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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015D.J. BalentineMislav BrzojaMarty SimmonsST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Illinois State – 71 THE MODERATOR: Mislav Brzoja and D.J. Balentine represent the Evansville Aces. Coach Marty Simmons is here as well. COACH SIMMONS: Just got to tip your cap to Illinois State. They made a lot of big plays, really throughout the second half, but I like the way our guys competed. They just made a couple more plays than we did, but I'm proud of our guys. Q. Mislav, Coach talked this week about how aggressiveness is on the top of your to‑do list. Do you think you guys matched them in terms of the aggressiveness tonight? MISLAV BRZOJA: I think we did. We definitely were much more aggressive on our defensive rebounding. We rebounded the ball pretty well, and on the offensive end, we executed, but we didn't finish very well on the free‑throw line. That's something we have to work on. Q. D.J., second half, what changed offensively? Was it a matter of them ramping up their defense or you guys finding a little bit less openings? D.J. BALENTINE: Just more aggressive, I'd say. I think we found opportunities early to score the bucket with the easy plays. And then got out in transition a lot. Q. D.J., how do you kind of process this‑‑ I guess, this season and the last month. There's been winning streaks and losing streaks the last month and losing on back‑to‑back close games. How do you kind of wrap that up, where you feel you guys are at now? D.J. BALENTINE: Just got to get better overall. It's very tough right now, but obviously we've just got to get better and try to take this as a positive. Q. D.J., it looked like you maybe turned your ankle there in the first quarter. How much did that affect you the rest of the game? D.J. BALENTINE: Really bad. The whole first half, I couldn't move on it, so I had no rhythm. I went back at halftime, and they put three or four layers of tape on there extra. It just hurt the whole game. It's just really unfortunate. Q. Mislav, it seemed like their shooters got open a little bit. Was that just a case of overhelping on some of their penetration? MISLAV BRZOJA: That was just part of the game plan. Q. For either of the players, Hawkins made 4 of 6 from three. Was that something that kind of surprised you guys a little bit? He didn't obviously shoot that well against you guys, I don't believe, in either game earlier this season. MISLAV BRZOJA: That was a risk we were willing to take as a team, and I guess he had his night today. THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen. We'll dismiss you. Thank you very much for your time. We'll stay with Coach Simmons for a while longer. Q. What about the comeback in the second half? Seemed like they had all the momentum on their side with their start to the second half. What did you guys do to turn it around there? COACH SIMMONS: We just did a better job of keeping our composure. I really thought the start of the second half we got some good looks. We just didn't capitalize on them. Now, on the defensive end, we weren't executing. They came out a little more aggressive. They're not an easy team to defend. They've got quick perimeter players, athletic perimeter players, and then they're big inside. So got to kind of pick your poison. And you show a lot of help off those high ball screens. There's got to be good rotations. Then they skip it back. You've got to have really good close‑outs. First half, I thought we were really sharp, did an outstanding job. As the game went on, we got just a little bit slower, little bit later. Hawkins, he hurt us in the first half. We made an adjustment on the ball side, where we weren't going to allow him to touch us on the ball side. But when they're going away from the ball and they're rolling Lynch into the post, you've got to help, not give up the layup. Now they did a good job of skipping it back, and we were just a little bit late in our recoveries. I just thought our guys hung in there and battled throughout the entire‑‑ just the start of that second half, we weren't getting any stops, and I thought we missed some pretty good looks on the offensive end. Q. Do you feel like you guys have done enough earlier in the season to get invited to some sort of postseason? What's kind of the process with that? Do you keep practicing next week? COACH SIMMONS: I've probably got a biased opinion, but, yeah, I do. We play in a great conference. We've lost four in a row here. Illinois State is a good team. Northern Iowa is whatever they're ranked, and Wichita State. We played the top three or four teams. But I thought we competed really hard today. I thought we were a lot better today than we were Saturday. We'll go back and watch the tape, but I think, when you look at the body of work of this team, that I'd like to think somebody would like for us to participate. Q. How important was it to play well, to have Mislav making plays on the offensive end tonight? COACH SIMMONS: It's important that we get them all doing that. I thought he was outstanding. Made some great passes. He knocked in some shots. He rebounded the ball. When he plays like that, it really helps us, not just offensively, but the entire game. I mean, he has the ability to make an impact on both ends of the floor. Q. Were you happy with where you were at the end of the first half considering how much foul trouble you had to juggle with your big guys? COACH SIMMONS: I mean, we were happy we were able to stop them that last possession. We really got off to a good start. We had pretty good rhythm. They increased their pressure a little bit, and it kind of stymied us, and we kind of just played through it a little bit. We never really got back to being and having that sharpness that I thought we had maybe in the first ten minutes. That's a credit to them, and I think that's something we really got to concentrate on. That's been an Achilles heel of this team all year is, when it gets really hard, we tend to stop running offense and play one‑on‑one. We got to learn from it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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