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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SEATTLEMarch 19, 2015Tyler KalinoskiBob McKillopBrian SullivanSEATTLE, WASHINGTON THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Tyler, there's been a lot of talk this year about scoring being down in college basketball, but you guys are kind of the opposite of that. What's it like to play in an offense that's as kind of free flowing and tries to score as much as you guys do? TYLER KALINOSKI: I think the easy answer is it's fun. We practice the motion offense that we do, how we push it up the court, how we pass, screen, cut. It's just a lot of fun out there. We're not going to slow the game up and run a bunch of plays. Coach isn't going to yell at us to run a certain type of play every time on the court. He trusts us to make good decisions. And you just feel free out there playing a game you love. So it's a lot of fun. Q. What's the key to continually getting good shots against a team that has so much length across all positions? BRIAN SULLIVAN: For us the key is just to continually move. And we have rules to our offense, just to follow them, to help people out to screen, to finish our cuts, really just keep the floor spaced, continue to be unselfish as I think we have been all year, and just honestly keep the attack and the pressure on them, try to keep -- don't play defensive but attack them. Make them respond. Q. Just curious if you guys have faced a team with this much length before. You got 6'9" forwards and a seven-footer out there. TYLER KALINOSKI: Yeah, so before every season we go to Texas and we scrimmage Texas. As you know, they're a very tall team in the post. Every year we have done very well against them. It gives us a challenge and kind of gets us ready for some bigger teams. So we faced it before. We know what we need to do coming in, but that scrimmage definitely helps us. Q. What in particular do you have to change, Tyler, when you're facing a team with length? Is it just different gaps, better lanes, that way? TYLER KALINOSKI: Offensively, I don't think we have to change too much. We really just got to set good screens, which will give us more time to get open, cut, keep moving the ball. I think the biggest thing for us against a taller team is just going to be rebounding. They do a great job going into the glass, offensive rebounding. So, for us, I think we're going to have to worry about more of the rebounding situation than the offensive stuff. Q. Tyler, wondering if you happen to see any of the kind of Twitter back and forth that's gone on between Iowa's official account and your school's official account this week and what you've thought of that. TYLER KALINOSKI: I have seen it. It's fun. It's funny to see that going on behind the scenes. I haven't been paying too much attention to it, but I have seen it. It's kind of fun to see that happen. Q. For Tyler and/or Brian, your season's been one long challenge. You changed conferences, you're picked for 12th, you finish first, you're playing a Big Ten team, length, all that kind of thing. How have you approached this year from that perspective of is it a chip on the shoulder? Is it not worry about adversity? What's your kind of mental approach going into this season? BRIAN SULLIVAN: I think, for us, we -- obviously the expectations weren't there at the beginning of the season. Maybe there's been a chip, but I think we really just believe in ourselves and we kind of pride ourselves in the expectations within our locker room. Because I think going into the season we all did have pretty high expectations for how this team could be. So I think for us it's just kind of ignoring that, setting our own expectations and then just taking it day by day to try to achieve and get better and try to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish. Q. Brian, I know you -- I believe played in an All-Star Game with Aaron White in high school, right? How well do you know him and have you followed his career at Iowa at all through the years? BRIAN SULLIVAN: Yeah, senior year Aaron and I were on the Ohio team when we played Kentucky, and it was at least a four- or five-day event. We got to know him pretty well. Really nice guy. Haven't -- I followed a little bit. I'll hear about all the guys on the team, but obviously I've seen he's had a tremendous career at Iowa. Doesn't surprise me based off of just practicing and playing with him. In terms of keeping in touch, don't -- social media we'll see each other, but haven't really kept in touch prior to the game or anything like that. THE MODERATOR: All right, thanks again, guys. Appreciate it. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach. COACH McKILLOP: Very proud of our team for the year that we had. Delighted to be here in Seattle, a great city. Fond memories of the Final Four here back in the '90s, recruiting here. And we actually played the Battle of Seattle about four years ago here in KeyArena, and it was a wonderful experience. So, from everything we have seen in the short period of time that we have been here, we think this city just opens its arms to NCAA college basketball. