one defense longer, but that wasn't working earlier in the half. It was just catch‑22. We played a great team who played a great half. Q. You had Tuttle bottled up pretty well there in the first half. I think he didn't score a field goal until two or three minutes into the second half. COACH FORD: We really focused on trying to take him away. He can beat you multiple ways. He beat you with his scoring, with his rebounding, and with his passing. Tonight you get to the end of the game, and you feel like you did a decent job on him, and he had a double double with five assists, and we did do a good job against them. That wasn't a very gaudy stat line for what he can do. We just‑‑ when you have to give one guy that much attention, it opens up some other guys. Certainly, Buss and some other guys were able to benefit from that. I thought that we didn't‑‑ we triangled him the first four minutes of the game. We played triangle and two on him and Mitchell, which the players just accurately described as a diamond and two, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. We could have used the sixth guy. Maybe that was our problem. Anyway, the triangle and two on him to not allow him to get going early. Because they always come out and look for him, look for him, look for him, which I would too. That's why Ben Jacobson is a great coach. They establish him first. So he really wasn't getting touches the first five minutes of the game. And that's why at halftime he only had one point because he just wasn't in a rhythm of having it all the time like he usually does. But he's terrific. Q. Obviously, not the result you were hoping for tonight, Coach.  Your team made it out of the play‑in game on Thursday. What can you take from this experience in the tournament going forward and build on for next year? COACH FORD: I would say this. I think that four years ago we finished last, and we were really, really bad. We were a bad basketball team. We came in and inherited a team that had lost the leading scorer in the league and had finished tenth, and we had two high major transfers gone too. The next year we came in and finished fourth‑‑ I'm sorry. We finished tenth, but we won 18 games the next year. We're not that far away. We didn't get beat handy that often this season. The majority of our losses were close games, and with two minutes to go, we couldn't make winning plays. I feel like there was a couple things our team is desperately missing, but it's not six things like it was. So I don't really feel like we're that far away from having a rebound season like we did a few years ago, but I think that, when you look at our roster, a few guys need to get better, and I think Josh has the capability of being an All-Conference player. Northern Iowa's great because they have‑‑ Tuttle's Player of the Year, and they have the great pieces around them. But they have a Conference Player of the Year. Wichita is great because they have VanVleet and Baker, First‑Team All‑League. Evansville finished up at the top of the league because they have First‑Team guys. Illinois State has the Newcomer of the Year who probably would have been All‑League but he was hurt and missed most of the season. You have to have one of the top four or five players in this league to be any good. You want to look way back, Creighton's here, McDermott, they win the league. You've got to have somebody, and we feel like Josh is somebody that the program can be built around, but he has to get to that level for us to get out of the bottom half of the league. That's for sure. Q. Coach, coming into the second half being down by only two, did you feel the team would contain them? COACH FORD: I thought, when we came out of halftime, we really went into the locker room with a lot of momentum. We needed to get off to a good start in the second half. And the first play of the second half, we got a great curl jumper for Warren, who's our leading scorer, and he just didn't have his jumper tonight, and it didn't go in. It's only one possession, but it's a big possession. I think, had we been able to tie it a little there, maybe you hang in longer. It was really the first media time‑out, and we were still down which two. It wasn't the first media. I called time‑out at 16:20. I thought we looked really tired. Our legs looked bad. Omari hit a jumper and brought it down to two, and I called a time‑out. Then there would be a media in 30 second, so we could kind of double rest them. I thought we looked flat. I don't know, last night's game‑‑ listen, we played Northern Iowa 100 times. It's not going to be 50 for each team. That's not what it's going to be. They're going to win a ton of them. For us to be playing, we need to be operating on all sill cinders. I don't know if we could have beat them tonight even when they were fresh and full go when we play like that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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