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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: OKLAHOMAMarch 17, 2016Wayne TinkleGary Payton IILangston Morris-WalkerOlaf SchaftenaarOklahoma City, Oklahoma THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Oregon State Beavers, Gary Payton, Langston Morris-Walker, and Olaf Schaftenaar. Questions for the student-athletes. Q. You guys are one of the only top -- last time I checked at least, you're one of the only top seeds that aren't favored against your lower seed opponents. Does that give you any motivation or are you not paying attention to that? LANGSTON MORRIS-WALKER: For the most part, I feel like we're going to go out there and not change anything and play our hardest. Teams like VCU are no strangers to the tournament, so I can see why they put them on there because they're not used to seeing Oregon State on there. But like I said, we're going to work our hardest and do our best, and our coaching staff is going to have us prepared. OLAF SCHAFTENAAR: Just like what Langston said, we're going to go out there and try to play our game. We don't really care about our opponent. We'll just try to play our game and try our best. Q. This is a team that's gone from last year having only one returning starter and seven walk-ons to this year you're in the NCAA Tournament. What has made that possible? What's contributed to this turn-around? All three of you can answer. GARY PAYTON: Just everybody on the program, from the program, from the community on to the staff, the management, everybody. We all bit into what the new coaching staff came in and wanted to do. Everybody bit in. We stuck together. We knew our outcome from last year. We didn't expect to win any games. We did what we did. This year we just carried on with a great group of freshmen guys and they bit in just as well as we did, and now we're here. LANGSTON MORRIS-WALKER: Yeah, just for the year we're talking about, we're projected to be last in the Pac-12, and we knew what we had, and we knew the reason why we were projected is because they didn't see us play, because I was that returning starter and I only averaged ten minutes that year anyway. So they didn't see what we had coming in with Gary Payton. We knew we were going to be competitive, so we just tried our hardest and made it work. Q. What do you think of Melvin Johnson? Who does he remind you of? Is he the assignment that you draw? GARY PAYTON: Melvin, we haven't really went through our assignments yet, but you know they have a great guard set and we know they're going to pressure a lot and try to get us to force turnovers. But our guards and our senior guards just be physical and take care of the ball and hopefully that will carry over to the young guys. Q. Olaf and Langston, have you guys looked at Mo Alie-Cox much? And if you have, what are your impressions of him? OLAF SCHAFTENAAR: Like Gary said, we haven't really looked at their personnel that much. We've mainly gone over that they press a lot and we just try to be solid with the ball. And we worked a lot on our fast break and that stuff. We haven't really gone over too much individual assignments yet. Q. Gary, despite the team's lack of experience at the NCAA Tournament, Coach Tinkle does have some. What has he talked about this week, and how much has he stressed some of the things or talked to you about some of the things that are going to happen off the court and what you're going to experience this week to get you ready? GARY PAYTON: Not really much. Coach emphasized he's been here before. He knows the group of guys that's been here, they know what it takes to be here. Just off the court, just handle yourself well and talk about what's good for the program and whatnot. But mostly you're just locked in about the game. So we're not worried about off the court too much. Q. Langston, what makes Gary such a good defensive player? LANGSTON MORRIS-WALKER: I just think he's been around great basketball for his whole life, so he kind of has a knack for it. Watching greats like his father and other greats that his father has played with, he's always known where to be and how to play. And he also has a motor that I think is underrated. He just keeps going. Probably the most fit person on the floor at all times and I think that's what makes him a great player. Q. First of all, is your dad coming? And second question, what advice has he given you on what to expect in this environment? If you could give us a couple tidbits he's talked about and shared with you? GARY PAYTON: Yeah, of course he's coming. Of course he's going to be here. But he just told me just to play my game. Don't let everything outside the court get to me. It's going to be a little crazy, a little havoc just because our program hasn't been here in a while and we're getting back here for the first time. So he said just treat it like a regular game, any other ordinary game. So that's about it. He just said to go out there and have fun. Q. Gary, I'm sure you've answered these questions for your entire career at OSU, but the decision to go there and play in your father's footsteps, what kind of pressure did that add on you to want to be great and to want to try to match what he was able to accomplish there? GARY PAYTON: The very beginning of my recruitment, I had my mindset that I wasn't going to come here and just to build my own legacy somewhere else. And later down in the recruitment, I visited OSU, and they turned it out for me. They made me feel like it was family, and that's when I decided to just take on the challenge, follow his