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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 6, 2016

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

University of Northern Iowa-56, Evansville-54

THE MODERATOR: The Evansville Aces are with us. Coach Marty Simmons and student-athletes, D.J. Balentine and Jaylon Brown.

COACH SIMMONS: Congratulations to Northern Iowa and Coach Jacobson. It's a program that I personally have a lot of respect for. They do things the right way. So congrats to them. Best of luck in the NCAA Tournament.

As I told our team in the locker room, I couldn't be more proud of a group of young men than ours, just the way -- the grit and the fight and resilience that they showed to fight back and give ourselves a chance. It didn't make the pain feel any less, but I think our young men earned a lot of respect from people around the country today because of how hard they fought.

Q. Jaylon, what adjustments did you guys make in the second half to get something going offensively?
JAYLON BROWN: We just knew we had to start hitting shots and executing on defense early. We gave them a lead in the first half, and we knew we had to fight back. So it was all about just working hard and playing hard to the first time-out.

Q. Was it kind of the same as the Senior Day game where they shut you down the first half and then you got something going? Did they do anything differently at the start of this game, or was it the same things that were slowing you guys down?
JAYLON BROWN: No, they played it tight, like the first game we played on senior night. We just had to make adjustments, and we made adjustments in the second half. It gave us a chance to win.

Q. D.J., your defense the last couple possessions, a couple tough step-backs for you. Are you happy with forcing them into those shots in that situation?
D.J. BALENTINE: Yeah. We wanted to make them take tough shots.

Q. Jaylon, just your mindset in the second half. I know they were laying off you a bit, but was it a change in approach or just a change in what the whole offense was doing that got you going in the second half?
JAYLON BROWN: They just played off a little bit and trapped our two main guys, Egi and D.J. So I just knew if they passed the ball to me, I just had to be ready to shoot. Coach said always to be ready to shoot and knock it in. So I was just taking an opportunity, whenever it was thrown out, just to be ready and try to knock it down. So that was really it.

Q. Coach, I hope you follow where I'm going with this, and full credit to you guys for a terrific game. If you were going to lose that game, which you certainly weren't looking to do, but if you were, I just wonder if you could appreciate the way it ended with Washpun hitting that shot.
COACH SIMMONS: Well, he's a terrific player. And he's hit numerous shots like that, but I never really thought about how we were going to lose. We had the lead there, and we had a possession there to extend the lead, and we didn't execute quite like we needed to. I thought that was a big possession just to extend it. But he hit a tough shot. Not that he hadn't hit that shot before, but he hit a tough shot.

We thought -- we had talked about earlier maybe running at him, but Morgan had just hit a big three, and we were really showing a lot of help off of it. I think that's what helped us get him to take the pullup. But he's a tough guy to match up with. Congratulations to him.

Q. Marty, was there an instance there maybe in that last shot, when a ball hit off the back of the rim, you're thinking, well, here we're going to overtime, the ball is going up in the air, and all of a sudden it drops through. Did that sort of go through your mind real fast?
COACH SIMMONS: Yeah, it did. But that's basketball, and that's the way it worked out.

Q. Marty, this probably isn't the greatest time to ask this, but do you have an appreciation for how close these games were with this team three times? I mean, a combined total of seven points. A play here or there, and the whole thing could have swung the other way.
COACH SIMMONS: Yeah, I mean, it's no secret. Ben is a good friend and someone that I have a lot of respect for. He's a great coach. They're very detailed. They game plan extremely well. Up there, we had the lead late and we had a couple of empty possessions, and they just -- they out-executed it down the stretch.

These last two games, for whatever reason, we dug ourselves a hole in the first half. We just played a lot harder. We had better rhythm. I just thought we played faster. I mean, we moved the ball better. Those are all things we certainly wanted to do in the first half.

We don't have excuses. We just come up one play short. It hurts.

Q. You say you didn't make any adjustments, but what's it say about D.J. after struggling, and some of those other guys, to continue to make plays down the stretch when they had struggled so much in the first half?
COACH SIMMONS: Again, I couldn't be more proud of them. You play in tournament basketball, playing against really, really good teams. Nothing is easy. You have to earn every look, every touch. You've got to play extremely strong and aggressive, and I thought our guys stepped up. I thought D.J. did. I thought Jaylon Brown.

We didn't turn the ball over this game like we did the last game. If you go back and look at yesterday's game against Indiana State, a lot of those shots we hit early in that game to get us off to such a good start, similar shots. We just didn't knock them in.

But to our guys' credit, they stayed with it. They stayed aggressive, and we made some of those shots in the second half.

Q. Coach, when you were game planning last night, was the intent to just go six men with Mislav, and did you just not see the opportunity to insert --
COACH SIMMONS: We never look at it that way. It just kind of worked out that way. We were having a hard time with Carlson in the first half, and we went small for a little bit, and I thought it helped us.

When they went small in the second half, Egidijus, I thought, did a much better job. It's hard for me to get him off the floor. He's a big reason why we have the opportunity today that we did. I appreciate all that he's done for our program, and I thought he really stepped it up as well in the second half to give us a chance.

Q. Coach, Blake only took six shots tonight, but he had two threes that rattled in and pinballed out down the stretch. Could you talk about that for a moment.
COACH SIMMONS: Yeah, I was glad to see him shoot them, number one. At times he's been a little too conscientious, but I think yesterday really helped him. He made some, and he was aggressive. He got a little tired there in the second half. They isolated him a couple times with Washpun, and we gave him a breather there at the end. And just the way the game was going, we finished it that way. I'm proud of him, and I'm proud of all the guys.

Q. Marty, what do you anticipate the week being like? Will it be a nervous week or an anxious week or a fun week? How do you think the week will pan out?
COACH SIMMONS: I'm sure it will be anxious, David. There's nothing easy for us at Evansville. Man, I just pray that we get an opportunity to maybe play in the NIT. I think that would be a big step for us. I think those guys in the locker room are very deserving of that opportunity.

Q. Did you have any inkling they were going to double-team D.J. and Egi immediately every time they caught the ball? Because they had no air space, not even a fraction of a second to do anything.
COACH SIMMONS: Yeah, we scouted that nine years. I mean, that's how they kind of play. They jump to the ball and do a great job. We do the same thing in our defense. That's why your execution has to be really good. At times, we got too tight, so the area we're able to get the ball to D.J. is much smaller. When you're out wide, there's a greater distance for that guy guarding the passer to get there, to double or take that away. That's one thing that I emphasized prior to the game, but I thought we did a little better job of that in the second half.

D.J. got in there deep. Against them, you're going to have to get it in there five to eight feet. And Washpun is a lot like Baker in that he's athletic. He's competitive. You get a half step on him, you're still going to challenge him. And I thought D.J. stayed with it. I thought he made big baskets right at the rim in the second half.

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