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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: Welcome back to the Bryan Burwell Memorial interview room. Champions of the tournament, Northern Iowa Panthers, are here, Bennett Koch, Paul Jesperson, Wes Washpun, head Coach Ben Jacobson, Jeremy Morgan, Klint Carlson and Matt Bohannon. We're going to follow the same routine. We're going to ask Ben to start off with a statement.

COACH JACOBSON: Another great basketball game. I've been in the league for a long time now. Really proud to be a part of the Missouri Valley Conference, the competition, the way young guys handle themselves when they win and when they lose, how much they care, the leadership in our conference, head coaches in our league, the fan bases. We just happened to be a part of two, with yesterday and today and even the game Friday with Southern, a couple of unbelievable basketball games.

As you well know, I'm very proud of these guys sitting up here with their teammates. That was a heck of a weekend.

Q. Wes, congratulations on the win. A couple of questions. Have you ever made a shot like that before? Obviously, I guess that's the biggest shot you ever made in your career. Your thoughts like, when the ball hit the back of the rim and went up and dropped through.
WES WASHPUN: Yeah, I haven't made a shot like that in a long time. To be honest, I don't think that's easily the best shot I've ever made in my basketball career. When it bounced up, I was just thinking, drop for me, please.

Q. This is mostly for the guys who didn't shoot the shot. What were you guys -- I guess I'll go with Klint and Matt. What did you guys think when it bounced up and hit the backboard and slid back in.
KLINT CARLSON: I saw it hit the back of the rim, and I was crashing just to see if I could get a tip. Once it went up there, I thought it was going to be the perfect angle for it to drop in. Once it did, I turned around to find Wes, chase him down, and hopefully tackle him to the ground.

MATT BOHANNON: Yeah, like Klint said, we have all the confidence in the world in Wes to create plays for us. And at the end of the game, we knew, when the game's on the line, Wes is going to have the ball and just kind of cleared it out, and I knew he was going to be able to get a shot off. From my perspective and where I was at on the floor, it looked good all the way.

It's kind of funny how time seems like it pauses at that point, and to see it drop and go in and see the craziness, it's pretty cool.

Q. Wes, how would you summarize these three games against Evansville this season? Seven points total between the three.
WES WASHPUN: Evansville is a great team. They have a couple of great players in D.J. and Big E, and they play extremely hard on both ends. You can't ask for anything more out of an opponent, and we battled it out this year throughout all three games.

Q. Klint, last year you were really not a regular part of the rotation. This year you are. How satisfying is it for you to be a part of this, knowing where you've come over the last 12 months?
KLINT CARLSON: Yeah, it feels great. I'm grateful to be in the position I am, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the coaching staff, if it wasn't for my teammates, how much confidence they give me and believing in me. I just wouldn't be here without them.

Q. Matt, in your four years here, have you ever had such a turbulent season? You guys started out real well, ended up real hot, and in the middle you really struggled. What does a win like this say about your team?
MATT BOHANNON: Just togetherness and doing things together. As Coach probably mentioned earlier, it's been a very, very crazy season with a lot of adversity. Having never really been a part of one, to be at a 2-6 mark in conference and know that you're a much better team than your record is showing is tough to tell people. We just came together and had a lot of talks with Coach. Just really wanted to bring everyone together on the same page. Once we did that, then the sky was the limit for us.

Now we've got a really good thing going. We're really excited about what our future holds. And just to know we're in the tournament is one of the best feelings to have.

Q. Matt, in that same vain, does the way you won it this year compare to how you won it last year make it any sweeter because of where you've come from to get it?
MATT BOHANNON: Yeah, talk about two totally opposite games. The funny thing is, at halftime, we were saying we've been in that spot they were in at halftime, and we knew what they were going to do in the second half. They were going to come out and play like their lives were on the line, and they did. They played really well.

Credit to them, they took what we gave them and hit some really big shots and really competed on a high level. That's what you want out of a championship game like that. Just to see that lead get cut down and them take the lead and still have that feeling and sense of calmness when we were coming to the huddle and when Coach is talking to us that we still can get this done and to get it back on top was a pretty cool feeling.

Just to be on both sides, from last year to this year, it's pretty fun. You always talk about those seniors. You have that leadership and that experience. It couldn't be more true for our team. We've been in those experiences now, and we're just going to keep using that to our advantage the rest of the season.