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for Coach. Q. You and Fran, obviously not many secrets between the two of you. How might that play out tomorrow night? COACH McKILLOP: Let me give you a little bit of a preview prior to answering that one. I've known Fran since 1975, 1976. I was a head coach at Holy Trinity High School. Fran was a player, and I want to say he was at La Salle College High School in Philly. We played in a tournament at Christmastime at Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia. So I knew him from way back then as a player. He was a bright, smart, versatile leader as a point guard. His teams reflect that personality. What we saw at UNC Greensboro, what I saw when he coached at Siena, and what I've seen now at Iowa. He has great stuff that he runs, but he gets his players to run it. Anyone can have the magic playbook, but he gets his players to run it. So he presents problems because in many ways he does a lot of the things that we do. He runs a motion offense, he runs a fast-paced attacking offense, and he's got great size and length and versatility to do it. Then on the defensive end he's going to give you different looks. He's going to pressure. He's going to go with some zone, go with some man-to-man, and, again, with terrific length. So, we have a pretty good picture about what Iowa does. We haven't seen that kind of size in the Atlantic 10. And of course it's Big Ten toughness. Q. We have seen a dip in scoring around the country this year. Why has your team and your program been so successful with pushing tempo and kind of having a free-flowing offense that leads to scoring? COACH McKILLOP: We have a theory that shooting is something that's licensed. And just like have you a driver's license, have you a shooting license. And our players earn that right to use that shooting license on what they do on the practice floor. So some players have no restrictions whatsoever on their license. Some have restrictions. Some players, they get a couple of speeding tickets and they have to go back to driving school to get their license rearranged. As simple as that sounds, it's something that our players understand. We're fortunate this year that we have a lot of guys that have unrestricted licenses and they have earned that and they have earned it not just by the way they have done it on the practice court but they have earned it by the way they have performed in games. And I always believe that if a player is looking at the bench when he makes a play, that's another defender on him. And I don't want them looking at the bench. If I'm a coach that teaches, they should have that taken care of before they step on the game court. Q. Couple of years ago you were able to take Aaron White to Russia as part of Team USA. What do you recall of his workout, his tryouts, and then ultimately playing for you in Russia? COACH McKILLOP: At the conclusion of the University games, I spoke with a number of NBA scouts and front office people, and I told them that he's going to be one of the guys on that roster who would be a first-round pick and how he developed during his next two years at Iowa would determine how high a pick he would be in the first round. I think he's really stepped up to the plate. And not only did he demonstrate being a great basketball talent, he's a terrific young man. I enjoyed tremendously spending three weeks with him in Russia, and there aren't too many guys I would like to spend three weeks in Russia with. Q. Tyler was telling us how you guys scrimmage Texas apparently before almost every season and how he thinks that helps you guys combat length. Can you talk a little bit about that. COACH McKILLOP: Well, the length and athleticism. And Rick Barnes and I are great friends, and we speak a lot before the scrimmage to make sure that we maximize our two scrimmages on a Saturday so that we both get the full benefit of it. Yes, we compete, but I think there's a brotherly love there that allows us to really help each other out to become better programs. He has taught us a lot. Of course, with Texas being the size that they are, that's one of the teams, ironically, that I think is second in the country in terms of size, and I think maybe Iowa's fifth in the country, so it's something that we saw back as far as late October. Q. Realignment has changed the landscape of college sports over the last four or five years, and your program's no different. You've probably lost some rivalries along the way, but you're also in the tournament; whereas if you were an at-large team maybe in the Southern Conference, it would have been very difficult to get here. What advantage has it been for your program to move to the Atlantic 10, and is there any kind of -- not lingering doubt, but any kind of -- anything you miss about the old conference? COACH McKILLOP: The experience of this year was a consistent validation of our decision to join the Atlantic 10. The leadership of the Atlantic 10 starting with Bernadette McGlade, the commissioner, has a belief that it's a conference that needs to be on a national stage in everything that it does. So we have gone from a regional stage to a national stage by being members of the Atlantic 10. And one very I guess unique aspect of it, when we played in the Southern Conference Tournament, there was obviously the expectation of winning it as the only way of getting to the NCAA Tournament. Here there is that belief that there's some at-large bids. But we play in a Southern Conference Tournament, and our bus would pull up to the arena, we would walk off the bus and through the door and into our locker room -- no security, nothing at all -- compared to the hoopla and the circus atmosphere that surrounded the A-10 Tournament in Brooklyn. And I say that because a lot of our guys are experienced in that hoopla and that circus atmosphere here in the NCAA Tournament. And Bernadette and the A-10 leadership have replicated that experience, all that surrounding experience, just in the tournament. So, a very subtle but very I thought valuable part of being a member of the Atlantic 10. THE MODERATOR: All right, thank you, Coach. COACH McKILLOP: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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