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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 4, 2016

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

University of Northern Iowa-66, Southern Illinois-60

THE MODERATOR: The victorious UNI Panthers are with us. They have a date in the semifinals at 2:30 against the Wichita Shockers. Jeremy Morgan and Wes Washpun are the student-athletes bracketing head coach Ben Jacobson. We'll ask coach to start off with a statement on the game.

COACH JACOBSON: What a great game. We had a couple chances maybe a little bit first half. But during that second half, when we got up ten and had it going offensively, we were getting what we had hoped to get.

Man, Southern Illinois has had a terrific season, picked ninth, not expected to be anywhere close to where they're playing right now, and they played and fought today like they have played all year. So I give Barry a ton of credit, and Anthony Beane is a senior, and their new guys, boy, they -- just a great game because of the way both teams battled.

Q. For Wes, when you got your third and fourth fouls, you stayed super aggressive on defense. Was that as a result of who you were guarding, or did you feel like you have to keep that level up?
WES WASHPUN: I think it was just the circumstances of the game. It was win or go home. I had to keep my aggression up for the sake of the team. And Beane is a heck of a player. If you're not aggressive guarding him, then he's liable to go on a 13-0, 14-0 run by himself. You have to stay aggressive guarding a guy like that.

Q. Jeremy, you hit clutch free throws down the stretch. Tell me what's going through your mind when you're on the line there.
JEREMY MORGAN: Just a key part of the game. I missed other ones earlier in the game. I kept telling myself, just shoot it like you've been practicing all season. Get in there every day, shooting free throws all the time. So I just told myself to relax and knock them in.

Q. Wes, the drive for the go ahead basket, tell me what you saw there. It looked like it was something that you could explain all game perhaps.
WES WASHPUN: We had some action going behind it and trying to set up a play actually. I knew Beane would pick me up pretty far out. So I just kind of went for it, and the lane opened up nicely, and I was able to get all the way to the rim.

Q. Jeremy, when Wes went out with the fourth foul and the other seniors weren't having their best game, you stepped up into that leadership role. Was this is the culmination of you stepping into that role for the team over the course of this year?
JEREMY MORGAN: Yeah, Coach always tells me to be really aggressive. I'm just being aggressive, helping the team out any way I can.

Q. Wes, there was a couple plays there where Anthony Beane tried to line up a jump shot on you. Was there something you were noticing where you were able to jump it and get a block?
WES WASHPUN: No, I was reading and reacting to what he was doing. He jumps pretty high on his jump shots, and I jump fairly high myself. So I tried to challenge it as best I could, and I ended up coming up with a few blocks.

Q. Given the way the season started with big wins over UNC, Iowa State, how important was it, after faltering during the midseason, to really show in the tournament to give yourselves a chance to make a run and get back to the NCAA Tournament like last year?
JEREMY MORGAN: Yeah, you know, that experience was good for us. We had a tough stretch there in the middle of the season, and we really draw closer together during that time. Coach kept telling us not to lay down, just fight through it. Just keep fighting through it. So that experience has helped us a lot. I feel like it will help us out going into these next few games.

WES WASHPUN: As Coach said, we're just kind of spinning our tires at that point in the season. We knew what kind of team we could be, and we knew what kind of level we compete at. Having the kind of February we had and carrying over into March now has been great for us.

Q. If you could just look ahead to Wichita. I know you guys want to enjoy this, but what's going to be the most challenging part of beating the No. 1 team in the conference?
WES WASHPUN: Wichita is a heck of a team. They play really hard. They're really aggressive on defense. They have two great senior guards in VanVleet and Baker, and we've just got to go out there and play our game. We have a game plan that we'll draw up, and we'll just kind of go by that and go out there and play as hard as we can.

JEREMY MORGAN: Yeah, they're a great team. But we're playing really good right now, and our mindset is going to stay the same, going out, being aggressive, and trying to take it to rim.

Q. This one is for Wes. A young team, you're seniors, this is going to be your last shot. How important was it in that second half, after being in foul trouble, for you to be motivated and make sure that this team didn't let that lead slip away for you?
WES WASHPUN: Yeah, I just tried to go out there and remain aggressive. The rest of the seniors felt the same way, keep the aggression up, and eventually things will go our way. Keep the defensive aggression up. Keep going at them on offense, and the chips will fall where they may. All you can do is really lay it all out there.

Q. Jeremy and Wes, you guys both had four fouls at the end of the game. How did you guys continue to be aggressive? Definitely you, Wes. But also note, if this did go into overtime, you can't pick up that fifth.
JEREMY MORGAN: Yeah, you can't think like that. No matter how many fouls you have, when it's going down to the end of the game, you've got to leave everything out there, stay aggressive, and that was our mindset the whole time.

WES WASHPUN: Yeah, you can't really -- at that point in the game, you can't really think about overtime or what may happen. You just have to go out there and take it play by play and stay as aggressive as you can and try to pull out the win in regular.

Q. Coach, another solid effort this evening by your bench offensively. Is that something -- as far as the effort by your bench, did that maybe become more important in a setting like this where you're potentially looking at -- where you're certainly looking at a quick turnaround with the victory? Is that production more important in a setting like this?
COACH JACOBSON: You know, I -- in the game today, I would tell you it was so important because Paul and Bo -- Southern Illinois wasn't going to let those guys get free. As a result, they're 2 for 10. So if we don't have Bennett -- Bennett is a starter, but Klint and Wyatt, all three of those guys played as tough as those young guys, it was going to be a tough road for us. When Ted has played, he's played well.

But Wyatt and Clint were really good tonight. What Wyatt did in that stretch in the first half, not only did we need it for our team, but they had a guy come off the bench and do the same thing for their team. So we were going to have to find it somewhere. Our bench has been good for five weeks, and they were really good again today.

