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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2015Fred HoibergMonte MorrisGeorges NiangKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Iowa State – 69 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Iowa State, Coach Hoiberg, his student‑athletes tonight Monte Morris and Georges Niang. COACH HOIBERG: Wow, what an unbelievable game. Still not sure how we won. I will say this, our guys hung together and showed great resolve and found a way when it wasn't looking very good out there. These guys made a heck of a play on that last possession, coming up, Georges slipping out of a screen. They actually defended it very well and Monte Morris just made a heck of an individual play. Unbelievable atmosphere out there, this is the best league in the country, there's no doubt about that. Top to bottom, the way that each and every game is as competitive as it is. It's fun to be a part of and, again, I'm proud of these guys for finding a way and sticking together and gutting out an impressive win against a very good Texas team who I think absolutely belongs in the tournament. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Georges, can you talk about how going the full‑court press sort of triggered everything for you guys? GEORGES NIANG: We felt that Texas was getting comfortable with the game and running isolation for Taylor, so we really wanted to speed them up and get the ball out of his be hands. So the full‑court press really helped with that. We got some guys that we wanted the ball in their hands, and they made some plays that really helped us out. I think the biggest thing was trying to make them uncomfortable. Q. Monte, what went through your head when you released the ball and watched it go in? MONTE MORRIS: At the time you are just hoping and prayin' it goes in. I got a great look at it and got the ball in for us and we was able to walk off the court with a victory. Q. Monte, you guys were able to keep your composure, as Fred said. Why was that? Obviously the game wasn't going in your favor for quite some time. MONTE MORRIS: First half we got off to a slow start and shots weren't falling and we knew we had to make a run soon or later, and we forced them to change their style of play a little bit. We played more up tempo going to the full court press, and we was able to play Cyclones basketball and get open looks and Dustin had a big three late that set that up for us. Q. Georges, first half maybe not what you wanted, what's got to click in that first half for you guys? GEORGES NIANG: I think Coach is going to have us locked in for the rest of this tournament. It's a mental aspect. We really just got to come in and really respect our opponent and come in with a locked in mind to run our stuff and defend against their stuff. And Coach is going to will us in the right direction with that and I hope we can keep up with it. THE MODERATOR: Guys, we'll let you go back to the locker room. Congratulations and good luck tomorrow. Questions for Coach? Q. Fred, did you feel like the way the game was going, the crowd, the atmosphere, if you pushed yourselves up on them that they would crumble like that? COACH HOIBERG: No, not at all. I wasn't feeling too good about it. We made a couple of plays late, they controlled the game and the tempo. And Rick had a great game plan and they executed it beautifully. We couldn't get anything goin', it's not very often we're going to have a 9‑minute scoring drought with what we have out there offensively and give those guys a lot of credit. Every time we made a run, they had an answer for it, whether it was Holmes hitting a three or Lammert hitting a three. We tried to get the ball out of Taylor's hands. He was just kind of doing what he wanted out there and thankfully those guys missed a couple of shots because they were hitting everything in the first half to create separation. Again, when we made a run, they seemed to answer every call. Q. Coach, great win. Off the court I want to talk about your athletic director. How is he doing? COACH HOIBERG: Probably not very well after watch that go one, he's probably had another heart attack. Q. Your thoughts on his recovery? COACH HOIBERG: I had the opportunity to talk to him yesterday. He sounded about as good as you can after going through that procedure. Obviously being through that once myself, going to have to go through that again sometime here in the not‑too‑distant future, we were able to‑‑ I know how much it helped me to talk to people that have been through it and the big advice that I gave to Jamie is he can't be a super hero throughout this process, he's going to listen to his body. On days when he doesn't feel good, he's got to take it easy. If not, it's going to make it a long recovery. I'll tell you this, we're all thankful that he was in a public setting when he had the heart attack and his daughter who was absolutely a rock star who went and got the EMTs, got him to the hospital and he was able to get in a helicopter and fly back to Des Moines and get that surgery pretty much right away. We're all extremely thankful. He said he was embarrassed where it happened, I said you're damn lucky where it happened. With all thankful Jamie is doing well. Where heart disease is right now, with all the awareness money that's raised for it, Jamie should be able to live a normal, long life and that's a blessing. Q. You talked about the quality of this league, the games that you've played during the regular season, how much does that allow your team to have confidence in these situations not just here but perhaps in the next couple of weeks? COACH HOIBERG: We have played three in a row where we have not gotten off to a good start. We missed some shots we should have made driving to the basket early, but, again, Texas' length had a lot to do with that. We've got to come out of the locker room and have that same urgency that we have in the second half. And if you don't do that you're going to get burned eventually. I love the guys, and I thought our energy was actually was pretty good. They were getting tough shots and it almost deflated us a little bit. You try to keep the tempo where you want it, and Texas dictated that the entire night until the last couple minutes of the game. Again, I'm proud of how they found a way. Great teams find a way and our team, you know, they did that tonight. Q. Fred, just curious, 5.8 seconds left, would you have liked to have just played it out? Were you okay with the time‑out? COACH HOIBERG: I talked to them about it, we get the stop, we're goin'. But Dustin, I guess, made the right play, called a time‑out, we came over, we regrouped, drew something up in the huddle, and Monte made a heck of an individual play out there. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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