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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Anthony BeaneBarry HinsonJalen PendletonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Wichita State – 56 THE MODERATOR: Coach Barry Hinson of the Salukis is flanked by Jalen Pendleton and Anthony Beane. We're going to ask Barry to open up with a statement, and then we'll go to questions for the two student‑athletes of Southern Illinois. COACH HINSON: I'll make it real quick, and then you can ask these guys questions. This is what we told our players going into this game. We did not want VanVleet or Baker or the bigs to beat us because of what happened prior. We said, we're going to make Cotton beat us today, and quite frankly, that's what it came down to. That was the game plan, and then the second part, which is probably the most important, is I asked my team to give me absolutely everything that they had in order to win this ball game, and I got two kids up here right now that are cramping up. I'll tell you, our guys, they gave us everything that we asked them to do. And the best part of that is the glimpse because, when you start two freshmen and two sophomores against the No.8 team in the country, you definitely want a glimpse of your future and how it's going to be, and what I saw today was encouraging. I'll let you ask these guys questions. Q. Jalen, we talked yesterday about our aggressiveness and how it helps your team. How much of a better player do you think you are when you just put your head down and just go to the rim as you did in the second half? JALEN PENDLETON: I mean, it works. It has its flaws. Sometimes I can't just go, can't just put my head down and charging over, and that's how I turn the ball over. Today they were real aggressive on defense, and they were trying to deny us. So the lanes were open for me, and I just tried to take advantage of it. Q. Anthony, what was their defense doing specifically in the first half to force the turnovers? ANTHONY BEANE: I thought it was just‑‑ the only thing we really struggled was just the press. I thought we got a little lackadaisical with the ball, and we weren't running our patterns and press offense the right way. They did a good job and just sped us up. Q. A lot of black and gold in the crowd as you guys, I'm sure, noticed. Can you just talk about the impact they had on the game. JALEN PENDLETON: Yeah, every time they got a dunk or a stop, the crowd just went crazy. You could see, once that happened, the players are bouncing around. They had a lot of energy. You could just see that they turned their energy up. It kind of affected us. Really when they started yelling, we kind of got rattled a little bit, but after a little while, we just kind of played our game. ANTHONY BEANE: Just really the same thing Jalen says. They've got a great crowd. Whenever they do something good and get a turnover or just get a bucket, the crowd goes crazy. It's hard. In my opinion, it's just a great crowd because no matter what, you're going to hear them. It's even better at their place because they're on top of you. They just have a great crowd. Q. Anthony, could you just talk about what you take away from getting within seven or eight most of the second half and just weren't able to put two baskets together to put some real pressure on them in the second half. ANTHONY BEANE: Say that again. Q. What can you say about keeping them close in the second half and just not putting enough baskets together to put some pressure on Wichita State in the second half? ANTHONY BEANE: I thought it really came down to our defense. They got a lot of easy buckets. We got some good shots, we just weren't hitting them. We didn't get the shots we needed to get in the game, and they got a lot of transition buckets. Q. For both of you guys, like Barry was just saying, you've got a really young team with most of your pieces coming back for next year. What's the feeling like right now as you start to look forward to next season? ANTHONY BEANE: I think it's a good thing because all year, all the young boys, they've been positive. A lot of them come from winning programs, so they know what it take. It's just good to see them every day because, even though the way our season went, they came in ready to work, hungry, ready to play every day. Today them playing hard, it just showed a lot of them and their character and what they can really bring to our program. As a team, I feel like we can build on that because we know what it takes, and now they know what it takes to be beat Wichita State. JALEN PENDLETON: I think our future is pretty bright. Guys like Jordan Caroline and Deion Lavender, those guys can play basketball. Jordan, he's high energy, and he just plays hard. You can always count on Jordan to play hard. He's always going to play 100%. Deion, as you can see at the beginning of the season, it was kind of low for him, but