Q. Coach, I know you don't love talking free throws, but you finished 10 of 10 in the game, and a couple of those came from Bohannon and Morgan. How important were those free throws in those moments? And speak to the leadership of those guys being able to knock those down.
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, we had missed a couple earlier in the game. Jeremiah, I think we had the front end that we missed once or twice with maybe Jeremy and Bo. And then at the point of the game where it felt like we were playing pretty good and could have used a couple more. But down the stretch, these guys have been great. Really any one of them. It's good to see Bo go up there, but there's four or five of them that have been in this situation. So seeing any of them go up there in that situation, I feel really good about. But obviously, you've got to have those. Guys go up there, and you've got to have them, and our guys have been really great in that situation.

Q. Ben, is there a better money player on the planet than Washpun with the game on the line? I mean, you've got to want the ball in his hands.
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, he's been great. He's had such a phenomenal season. Through the ups and downs, and the ups and downs haven't necessarily been -- when it comes to basketball, it hasn't necessarily been Wes' cup of tea, if you will, but it is now. Man, he is just -- he has taken on so much leadership and so much responsibility for our team. To be in the situation we were today, where he was playing great and then got his third and got his fourth and had to sit, you know, I don't know if two years ago that would have been really hard for him, and right now he is such a tremendous leader for our team.

Man, I'll tell you, he's had an unbelievable year. The best thing I can tell you about him is tomorrow we're going to do what we can. Hopefully, we're playing Sunday. And then again in ten days in the NCAA Tournament. But, man, I'll tell you, he's ready for whatever comes after we're done playing, and I'm really, really proud of him.

Q. Coach, you guys gave up 14 offensive rebounds. Wichita State is a very physical team. How are you going to prevent that from happening tomorrow?
COACH JACOBSON: I was just glancing down at the sheet and saw that same number. We're going to have to do better. At Wichita State, I don't remember how many it was, it might have been 14 rebounds at Wichita State. We're going to have to do better. We're going to have to find a better way to rebound the basketball. There's no two ways about it. We'll watch the film. Obviously, we can't go to the practice floor with the quick turnaround, so it's going to have to be in film and taking a look. Boy, you're going to have to come tomorrow, and you're going to have to find a way.

Q. You had a couple games earlier in the year where you had leads in the second half and then didn't protect them. Did those instances during the slump maybe motivate these guys a little bit or at least give them an indication or lesson to learn in that situation?
COACH JACOBSON: You know, I think we're just playing at a level right now, we learned our lesson going through that period of time. It was a couple of things. We lacked a little confidence. We didn't have all of our guys playing at the level they're playing at now, and we hadn't -- this team hadn't necessarily fought through some things.

And now all of a those things are in place, if you will. Our confidence is good. As we've talked about, our entire lineup is playing well. And these guys had to go through that stretch, and they found their way out of it. So now when we get into a game like that, it doesn't -- for them, in their mind, it doesn't compare to going through 2 1/2 weeks where we can't do too much right. They've learned and taught themselves how to fight through a stretch. I would tell you those are the biggest things.

Q. Jeremy hit a couple threes in the first five minutes in the second half. I know that's a time period you like to focus on. How big was that to get the second half started that strong?
COACH JACOBSON: Wes sat the last, what, 6:30 of the first half. We'd had pretty good momentum before he went to the bench. So in a game that felt like we had played a little better than Southern Illinois did in the first half, so you feel like you've got a six or eight point lead, and you don't. It's nice to have somebody come out and do that.

Hey, look, you remember last year, the second half of the Illinois State game, he came out and made -- he might have made four of them by the time it was done.

So it's having guys that have been here, having guys that have made plays that showed up, I think, with Jeremy to start the second half.

Q. Talk about that last game against Wichita. You had VanVleet and Baker combine for 8 for 31. How do you replicate that tomorrow?
COACH JACOBSON: You know, I don't know if you can count on that being part of how the game's going to go. For us, we have to work hard to defend them the best way that we can with our defense. They had some shots that they make plenty that they didn't make in that game. So we're just going to have to do what we do. Defensively, we're going to have to guard those two guys the best way we can.

When you do that, though, at least for us, we have to make sure we don't allow easy shots, easy plays for the rest of their team. Not only are those two guys terrific players, but they've got a number of other guys that are really, really good. You don't go 16-2 and get to the point where they're at without a bunch of guys that can play. So we've got to work hard with those two. We've got to do the best job we can with those two, and then we're going to have to rebound the basketball.

But we can't have it be where the rest of that lineup is getting easy plays because they will make those plays.

Q. Ben, could you just talk about the freshman Fletcher, how he played tonight.
COACH JACOBSON: He was great. When Wyatt was doing his thing in the first half, I gave myself just a second to think, okay, we've got the X-factor. We've got older guys, and they're going to play well as we go through this game, and Wyatt has just become the X-factor and is playing his tail off.

And then Fletcher became the X-factor and almost got his guys to a win. He was terrific.

Q. How much did the foul trouble complicate the way you approached defending Beane and O'Brien?
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, Wes does the best job. He did the best job on Balentine. He did the best job on Beane. He's going to guard VanVleet tomorrow. He has been off the charts good defensively. Jeremy is good, but he isn't as good as Wes on the ball with a guy like Beane.

So that was tricky, and I don't have a great answer for you other than it was tricky. We wanted Wes on him, and we couldn't have him on him.

I thought Jeremy made a couple of good plays, but there was just a little more space when Jeremy was on Beane, and that's not real comfortable for our side of it. Again, you give Wes credit for having to sit the end of the first half, for having to come sit again toward the end of the game, and then making all those plays down the stretch on that end. I think you have to give Wes a ton of credit.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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