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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2015Ben JacobsonJeremy MorganMarvin SingletonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Northern Iowa – 63 THE MODERATOR: Coach Jacobson is with us, along with Jeremy Morgan and Marvin Singleton. COACH JACOBSON: I thought our defense was good today, took some things away from them. We were active, did a better job of making some of the passes difficult than what we did at Loyola when we played them last. So that part of it, I really liked. Then we got a great lift from our guys on the bench. The second half, they were able to move the lead for us. That period in the game, I thought, was really key. We had four of our guys in off of our bench, and they extended that lead for us, and I really feel like that was the key to this game. Q. Jeremy, that play right before the half, you stole it and got the layup, how much did that give you guys a boost going into halftime, just kind of swing it in your way? JEREMY MORGAN: I think it had a lot to do with it. Nate did a great job of showing them the ball like he was supposed to, and I just kind of made a read and made a play on it. I think it did help give us some momentum going into halftime. Q. Marvin, talk about just the physical play today, how it compared to yesterday. MARVIN SINGLETON: Every game in the tournament is going to be a physical game. Today probably a little bit more physical, being with Christian Thomas. He takes a lot of rebounds, like myself, offensively and defensively. So to keep him off the glass with that one‑on‑one battle as a team, I think we did a great job tonight. Q. For Jeremy, lots of long twos today. Was there something in the scouting report that maybe they were fighting on a shot take early and you wanted to get something out that have? JEREMY MORGAN: We knew they were going to run it off the line coming off the double take. We did a good job of using the ball take and making the read. Q. Jeremy, in the first half, Milton Doyle had a couple of possessions where he was able to score. You came back in and really started to lock down him on defense. Was that part of the game plan, to key on Doyle and give you that assignment? JEREMY MORGAN: Doyle is a great player. He knows how to put the ball in the hoop. I just try to play as aggressive as I can on defense. He's a great player. I've just got to play as well as I can. Q. Marvin, I'm not going to say you got away from the way you guys played defense earlier in the season, but how nice is it to see guys scoring 50 again and just giving up less points? MARVIN SINGLETON: Could you repeat the question? Q. How nice is it to see that teams are struggling more? There's a couple weeks in there when you were giving up more points than you were earlier in the year? Now you're back in the 40s and 50s playing games. Just how nice is that to see? MARVIN SINGLETON: Being that it's postseason play, conference tourney play, possessions are going to be less. So we have to key on every possession, make sure we play our best and do our defensive scheme like we talked about and make sure we come up with the rebound instead of giving the team a lot of second chance points. And we make sure we don't turn the ball over. That limits a lot of teams scoring the way we're playing and the way we're rotating and playing, play together as a unit. So it feels good. Q. Marvin, how important was it to keep them with a single offensive rebound today? MARVIN SINGLETON: I don't know we did that, but that's a great thing. I'm sure Coach Jake is pretty happy about that. Q. Jeremy, first off, talk about your play right before halftime, what you were seeing and kind of how you got that turnover and layup. And then the two three‑pointers in the second half, was that something where you feel uncomfortable, or were you just the open guy? JEREMY MORGAN: Going into halftime, we knew they were going to come out and set the ball screen and I actually heard Coach Jake yelling, we've got a foul to give. I actually tried to reach in there and take the foul if I needed it. If I could get it, and I ended up getting it. Just the two threes, that came out of their double‑team. Yeah, I just felt comfortable and knocked them in. Q. For either player, get Illinois State again for a third time, how hard is it to beat a team three times in a season? And what challenges does Illinois State pose now this time of year? JEREMY MORGAN: Yeah, it's always hard to beat a team three times in a season, especially in our conference. Illinois State is a great team. They're really big up front. They've got some bigger guards, and they're really big inside too. So being really physical inside and boxing out and rebounding is going to be a huge key to the game. MARVIN SINGLETON: Pretty much what Jeremy said about them being physical. With their bigs up front and their guards get in the passing lanes and play really aggressive. It's going to be a real tough game, a pretty good game tomorrow. Q. Jeremy, take us through kind of the player perspective a little because you're trying to concentrate on your game, and all of a sudden everything is going nuts as Illinois State finishes it. As you guys take the court for warmups, are you aware of it? Are you trying to shut all of that out? How cognizant are you of what happened the game before? JEREMY MORGAN: We were in the locker room getting the warmup and watching it on TV. As soon as the game was over, we huddled up real quick and said, now we just need to focus in on our game because our game is the one that matters to us, and we went out and take care of business. Q. Marvin, it's your senior year. You get to play for a conference tournament championship tomorrow. Talk about that, and then also are you disappointed it's not Wichita State? A lot of people looking forward to the two big schools going head to head. Comment about first being able to play for a title. MARVIN SINGLETON: It just feels good to get this far in the tournament. Just taking it one game at a time, one game at a time. It just feels good to be able to play on Sunday and about playing Wichita State. I'm not going to worry about what me and my teammates are doing and what coaching staff is having us do as a team. I'm not worried about who we're playing against, us playing Wichita or whoever's on that side of the bracket. We're just going to show up and do what we can do. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. We'll dismiss you. Q. Now that I just asked Marvin that question, what about you? How happy are you you didn't allow an offensive rebound today? COACH JACOBSON: That's a really good effort. Not happy enough to not be mad at Jeremy for fouling the three‑point shooter, but that's a great effort to not allow an offensive rebound. And that's going to be important tomorrow. There's no question that Illinois State is good at a lot of things, and offensive rebounding is one of them. Q. Coach, as much as your guys' identity is defense, I'm just wondering, what was the reaction either from the coaching staff or the players when you guys gave up 74 at Wichita State? COACH JACOBSON: I guess we went about our stuff the same way we always do. I didn't‑‑ we went through the film, and it felt like we gave up some transition baskets and gave up a couple of offensive rebounds. So we really focused on those things. We hadn't done that very much for a long stretch. We'd been good in both of those areas. So we went to work on that. Those things resulted in a higher number, but we just went to work on the things we had to get a little bit better at. Q. Coach, Deon's obviously been your starter all season, but talk about Wes' makeup. Even though he's not scoring a lot, he keeps that tempo and pace. What kind of responsibilities do you put him on to keep the pace going? COACH JACOBSON: His personality is such that he's going to be going at a high level no matter what the situation. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. That's been really good for our team. It's great for his teammates to have somebody like that. So for him, it doesn't much matter who we're playing or where we're playing. He's going to play the same way‑‑ highly competitive and with a lot of emotion. Q. Do you have any reaction when you found that Illinois State pulled off the upset? COACH JACOBSON: No. Like Jeremy said, we were‑‑ I might have been standing out in the tunnel watching the end of it. No, I walked back in the locker room, and the guys were walking out, and we were getting ready for ours. Q. How hard is it to beat a team three times in a season, and what do you expect out of the guys tomorrow in terms of rebounding and defense? Kind of, again, what I asked the guys. COACH JACOBSON: There's some challenges certainly with beating a team three times. Illinois State is so good up and down their roster. That's the challenge that we've got in front of us now. Their guard play is very, very good, and they're able to do some things with their defense in the full court and the half‑court. They're able to play some zone and be aggressive in it. They do as good a job as anybody in our league for sure and maybe most teams in the country, in it terms of taking turnovers and turning them into points. So that's a real challenge in and of itself. And then at‑‑ boy, on our defensive end, when that shot goes up, you've got to find a way to block them out and keep them off the boards. Then you've got to deal with Reggie Lynch inside, and he's as big as a guy that we've seen all year long, and he's obviously played very, very well for a good month and a half or two months now. As I said, their lineup and their roster is very, very good, and they've got size and length at positions, and they've got quickness out front. It's a heck of a basketball team. Q. Coach, it seemed like in this afternoon's game, you guys did a very good job of creating and taking advantage of transition opportunities that were presented. Was there any additional emphasis placed on that heading into the weekend? Also, how important might the transition game be heading into tomorrow afternoon? COACH JACOBSON: That's an area of the game that it feels like we're getting a little bit more as the season has gone on, and it's an area that I think our team's really good.  Deon, as he's shown in the two games here and really shown his entire career, he's very good on the open floor and very good in transition. I felt like last night that opened up the game for us. So it's something that we talk about all the time. There's an emphasis for us to attack early and see if we can get something good before they can set their defense. It's going to be that same way tomorrow. Illinois State's going to play the same way in transition. So there's a chance this thing could go up and down a little bit tomorrow. Q. Ben, what was the difference between the two games? Illinois State, obviously, was a lot closer. Just home and away, was that the difference? What was the biggest difference? COACH JACOBSON: Boy, we caught a night at our place. We had a lot of stuff work for us. We had a lot of guys‑‑ we started the game, and I thought Illinois State started it great and knocked in shots and a lot of toughness, as we expected. But we made some threes early, so the game was tied after a pretty good effort by both teams. In the second half, same thing. They came out and got a couple steals, got in transition, but we had two or three guys throwing threes. So it was hard for them to get closer. It was one of those games for us where we made a lot of threes. Some things really went our way. But as I've talked about, they're terrific. Their lineup is terrific. They've got a lot of guys that can really play and get a lot of things done. Q. This time of year, upsets happen, and the underdog‑‑ quote/unquote, underdog team has that certain level of belief. What do you say to the guys to prepare them for a team that doesn't have anything to lose, let's say, and is going to play with a little more looseness than you might see out of a different matchup. COACH JACOBSON: We won't do anything different. I've mentioned it before. I don't talk about the fact that we hadn't won here for four years in a row. You can pick out the different things, and no different tomorrow. We're playing for the championship. So we're going to prepare the way we always do. We'll get up tomorrow and do what we always do, and we'll come over here and play the best we can. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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