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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 3, 2016

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of commissioner Doug Elgin, media coordinator Mike Kern, and the entire Missouri Valley Conference staff, welcome to Scottrade Center and the State Farm 2016 MVC men's basketball tournament. These proceedings held here in the Bryan Burwell Memorial interview room tip-off events this evening as the top six seeds are presented prior to games 1 and 2 tonight.

As advertised, the fifth seeded Salukis are here. They'll play a game against the fourth seeded Northern Iowa Panthers in the quarter finals. Sean O'Brien and Anthony Beane represent the student body. Head coach Barry Hinson, the Coach of the Year in the Valley is right in between them. We're going to ask Barry to open up with statement on his award, and then go to questions for all three individuals.

BARRY HINSON: It's been a great, humbling experience for me today. I said at the banquet that the first person to receive that award was Mr. Iba, and I worked for Mr. Iba at Oklahoma State. That's what makes it extremely special, as well as getting the opportunity to be around these guys on a daily basis and getting to see a program that's been on a drought since 2008. We really feel like we're turning the corner in Saluki Nation.

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be a part of this league for 13 years. I've always been -- I've never been unashamed to say I've had a passionate love affair with this conference for 13 years and feel very honored to be a part of it. Thank you.

Q. Anthony, if you could speak about Coach winning the Coach of the Year. You've been here for four years at SIU. What changes, what differences, do you see in the program this year compared to your first three?
ANTHONY BEANE: I'd say mainly just the players and the team chemistry that we have. This is the first time where the whole team has bought into what we're trying to do. It's just everywhere you go, there's no negativity around. Everything's positive.

Q. Anthony, you were supposed to be cleared yesterday to practice with contact. Are you on schedule with that? And have you practiced going into tomorrow?
ANTHONY BEANE: Yeah, I'm going to be ready for tomorrow. I should be good.

Q. Sean, if you could talk about just trying to attack Northern Iowa's length. How difficult is that?
SEAN O'BRIEN: They do a really good job of playing their pack line D. You have to get the ball moved to second and third side and move around a bit. You try to find driving lanes to penetrate and kick and get to the basket.

Q. Anthony, could you talk a little bit about when the head injury happened Saturday, kind of what your feelings were, and maybe the next couple days, how all that went for you.
ANTHONY BEANE: I didn't really -- I don't remember what happened at the end, but I'm doing good. I just had a couple headaches, but no concussion symptoms. So I'm alright.

Q. Coach Hinson, what are your biggest challenges facing UNI for the third time?
BARRY HINSON: I think it's the same thing every time you face UNI. I think one of the things that these guys do extremely well is everybody has a role, and they perform to their role at their best ability. Washpun sets up everybody for shots. Koch, obviously, and Carlson really are playing extremely well right now.

Now all of a sudden you have to worry about these guys on the interior. It opens up for Jesperson, it opens up for Bohannon to shoot the basketball a lot more free.

Q. Barry, winning the Coach of the Year today, can you tell us what you learned from Coach Iba, what you learned about him?
BARRY HINSON: I don't mind telling you. This is a great story. I'll never forget the first time I went to Mr. Iba's house. I went out there. It was a rainy day. It was pouring down rain. He wanted me to go to the mailbox and get his mail for him. At that time, there was a big box, like a FedEx box, and it was George Raveling had sent him a bunch of gear from Iowa.

When I went out to get the mail and I came in, and he was on the phone with Coach Knight. While I was there, he got a call from Coach Smith. I'm just like wow. We went to the living room and did all this. I got tickled, I brought a notebook because I'm going to write down all my questions, and I'm going to write down all his answers. And I pulled out my little notepad or legal pad, and he said, young man, I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen. Put that down.

And I'm going to give you eight things. And the first thing he said will never, ever leave me. He just said all you pups -- because I was really young at the time. I was a junior in high school. All you pups, all you're worried about is how to put that orange thing in the hole. The first thing you've got to figure out is how to keep that orange thing out of the hole, and I'll never forget that as long as I live. That was a special moment.

And then he gave me seven other things, and when we got to item number six, I was trying to remember what items three, four, and five were. I don't hear six and seven because I'm thinking Coach Iba is going to ask me to repeat all these things again, and I'm scared to death. That was my first true meeting at Coach Iba's house.

When I worked for him basically -- when I say I worked for him, I worked in the college work study program, and I was a janitor, that's what I was. I cleaned bathrooms, scraped gum at that time. We didn't have any aerosol limits at the time. We had the freeze deal, and I'd use the putty knife. I'd hurry up and finish so I could go sit in the office with Mr. Iba and Chet Bryan and Brian Byrd and listen to them tell old stories. It just made my college career.

Q. Congrats on the Coach of the Year, Coach Hinson. You had great success when you were at Missouri State, but when you took over the Saluki program, where you got them today and the year you had this year, is this -- in your opinion, is this your best coaching job?
BARRY HINSON: First of all -- and I say this, and I don't say this in a defensive way. I didn't do anything. We've had so many people that have had a collective part of this process because, when we arrived at Southern -- and Anthony came in with us immediately, and then Sean came in with us the next year. We were at a catastrophic situation academically. We were 342nd out of 347 teams.

And Kristina Stets has probably as much to do with me receiving this award today as anyone because of what we did academically. We had no margin for error or we would have gone on probation, we knew that. And the other teams in the league knew that because they used it against us in recruiting.

Once we got past the APR probation last May and after last year's mass exodus, I think it gave us an opportunity to be on a level playing field. I happen to work at a university that loves basketball. I work in a region that loves basketball. I work in a region and a county that is the poorest in the state of Illinois, but yet we're the richest people that you'd ever want to be around. I work in an area that, with all those stats that I just gave you, we're fourth in attendance this year. Southern Illinois loves basketball, and it is a tradition-rich area.

Matt Painter, Bruce Weber, Chris Lowery, Rich Herrin, and I get a chance to be a part of that fraternity, and I can't begin to tell you what that means to me. So what we've done has been incredible. And over the last eight years, I know our program's taken a hit, but because of this young man right here and this young man right here that believed in us, we have an opportunity to get this thing turned. And I think this year, for lack of a better word, I think we finally turned the corner.

THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the Salukis? Gentlemen, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow.

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