after a while, he picked it up. Deion is a tremendous scorer for us. I just think, with all of us coming back next year, we can make a big run. Q. So you guys talk about the positives of your team. What do you think are some of the things the team needs to address or improve on for next season. JALEN PENDLETON: Really, we just have to improve. I think more what we need to do is improve on the defensive end, keeping guys in front of us, just helping our teammates out. Being in help defense, really just more on the defensive side of the ball. JALEN PENDLETON: Same thing he said. I think our problem is just focus. We lost focus a couple of times, most of the times in the games. Now they know what it takes. Like he said, on defensive end, we make a lot of defensive mistakes. I just feel like, like I said earlier, now we know what it takes, and now we know what we have to do in order to win in the Valley. Q. Anthony, when did you start cramping up? At what point in the second half? Did it affect your play a little bit before you finally had to come out for good? ANTHONY BEANE: I didn't catch a cramp. It was just my knee.  I'm having a couple knee problems, but I'm good. It was just‑‑ yeah, I'm good. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we'll excuse you now. Thank you very much for your time here. Q. Coach, will you just also talk about the fans and the impact you thought they had on the game. COACH HINSON: Obviously, you're from Wichita. So let's see. I got to do it for you too. If you've ever heard me interviewed when I talk about the Valley, one of the things I talk about is Wichita State. And I don't know what their‑‑ I don't know what they see, but I always see, every time you play there, it's always 10,500, 7,500. It's been like that forever. It was like that when Scott Thompson was there, back in the days when Coach Self and I were at Oral Roberts together. I have nothing but admiration for the program and the community because they support basketball. It's the sport. It's the sport in the state of Kansas, we know that. They've gotten to the point, when I got early in the Valley, Mark got it jump started, and the crowd started following them, but they were still a little fickle at that time. What Gregg did when he took over was he created an atmosphere that we're going to take fans wherever we go. I think that's been very impressive. I think you credit two things‑‑ or three things. You credit‑‑ obviously, winning is the most important. You credit a guy that drives it in Gregg Marshall. And you credit an administration that really supports their athletic program, and what Eric has done with their overall program is pretty impressive. I take great pride in that because I'm a part of this conference. I take great pride in it because they're a member of our conference. And I have no problems‑‑ I check my ego in a long time ago. I have no problems bragging about them or Gregg or his kids. And what they've done has been very, very representable for us and our conference. Do you think that will make your boss happy? Okay. Other than sending his wife flowers, I think that's about as good as it gets. Anybody else want to talk about Wichita State while we're here? Q. I got one for you, Coach. I'm just curious, it seemed like at times you guys struggled, obvious, with their press a little bit. So I would say, looking ahead to tomorrow, whether it's Evansville or whoever playing them tomorrow, what would you say to that team to handle Wichita State's press better? COACH HINSON: Really, you noticed that we struggled against their press? Huh, I didn't notice that with the three time‑outs I called in the first half. The thing that you have to do‑‑ and it's really hard, especially with young guys‑‑ you've got to get by the aura. It's just basketball. Go play, do what we do, and do it well. We just‑‑ we were paralyzed because we got afraid, and we panic, and we were just paralyzed. If I had to tell anybody that was going to play against them, you just go play. You've got people out there that are dealing with a lot bigger issues than a 1‑2‑2 press. Just do what you do and do it the best you can. I was pretty good until we opened up duck hunting season and threw a couple of ducks as passes. I didn't panic. I just lost my composure. I'm a Baptist. I'm going to have to go to confessional tomorrow because of a couple of words that I used during that span. Q. Barry, looking back now, the struggles you've had with turnovers in some games, how much of it is nerves, do you think? How much is it you struggle to establish a true point guard that can handle the ball 35 minutes a game? COACH HINSON: I don't think there's ever‑‑ there's never a replacement for experience. We played‑‑ we were expecting point guard play to be better than what we anticipated. It wasn't quite what we had hoped for. So I think it's twofold. I think you answered the question. It's we