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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2015Joey KingNate MasonRichard PitinoCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Minnesota – 80 COACH PITINO: Well, obviously I thought we showed great will and determination to win that game. They came back, cut it to, I believe, six, and then we kind of took that punch and went and delivered a very good punch right after that. I thought that the bench guys, Nate, who‑‑ not that he's a bench guy, but was tremendous. Joey obviously was great. Bakary and Gas are starting to give us a lot more. The defense was good. The rebounding not so much, but it got a little bit better in the second half. Excited about a win like that, and to do that with Andre scoring zero points and Mo not being at his best was certainly something we're proud of. Get rest, focus on Ohio State now. Q. Nate, I know that Coach Pitino told you a couple days ago he wanted you to be a little bit more aggressive. What's been your mindset? NATE MASON: Just do anything I could do for the team to help us win. I try to come out, set the tone, push the pace, and get my teammates the ball but also look to my scoring, so I felt like I did a pretty good job today of doing that? Q. Joey, that's ten threes for you now in the last two games. Do you feel like you're shooting as well right now as you have this year? JOEY KING: Yeah, you know, the way I've been playing recently it's just kind of what I came here to do. You know, Coach‑‑ all the coaching staff and all my teammates have been giving me all the confidence in the world to just let it fly whenever I'm open. Yeah, I love to shoot, so having all the confidence from all the people around me feels really good. Q. Joey, just talk about the pump fake, it works to your advantage now. Teams obviously respect your three‑point shot, but you were able to get past them and get to the rim a little bit today. JOEY KING: Yeah, a little bit. I was obviously shooting a little bit more today rather than pump faking, but when I'm not open, I was really just looking into Mo and trying to find other guys on the perimeter. Q. Joey, you guys went on a couple big runs in the second half. What do you feel like was the difference just from an energy standpoint with the team? What was starting to click for you guys? JOEY KING: Well, we really got after them in the full court, got a couple of easy transition baskets from steals. Even when they scored, we were getting the ball out quick and pushing it down the floor. So I think that really gave us a boost and a jump start there in the second half to really push out the lead. Q. Joey, what's practice been like for you guys the past few days when you know you're facing teams you've already played this season? JOEY KING: Well, it all comes down to the little things, just being more prepared than the other team, and you know, just being as fresh as possible. We've just been working hard, whether that's mentally or physically, depending on the day. Coach was really smart about all of that. Q. What was the environment like in Chicago? NATE MASON: It's like a dream come true playing in the United Center. It almost felt like playing in Madison, so we just try to come out here and get a big‑time win, so just keep going. JOEY KING: You know, it's a great experience, and it's always fun playing in a big‑time arena under the lights. You know, obviously the Big Ten Tournament is a big‑time stage, and it's just a lot of fun to play at. Q. Speaking of the crowd, you got a nice little ovation there as you checked out. What was that like? JOEY KING: It felt really good, just to represent the home state well on the national stage. It just felt really good, and just glad we could come out with the win today. Q. Joey, you talked the other day about starting to realize that you'll be the leader next year when the seniors are gone. Do you feel like this play at the Big Ten Tournament is going to help springboard that? JOEY KING: Yeah, in the games I obviously have to become a better vocal leader, but I think that'll come with time in the summer once our seniors move on and graduate. In the games I just want to do the best I can to compete on every single possession, but I'm sure I'll become much better this summer. Q. You guys almost beat Ohio State earlier this year. Does that give you confidence going into tomorrow combined with the fact that Ohio State has been a bit streaky themselves this year? NATE MASON: I mean, yeah, we look back at the film. We feel like we let them go. All we have to do is just come out, play our game and just focus on the little things, rebound, play defense, and don't let them get off to a hot start. JOEY KING: Yeah, like Nate said, we've been playing with everybody all season, so there's really no team that we don't have confidence against. We've just got to come out and play our game, and that's when we have success. Q. Nate, having gone against D'Angelo this season, what do you look forward to tomorrow night? NATE MASON: Just making his life miserable, just try to contain him the best I can, try to do whatever I can do against him. Q. Coach, talk a little bit