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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2015Ron BakerGregg MarshallFred VanVleetST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Illinois State – 65 THE MODERATOR: Wichita State Shockers are with us. Fred VanVleet, Ron Baker represent the student‑athletes. Coach Gregg Marshall is in the middle. He'll open up with a statement on the game. COACH MARSHALL: We lost to a team that played really well, especially in the second half. We obviously didn't shoot the ball well. We've got to do better. We know we're going to be in the NCAA Tournament. So we'll get a chance now to get back and get rested, hopefully heal and try to make a run in the tournament. Q. Question for both players, after the final buzzer sounds, just describe the feeling, the emotions going through your head. FRED VANVLEET: Just upset, obviously. Our guys are really competitive. We don't like to lose, especially not in that fashion, coming down to a one‑possession game. It's just heartbreaking. In that moment, you're just numb.  You don't feel it until you get back to the locker room. But we've got some high‑character guys, and we're going to stay gracious even when we lose, the same way we do when we win. So we'll just take it. Q. For both players, the difficulty against their zone today, were you surprised that they were as effective playing that zone inasmuch as they played it? RON BAKER: We're pretty familiar with their zone, especially Fred and I. They ran it a lot last year. We just didn't have a lot of presence down low today. We weren't able to get quick ball reversals against the zones and sit‑ins inside to stretch them out a little bit. We handled it well on a couple of possessions and got good looks at the rim. Just came down to one possession. Wish we could have hit a couple more shots today. FRED VANVLEET: I think you just got to beat it inside out. Surprised by it, I wouldn't say that. Once you start not being effective and they're successful, obviously, they get more aggressive, and they start extending more and more and more, and that's just how it works. Got to beat it inside out. We didn't do that consistently. We did it a few possessions, and it worked really well. You don't get anything inside from guards or bigs, and then you're just resorting to three‑point shots. We shot 4 for 18. So that's that. Q. This one's for Ron. Ron, you've come a long way since your days at Scott City. Can you describe your passion for helping underprivileged children and the support of the Shocker community as a whole? Also, if you had one piece of advice for people looking to follow in your footsteps, what would that be? RON BAKER: I always like treating younger kids with a lot of respect when they come to our games. For one, I was in their position before, looking up to players that meant something to me. So I was trying to treat those kids with the most respect and give them my time of day. If I give them any advice, it's just be coachable in life. Listen to your peers. Let your guidance from your peers take you where you want to go. Q. Fred, could you just run us through that last possession, the shot you took. Did it feel good? Did it look good? FRED VANVLEET: I mean, it always feels good. That's not always the end result. We had to play John up, and obviously we expected them to press, and they did. It was zone press. When I got to the half‑court, I contemplated calling a time‑out. I probably should have. But just trying to make a play. I had Ron in the corner, and I was looking for him and couldn't get it to him. I was trying to put one up in the air and give it a chance, and it didn't go. That's probably as best as I can describe. If it doesn't fall, you suck. If it does, you're a hero. That's just how it goes, and I'll take those chances every day. Q. Ron, with the weakness of the zone, offensive rebounding, is that where you guys were able to kind of stay in it by crashing the boards? RON BAKER: I'm not sure what the numbers are, but it felt like in the second half, that's only where our points came from is second‑chance shots. A couple of shots, when we did get it in the middle of the lane or in the post and we kicked it out or penetrated and kicked. But I think there's a couple instances where we did get a couple of offensive rebounds late. I took a three, and Darius had a nice rebound. I think he ended up getting fouled. Q. Ron, you came out to a hot start in the first half. Was ISU doing something specifically in the second half to slow you down? RON BAKER: I was just real aggressive in the second half. I think their zone in the first half was more of a 1‑3‑1 with Lynch at the high post, and we were able to stretch it out, and I was able to get a touch early in the first half with him on me a couple times actually. In the second half, they were just extending it with three or four guys above the free‑throw line, and it was putting a lot of pressure on us guards. We'll put that on us. We didn't handle it very well, and obviously didn't execute it well enough. Q. In the second half, they shot 62 percent from the floor. What were they doing in order to get those shots off? FRED VANVLEET: Getting to the foul line helps. When you get in the bonus with so much time on the clock, it puts us on our heels naturally. They've got a lot of touches close to the rim for the big guys. Obviously, Daishon Knight had a really good game. So he made his open looks. I think the game was won at the free‑throw line for them. Then they knocked down the shots when they needed to. So you give up that type of shooting percentage, bad things happen. Q. Ron, can you just talk about in the first half, you held them to 2 points in a 12‑minute stretch. How is not being able to extend the lead by more than eight at halftime, how crucial was that to the outcome of the game? RON BAKER: To be honest, we missed a lot of open looks in the first half. We felt like we should have been up maybe 12, 16, around that mark. We did a good job early on getting the scouting report into the game. A lot of their actions, we were able to deny. Fred had some good ball pressure at the top of the key, and we extended them out. Q. Fred, Ron, so how do you‑‑ how long do you keep‑‑ how soon before you get past this and start thinking about selection Sunday and practices this week and what's coming up next? FRED VANVLEET: For me, it's a double‑edged sword. You don't‑‑ can't just throw it out the window. You've got to sit with it and let it motivate you and learn from it.  