will go recruit a point guard, or more than one point guard, and I think that will help us a lot. And I think a lot of this will naturally happen just because guys are going to be able to‑‑ we're actually going to have seniors next year, and it will be my‑‑ this is my only team I've ever coached in the history of my coaching, that we didn't have a senior on scholarship. We had no seniors. Naturally, I think part of this will take place and help us. Q. Barry, all season long, you've been talking about the maturation of this group. I asked you in the conference call, you said a couple of players have stepped up. How does this team‑‑ you know, the team you saw today, how does this compare to the beginning of the year? COACH HINSON: Oh, it's night and day. I think you would agree too. Anybody that watched us today or the last two games would say‑‑ there's nobody that watched that game today and just said, those guys aren't very good. I mean, we gave everything today. We outrebounded them. We played incredible defense. We hold them to 56 points, and they're the No.8 ranked team in the country. We were the first on every loose ball. Every loose ball, we were the first team to get on the floor. We outrebounded them. We had 11 offensive rebounds. All of those are efforts. We stuck with our game plan, and I think that's‑‑ to me, that's a glimpse of what can be. That's what I told them in the locker room. I liked what they did. They answered the call. They answered the challenge, and they gave us everything that we asked for them to do. I don't mind telling you, we're in a gun fight at O.K. Corral. We ran out of bullets. I'm sorry. Our bullets and our guns weren't big enough. Q. With Wichita State being No. 1 in our conference and No.8 in the nation, that's a little intimidating, intimidating enough that it can make some people give up right from the beginning. We didn't do that. We came out strong, and we took the lead for a good part of the beginning. What was‑‑ what did you guys talk about in the locker room before the game began that made that push so strong? COACH HINSON: First of all, when we play at Wichita State next year, will you go to that game and ask questions like that? Maybe this guy will listen too, and maybe we can promote SIU when we go to Wichita. There we go. What I just said previously is what I ask them. That's all I ask them. I said, have fun, and I said, when we face adversity‑‑ and I put who, question mark, who's going to answer the bell? I said, well, let me answer the question for you. It's us. At halftime, I went and put an X through us, and I said, it's not us. We're complaining about the officiating. We're pointing fingers at each other. He's not trying to get‑‑ all that stuff just kind of came back, and in the second half, we took care of it, and consequently we played better. But thank you. I appreciate the question. Q. Barry, you've obviously been coaching for many years now, but you never made it to the NCAA Tournament in your career as a head coach. Is that something that bothers you at all? COACH HINSON: It used to. It used to a lot. I think that's a very good question. When you've had teams that are 21, 32, 24 in the RPI and don't get in, you're a little chapped about it. There will never be another 21, ever‑‑ quote me, ever‑‑ to get in the tournament. But going to Kansas helped a lot because we played in the NCAA Tournament every year, and I got to put my hand over my heart in the National Anthem of a National Championship Game. So I've let that go. I've let that go. And it's been‑‑ as my wife will tell you, it's been a challenge because I've been really angry about it. But I let it go, and I really appreciate what I get to do every day. I love my job. I get to be around kids every day, and I love this conference, and just to be a part of it is a blessing. Q. Coach, what would you say were some highlights of this SIU basketball season? COACH HINSON: We got off to a great start nonconference‑wise. I thought we did a decent job and kind of faltered in the middle. I think the highlight for us culminated here in the end. I think that's when you want to play your best basketball. We played a team that swept us and beat them. We played another team that swept us and really swept us bad, and we put ourselves in a position to win a ball game. So I think, when I look at it, you always want to judge your teams on how they play at the end of the year‑‑ how they play, how they compete, how they fight. I'm proud of that. I really am. I know that was the last question. I'm going to tell you something. I had a friend sit right there for the previous 11 years. I miss Bryan Burwell. I miss Bryan Burwell. Thank you for honoring him for this media room. I miss you, Bryan. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Barry. Best of luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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