Q. This one is for Bennett. If you could kind of talk a little bit about the ups and downs of the season and watching the two senior leaders kind of bring the team up. What changed? What clicked for you guys to maybe turn it around and kind of put you where you are now?
BENNETT KOCH: I would say, when we had our down times, we looked to our seniors, our leaders, and they did a great job picking us back up and giving us a little bit more confidence. Like Bo said, it's hard to tell people that we're a better team when we have a not-so-good record like we did, but we're confident in ourselves. We know what we can do, and I think we're going to go far in the tournament.

Q. Jeremy, you're obviously one of the best defensive players on this team. Were you seeing anything specifically to get the four blocks today? Was it any angles or the constant doubling of Mockevicius and Balentine that you didn't see it, and you just swatted it?
JEREMY MORGAN: My role in this game was to be a helper. When the big men would catch it down the block, that's my job to kind of luff off a little bit and if he goes to shoot it, try to get the tip, and just try to make plays out there for the team.

Q. Ben, you played in this tournament and coached for a long time. Have you ever seen a shot like that, a buzzer beater like that to win a championship game?
COACH JACOBSON: No, I have not. Not one like that. I don't know if I've been a part of one that went straight in, let alone one that went in like Wes' did today.

Q. Coach, you didn't call for time-out. Were you just expecting Wes to do it all himself, just create something?
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, there was some time in between when they got the ball. There was some time between the game clock and the shot clock. So as it started, I was hopeful that it would be under 30 when we got it back, so that we would have the last shot of the game. If that was going to be the case, then we were not going to call time-out. We had gone to that high ball screen with Wes in the last six, seven minutes of the game. We knew what matchup we wanted. We knew what we were going to do. And he's been in that situation enough that he was going to take that last shot. It was either going to go in at the horn or it was not going to go in at the horn, and it was going to go into overtime.

Again, done it enough times that he wasn't going to shoot it early and give them enough chance to go down. I had no thoughts of calling a time-out.

Q. Heard you there right before we started asking questions, man, oh, man, the NCAA Tournament. The significance of this moment is obviously not lost on you. What does it mean to be able to say that again?
COACH JACOBSON: It's just so hard to get there. I mean, so many things have to go right in order to play in the NCAA Tournament. With our year last year and having it go that way, two things: One, just as a staff, we want so bad for Bo and for Paul and for Wes to be able to do it again as seniors because they were really part of a special senior group. So that adds to my enthusiasm.

Two, we had a guy or two there in the stretch in between them now, Chip Rank being one of them, who didn't go to an NCAA Tournament. Everybody else in the last however many years has gone to one, I believe. And from a program standpoint, I think about that as well. Just, again, the understanding of how a lot of things have to go well. Six weeks ago, they were not going well.

So to sit here right now and see these guys smiling and feeling good about who they are and the opportunity to go and play in the NCAA Tournament, man, I just think it's great.

Q. Jake, from an Xs and Os standpoint, did anything change from the end of the first half to the second when you all started making a comeback, or was it just a matter of them lifting their level of play?
COACH JACOBSON: Jaylon Brown made one three in the first half. Second half, not back to back, but fairly close, he made two threes, and then he got aggressive off the dribble. Both teams knew that Brown, Simmons, Brzoja, Wing, those four guys were going to have opportunities to get shots and they were going to have opportunities to score. And Brown had a big second half. That puts a dent in what we're doing defensively, and at the same time, we weren't scoring at the other end.

Because as they scored and got a little momentum, their defense got a little bit better, got a little harder for us to do what we wanted at the offensive end. We made some open shots.

Klint made a three in the first half, I think he was 6 for 7 in the first half and had a big-time half. From our standpoint, I talked about it either yesterday or Friday -- the X-factor, and it was Klint in the first half. That's why we're up 14 at halftime. In the second half, he was wide open from three. He misses it. Paul had a couple looks.

We missed a couple free throws. At the same time, Jaylon Brown played great in that second half. Then we've got to guard him a little bit more. Now that opens up Balentine, and he got going late on those curls, which is what we're trying to take away.

Q. It seemed like Jeremy hit big shot after big shot. Can you assess his performance?
COACH JACOBSON: He's done that two years in a row now. Last year in the championship game in the second half. He was just outstanding. I think he made four threes in the second half to help us get back from that 14-point deficit.

I think he made a big one yesterday. We really, as you know, we didn't have a lot going offensively. We just put it in Wes' hands, and we were going to live with it, which I was fine with.

I felt like, in a game like that that's close, if I have a lot of space, it was either he was going to get fouled or he was going to get that shot for us. But that one worked out well that it was Jeremy at the top, the three he hit late in the game.

Q. Jake, with the Evansville comeback run, was there ever any doubt that creeped into your mind that they were going to come back like you guys did against Illinois State last year?
COACH JACOBSON: Was there any doubt they were going to end up winning or any doubt they'd make a run back?