But at the same time, we've got a really bright future ahead of us, got things to play for still. If you hold on to it too long, it can affect you later on. I'm sure we'll break it down and see where we can get better, get back to work. Get some practices in, get your body right. But it's not going to leave our minds any time soon. But I guess selection Sunday time, it will be time to move on. RON BAKER: Like Coach said, this next 8 to 12 days will be good for us. We'll get back to Wichita, get home, rest up, get healthy, and obviously we'll break down this film and learn from it. Obviously, other teams in the nation are going to see how somebody beat Wichita State. We've got to get better at attacking the high pressure, two‑three zone, I guess, and different things from the game. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you for your time. We'll stay here with Coach Marshall. Q. Coach, they got into the bonus pretty early in the second half, and then they shot 85 percent from the line. How difficult is it to defend whenever you know that they're probably going to make it when they get to the line? COACH MARSHALL: It adds difficulty to your defensive principles. I don't know how they got to the bonus that quickly. Just all of a sudden, I looked up, and we had seven fouls. So I'm thinking‑‑ you know. And we were trying to pressure them a little bit, which we do from time to time, and credit them. They went to the line and made their shots, It kind of reminded me of the Kentucky game last year here in this building, same situation. They kept going to the foul line at the end. We had more baskets, and Fred had the ball at the end down three. Q. Coach, obviously, this was a very emotional game today. Could you just speak for the character of these two young leaders that were up here sitting by you and your team as a whole. COACH MARSHALL: They're just dynamite. They really are. That's what I told them. We've got to get back, and we've got to get healthy healed and well, and we've got to use this as motivation. We can't splinter. We showed a little frustration on the court today because we didn't play great, and things weren't going our way. That's not us. That's not going to be us. But I'll go to the ends of the earth with those two guys and the rest of them in that locker room, and I'm not talking coach speak here. You asked the question. They're as fine a group of young men as I've ever been a part of. So we're good. Q. Gregg, did you expect to see that much zone out of them today? What was the major issue in trying to resolve that? COACH MARSHALL: They ran zone exclusively last year, and they tried to run some man‑to‑man this year, and we were scoring pretty well. So they went to it, I guess, midway through the first half, and they had some success with it. So they were smart to stay with it. We normally knock down a few more jumpers. We normally get a little bit more post presence. But we outscored them 42‑16 in the paint. So I guess‑‑ somehow we got some post presence. We scored 42‑16 in the paint. We were 16‑9 on second‑chance points, and 13‑6 on points off turnovers. 10‑0 on the fast break. I don't know. It doesn't add up other than they just made more free throws than us, and we've got to do a better job of keeping them out of the bonus. Q. Illinois State got the ball with about 17 seconds to go. What was kind of the plan as far as how long you were going to trap and cause a turnover before you fouled? COACH MARSHALL: What was the point spread at that point, Paul? We're down one or two? One? I think we're down one, okay. We were going to press in the backcourt. Once they got it over half‑court, we were going to try to foul the first available guy, and hopefully he was a bad foul shooter. They beat the press that time. They had struggled beating it previous possessions. And then there was one play‑‑ I have a hard time recalling exactly what happened, but we had the ball, Ron had the ball, and all of a sudden we fell down in between half‑court and the top of the key. Somehow it ended up with Evan, and I think Fred took a tough shot that was blocked. I have to go back and look at that one. That was a big, big swing there. We had the ball down one, two, or three and didn't fare so well in the scrum. That was our plan, to foul after half‑court. Q. Greg, Ron took a pretty hard collision‑‑ fall, collision there. I think it was Tekele there. How much do you think that affected his performance in the second half? COACH MARSHALL: You'd have to ask him, Jim. I know that he's a tough kid now. He's physically‑‑ all of them are, but he, Tekele, Fred, Evan‑‑ they were checking Evan for concussions all day today. They checked him two or three times. I don't know if he was lying to the doctors, but he took a big spill yesterday and got a cut on his face and got a couple of lesions. He looked like he'd been punched a few times. So he was able to go. And then Bake, that was a hard fall. You could hear it. You could hear bones crashing on the floor. I don't know how it affected him. You'd have to ask him. I know, if he's able to physically be out there, he's going to be out there. Q. Gregg, what's your view on how you digest this and then move on to what's coming up the rest of this week? COACH MARSHALL: Me personally? As I said, we're going to go home and get‑‑ hopefully, get healed and feel better. I've been diagnosed with pneumonia for the last 48 hours, so I'm looking forward to getting some bed time and some rest and knowing that we're going to the NCAA Tournament. We've got, what, eight days now before we decide where we're going to go. We'll practice intermittently during those eight days and practice after we find out, and we'll start preparing for an opponent. I love the fact that we're in. I love the fact that we're going to get a good seed. I don't care really where we go. My wife wants to go to the West Coast. I might want to go to the East Coast. I don't care. We're in the NCAA Tournament, so that's what we're going to dwell on. We're going to dwell on getting better and healing and getting our bones and bruises to heal and find out where we're going to go from there. Q. As far as the seed, how much thought have you put into where you might fall? COACH MARSHALL: I don't know. I have no idea. They pay Joey brackets and Jerry Paul, saw him over here, they play those guys to do that. And they have a lot of big executives that sit on that NCAA executive committee to make the high‑dollar decisions. My job is just to get in and be a part of the party. Q. Gregg, you guys were able to do a great job on Knight in normal. You really shut him down. What was it that allowed him to get going today? COACH MARSHALL: He did a good job on us in our place, but we did a good job on him in normal. 40 percent of the time‑‑ we've played him five times now‑‑ he's really gotten off. He did it in our place this year. He's just a talented player. Makes pull‑ups, uses the ball screen well, he gets to the rim, and he can make the three. His line was incredible tonight. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Best of luck in the tournament. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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