about Ohio State in that overtime time game back in January. COACH PITINO: You know, to be honest, it's not real fresh, just because I haven't watched it yet. But obviously what D'Angelo Russell was doing in the first half, that's what lottery picks do. I can't believe we held them without a basket for the second half and all of overtime. But we know that's a team, too. Now, Wisconsin went into their place and played great. Now, Wisconsin does that to a lot of teams, so we know we're going to have a very hungry basketball team, so we've got to be rested and ready to go because Ohio State certainly can play with anybody in the country. Q. Nate now has had several big games in big games. Does that give you confidence, I guess, that he doesn't shy away from that going into next year with him playing such a big role? COACH PITINO: Yeah, yeah. I think he was a little bothered that he wasn't all‑freshman on that team, certainly, and I said, listen, there's only one way to do it is to take it out on everybody else. He is not‑‑ normally freshmen hit a wall of some sort. He has not done that. I'm very, very excited about him. I think he will be one of the better guards in the league, and again, like you said, he does it in big games. That's what's very, very encouraging and exciting, and I thought what he really did today, he was the guy huddling everybody up, talking, communicating, so you could tell he's trying to start doing that now, which is nice to see. Q. Andre has gone scoreless in the last 66 minutes, going back to the last game‑‑ COACH PITINO: How do you figure that out, so 40 and‑‑ Q. So like four minutes left in the first half of the Penn State game was the last time he scored. COACH PITINO: That's not real good. Q. Is he pressing? Is it just another little‑‑ COACH PITINO: I don't know. I wish I had the answer. I'll tell you what I don't like, I don't like that he's not getting to the foul line. That's something I don't like. He needs to get fouled more, but I thought he was a great teammate today. You know, I'm not trying to avoid the question. I don't really have an answer to be honest with you. I don't think he's pressing. I think the biggest gripe I have, he needs to get to the foul line more. Q. I apologize in advance for the dad question, but you're undefeated when your dad is in the house. How did it come about him being at this game when he's got one tomorrow? COACH PITINO: It was a little weird, and he texted me, and he said‑‑ I gave him a little crap because I think he felt bad, because I said you haven't been to one of my games this year. So it was nice of him to come, and he texted me, and he was like, I want to speak to the team a little bit before the game, and I said, where were you at Wisconsin? Could we have gotten you then? It was great. For him to do that, and especially they're playing at, I don't know, 1:00 or 2:00 tomorrow, it was great to see. Obviously he's got his own team to coach, and this year was a little bit different in terms of the schedule. We were playing a lot of the same days. But I want him to be a part of that. I want him to be a part of our team as much as he possibly can, much like Doug Collins with Chris Collins. That's always great to see because he's got such incredible knowledge. He watches every single one of our games. But again, I've been to a lot of his games the last 20 years, so hold the father of the year trophy. It's nice, but he owes me. He's got a long way to go to pay me back for me coming to all his games, and I remind him of that all the time. I did get paid, but not during the Celtics days. Nobody was paying me during those days. Q. Joey was one of the guys that you stuck with, with Andre all year in the starting lineup. There are times you I you were wondering why you had so much faith in him, but he's obviously paid it off toward the end of the year. COACH PITINO: Joey or Andre? We don't have any other options really with Joey, so that was an easy decision, just because we don't have any other options. He does a lot of things‑‑ he reminds me of my dad's player Luke Hancock from Louisville. He's kind of got that similar type game, plays with great confidence. Again, I said if there's a guy that everybody would vote is the hardest worker on the team every single day, every single possession, they'd say Joey without a doubt. He's not a great verbal leader.  That's the next step for him. But I've never wavered from starting him. A lot of that has to do with there's nobody else to start, but I haven't. Q. You guys got better on the defensive boards in the second half, but in the first half they were‑‑ had ten offensive rebounds. What do you want your guys to see them do differently? COACH PITINO: I thought the biggest thing was the guards were not coming back and rebounding. They were playing some big guys certainly, but I thought DeAndre set the tone with six rebounds. That was really good, obviously. Carlos did a couple good things, as well. But bigs are blocking out, guards need to come back and rebound the ball. That's a big team. They played big lineups. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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