Q. Did you think that they would comeback for the win?
COACH JACOBSON: No. I thought we were doing what we wanted to. Jaylon Brown just made plays, and you got to give the young guy credit for being more aggressive, making a couple threes, driving it and scoring it, getting fouled. He was making plays for their team. You've got to give him and their team a lot of credit for that part of it, that offensively they did some things differently, him in particular, did some things differently to help him get that lead.

From my standpoint, we were still taking what we wanted to. And at the offensive end, they weren't all great possessions, but Wes was getting downhill. He was getting to the front of the rim. He was getting to the free-throw line. Klint was open from three. Paul was open from three. So I felt like we would be okay.

Q. Ben, Marty Simmons was in here a few minutes ago talking about the respect he has for you and your program. Can you kind of talk about competing against Marty head to head as a coach and also the challenges you faced in the three games? The series couldn't have been much closer than it was.
COACH JACOBSON: Marty is someone that has been a tremendous role model for me, somebody that I have looked up to in our league. He demands and expects a lot out of his players. You can feel that when you play against him. Certainly, as an opposing coach, you have a lot of respect for that. You can see that his players have the ultimate level of respect for him because of how hard they play.

We've gotten to know each other away from basketball, and I don't -- look, I don't know that there's a better man. He goes about all of his business the right way, and he coaches his kids hard, and he doesn't cut any corners. I have got -- I've just got an unbelievable amount of respect for Marty.

Q. Coach, you guys are obviously going to be in the tournament here. What would it be like to play in Des Moines? Do you feel like that would be an advantage for you guys?
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, it would certainly help our crowd. I think Des Moines or here. Is that first round site here or second round?

THE MODERATOR: First and second here.

COACH JACOBSON: First and second. Either one of them, I think, gives us a great chance to have a big crowd, and that's fun. We've been both. We've got a good following right now with the way our guys have been and what we've done here in the last 13 years.

But that would be fun. Our ticket guy and my ops guy would have a huge headache because there would be all kinds of, all sorts of issues for that limited number of tickets that we get. We can handle that.

From a broader standpoint, we'd have an opportunity to have some more fans, and that would be fun for the guys.

Q. Your players touched on the struggles of the season. You guys were 2-6, third from last in the conference on January 23rd. Just talk about the turnaround, where you guys were then compared to now.
COACH JACOBSON: The one thing we talked about was, hey, fellas, we're not playing great. We're not playing as good as we played in some games in November and December. But we have a really good team, and it is important right now that we don't look around and try to blame something or someone. Nobody needs to be at fault right now. We need to figure out a way to find some solutions and get it cranked up again. That's a hard thing to do.

The thing that I've been most impressed with is for Wes, Bo, Paul, Jeremy, Wyatt, in particular, guys that played last year, we went a whole year without many -- really hardly any -- ups and downs. We cruised along at a really high altitude. So now we're in a spot where those guys, as seniors, they can see their senior season flashing before their eyes. So it was a time where it would have been really hard to blame any of those seniors if they had gotten a little bit sideways, and they didn't. And because they didn't, we got out of it.

Because we were good enough before they were in that 2 1/2-week skid, and we're obviously good enough on the other side of it. So it wasn't a matter of whether we were good enough or not, but the guys really had to dig in, really had to dig deep, really had to fight and stay the course when it wasn't easy.

Q. Jake, with Klint, the way he played down here, how cool has it been to see his growth from last summer all the way through to now and the person and player he's become.
COACH JACOBSON: Boy, I've been so impressed with where he's come, in terms of his confidence. He's not an overly confident kid. And for him, it took getting healthy, but then also having success. And as he had -- and he talked about it. He does. He's got great teammates. Those older guys do believe in him, and they know he can play and really help our program. So he's got that going for him.

But a year ago, we had enough older guys that he wasn't in the rotation. But in saying that, he hadn't gotten onto the right track just in terms of being a confident young man, believing in who he is and believing he can do the job. You've got to get out there and play, and you've got to have some success. That helps. But he also has to turn that corner, and he has.

Q. Coach, did Kurt Warner text you or call you after the game? If he did, what did he say?
COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, he has. I won't -- I guess I won't go into detail of what -- other than I can tell you he's really proud of his university. He's gotten pretty close with these older guys on our team, and actually Jeremy and Wyatt as well. He got to know those guys last year. Very thankful that he has stayed in touch. He's been a real source of pride. He's been a real source of motivation for the players that were up here and the players in our program. He's continued to support them and continued to motivate them. He did the same this weekend.

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