footsteps and try to get the Beavers back here. We had a great group of guys that helped me do it, and that was the goal, the main goal, to get back here and make Beaver basketball exciting again. Q. Langston and Olaf, can you tell us a couple of things that we can watch for tomorrow that might surprise people about your team? OLAF SCHAFTENAAR: Just our hard work and the way we play. We leave everything out there on the floor every time we play. Tomorrow it's all about being solid with the basketball and not turning it over. We're just really excited for the opportunity. I know our guys will be ready and we're just looking forward to it. LANGSTON MORRIS-WALKER: Yeah, I mean, just basically what he said. We have a great group of guys, great staff, and we have a great set of freshmen that are also extremely talented. It's just something that we bring to the floor is passion. And hopefully our freshmen and everybody can bring it all together so we can get this win tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Coach, your thoughts about tomorrow's game. COACH TINKLE: Great opportunity for our program. We understand and have learned over the week how good our opponent, VCU, is. We know it's going to be a heck of a challenge, heck of a game, but we're looking forward to it. Just the team's thrilled to be here, but not happy with just having an invitation. We want to do all we can to give it our best and see if we can advance. But quite a thrill for this program. Q. With the relative inexperience, I guess, that you have with this group in the NCAA Tournament, what have you tried to impart on them this week with what you've been through and having been to the tournament, maybe things to watch for and things that might surprise them? What have you tried to teach them? COACH TINKLE: Well, the big thing was early on in the beginning of the week. We said, okay, the celebration time is over. We have done a really neat thing here in erasing a 26-year drought, but now let's move on and get focused, to not just make an appearance. And the message we've been sending is that we don't need super human performances. We just need to get back to the solid fundamental things. There are four or five things, and I'm not going to get into what those are so please don't ask, but those things to focus on, knowing that it will get us to play at our best. When we do those, we play at our best. When we get off on our own a little bit and we don't bring the urgency, we don't perform as well. So we just tried to reassure to them we've worked on all the things that make us successful. We're not asking you to do anything above and beyond that. So the more grounded we can remain in the basics in what we're trying to do out there, I think it will allow us to perform our best. Q. Last year your first season you had one returning starter, seven walk-ons. Can you give us some specifics of what have contributed to the turnaround in getting you from where the team was then to where you guys are today? Because it's a pretty remarkable turnaround. COACH TINKLE: Yeah, that's a really good point. We knew at Oregon State they hadn't had success, and we felt as a staff we had to teach them, first of all, what was success and then how to get to it. It started from our approach to getting out of bed, to going to class, to how we treated everybody on campus, from the people that taught the classes, that counseled, that cook the meals, cut the grass, that we need to treat them all the right way, carry ourselves the right way, and make them all part of our team. And we felt like by really making our team large, we'd start to create some momentum that way and people supporting us. Then it also, those are the important things to be teaching these kids at their age anyway, but it allowed them to get a little bit more confident each and every day. They didn't have to walk around with their chin on their chest. They could carry themselves high. And I think those things kept the focus from the X and O things that we knew ultimately would win games, but the things we talked about at first are the things that are the most important. If you don't have those, you can't have success consistently on the court. That was the cornerstone or pillars of our program at Montana, and being a similar type of demographic at Oregon State, small college town, great university, we knew that it would carry over, and so far it has. Q. Coach, you've probably looked at some tape and studied these guys. What are your impressions of two players, Mo Alie-Cox, and Melvin Johnson. COACH TINKLE: Mo is just an animal in there. He reminds us of our Daniel Gomis, who unfortunately is not going to be able to play. It's like he's guarding all five players at times, all over the floor. Physical presence in the paint, especially offensively and defensively. Relentless worker. So we know we've got our hands full there. And Johnson, as banged up as he was in the tournament, with five or six days to heal up, I'm sure he's going to be a lot closer to 100% than that Saint Joseph's game and the semifinals game that we saw. He's a guy that can score at all three levels. Reminds me a little bit of a player that we had at Montana that was a three-time All-League guy, Kareem Jamar. He can shoot it. He can get to the rim. Good mid-range game. So two very, very talented players that we know are going to be focal points, but they're not the only two. They've got a lot of weapons out there. Q. At last check, you guys are one of the only higher seeds that aren't favored against your lower seed opponent. Has that given you more motivation or are you not paying attention to it? COACH TINKLE: We haven't mentioned it. I'm sure our guys, as much time as they spend on social media, are well aware of it. But VCU is a very, very good team. They were playing well until the injury to Johnson late, and I think maybe a little bit has to do with the fact that Tres is not going to be able to play this weekend. But people thought that down the stretch, and we split that USC-UCLA trip, and we won the Arizona State team and competed with one of the hottest teams in the country in Cal, without Tres. So we're a little more proven now. Without him, some of the other guys have really stepped up. That's a concern maybe for folks that are filling out their brackets and all that, but not a real concern to us. Q. What makes Olaf such a match-up problem for people? COACH TINKLE: His size. He's got great ball skills out on the perimeter. He can handle it, dribble hand off stuff, pick-and-pop, shoots the ball. Hasn't had a great shooting year but of late. Especially the last four, five games of the regular season, he was back to shooting close to 43, 44% from three, and he's a threat inside. If you want to try to guard him with a smaller guy, we can run some things to try to post him up. That's a part of his game he's really added in the last year or so. So look for Olaf, hopefully, to have some success in the paint when they're guarding him small and they go big against him pulling him out. If he's willing and able to do both of those things, it will be a real benefit to us. Q. Unfortunately, like you said, your son is not going to be able to play this weekend. I had the pleasure last year of spending about five, six days with the Georgia State team, got some really touching stuff from Ron and R.J. Hunter. As a dad, what is it like for you to be here in the tournament and your son is here with you and can't play? COACH TINKLE: Well, the first part of it, it's just special that we're here together. Our family has been so blessed with March Madness on both sides. My older daughter Joslyn played at Stanford and went to three Final Fours, Elle, Gonzaga, they made an incredible run to the Sweet Sixteen last year. So my son witnessed all that and the excitement. He chose Oregon State, obviously to play for dad, but really to try to help get us back here. So to have that taken away as far as him playing on the floor, it's been tough. But the thing I'm probably most proud of is we challenged him when he first went down to become a great cheerleader and a great towel waver, and we said that is the way you can positively impact this team. It is what it is, and he's bought into that. As a coach, it's hard because he was one of our toughest guys. Probably our highest IQ guy, was emerging as a leader out on the floor. And it was a long season as far as developing that. We butted heads a few times early. Few times I came home and there wasn't any food in the oven, mom had gotten upset with me too. But the good thing is we fought through it early. And I told Tres the message was clear, you hold all the answers. I'm not being any harder on you than I am the next guy. You think I am because it's the first time dad's doing it in front of your peers. I'm the head coach now. Before it was just a parent angle. I've said you've just got to fight through it and get tougher. You're a tough kid. We went through a couple of things. He talked to Doug McDermott through some help from Greg, and then had a really big performance at Kansas. I think from that point on, he understood you've got to grow up. He's thinking to himself, I've got to grow up. This isn't unfair, I've just got to get tougher. Every new player and every freshman has a point where they're getting yelled at for the first time consistently. They're the best players on their high school team and now they come in and see themselves as grunts. And it's not that we're trying to be unruly or hard, but we knew this class we were going to have to depend on late, so we had to get them there quicker. So we were harder on them earlier in the year. It's neat that they've come through. But anyway, I've gone on from what you've asked, but I think there is a little bit of information there on where we've arrived as far as the fathers and the sons on this team. We're in a good place. Tres is confident that hopefully this isn't the last time we'll be here and he'll be able to share in some of this joy as a player moving forward. Q. Over these past two years, how do you think Gary has been able to thrive even with the pressure of playing in his famous father's footsteps? COACH TINKLE: He's such a laid-back individual, I don't think he sees that pressure, doesn't feel it. He's very confident in himself. Really to see it from point A until now, when we got him, his father said very honestly, he wasn't sure he was even a Pac-12 player, and now he's become a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, the only one ever, I think. He's done so many positive things for us. So it's neat to see that progression and the buy-in to working with us, accepting coaching and then taking what he's done back home with his father and their trainers in the off-season and really kind of combining that with the messages we're sending to get to where he is. We know what he does out on the floor as far as the statistics go. But the leadership he's provided that young group especially has been outstanding and is a big, big part of why we played our best at the end of the year. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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