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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: ANAHEIM

March 23, 2016

Lon Kruger

Anaheim, California

THE MODERATOR: Questions coach, an opening statement?

LON KRUGER: Thank you very much. Delighted to be here. NCAA Tournament is a great time of year. Happy for our guys. It's hard to win games in a tournament, so to win a couple to be here, I'm really proud for them. Keep reminding them not to take any of that for granted and enjoy it and tough opponent coming up tomorrow. A&M's a good ballclub. Coach Kennedy does a terrific job. They're big. They do a lot of things well on both ends of the floor. We know we'll have to play well to have a chance.

Q. Coach, what is the latest on Manyang, and have you had a chance to talk to him? And how is he doing right now?
LON KRUGER: He's struggling. It's a tough tragedy. Losing a family member like that, everyone deals with it in a different way. I think the services are not until Saturday, so we'll not have him this week at all. But certainly thinking about him, and his teammates and coaches are in contact with him constantly. But wish we could do more, but it's a tough situation for him.

Q. Coach, what jumps out at you immediately when you turn on the tape and look at Texas A&M?
LON KRUGER: They've got a lot of good players. They are big. Their wings are big. Davis probably does as good a job at the low-post positioning as anyone we've played this year. Their guard play is very good. Defensively they're sound. Coach Kennedy's teams are always well disciplined, tough defensively, good spacing offensively. They can score in a lot of different ways. Just a really good team.

Q. What did you notice, what jumped out at you from A&M's comeback? What kind of coaching tool can you take from that moving forward? How do you think that got your player's attention?
LON KRUGER: We actually halftime left the game in Oklahoma City and drove back to Norman, and we were watching the last 10, 12 minutes from our locker room together with the team. With a couple minutes to go, everyone kind of said, we're going our separate ways and expected it to be Northern Iowa at that point. Then I listened to -- I left also, and I listened to the comeback on radio driving home. Watched the overtimes from home.

But it was a great comeback. They stayed after it. They didn't give up. They kept working. Kept plugging. Got to respect that. Again, either team was going to be a tough challenge, and certainly A&M will be.

Q. Lon, could you, regarding the comeback, you had one yourself at a previous school. Can you put in perspective how difficult that was for them? And might there have been a time in your career earlier before your experience where you would have said, "This ain't happening, we're going to substitute or whatever"?
LON KRUGER: Your first thought is for the Northern Iowa coaches and players. How difficult that is when that happens. It's a hard thing to get over. Then the second thought is, again, applaud A&M for staying after it. They did a good job I think with 44 seconds to go down 10 or down 12, certainly it would be pretty easy to start subbing, not necessarily in the NCAA Tournament. I think you leave -- go to the last second in that case, but typically on the year.

I think after that game probably people won't be subbing for a while. They'll think they've got a chance.

Q. Coach, I asked your players about this as well, but how do you think playing teams like West Virginia helps you prepare for a squad like Texas A&M that press late in that Northern Iowa game and could do the same against your squad tomorrow?
LON KRUGER: Yeah, in the Big 12 you play all different styles. Certainly West Virginia is a pressing team. A&M, typically doesn't press like that. They're down late, of course they will.

But, yeah, the Big 12 prepares you for a lot of different things. West Virginia's press is certainly as good as any in the country.

Q. What are some key things that you need to do against A&M?
LON KRUGER: The list is pretty long. They're big. The rebounding is always a critical spot for us. We'll rebound well for a half and not well for a half. We've got to have 40 minutes of good, focused effort on the boards. Their inside guys, they can post their guards, post Davis of course. Really tough on the interiors. We have to have five guys aware and give good help in there.

We'd like to get ours in transition. We'd like there to be some pace to the game and try to limit them in transition and still they're pretty good in transition as well. So we've got to get it going downhill a little bit, drive and kick, make plays for each other. Nothing different really from what we always try to do. But A&M may pose some opposition to that.

Q. Coach, A&M has done a really good job of maybe not shutting down but slowing down the leading scorer from the other team, guys like Stefan Moody, even Jamal Murray a little bit. Can you talk a little bit on what you've seen on why they're able to do this and what their concentration is maybe?
LON KRUGER: Well, they've got good players. They've got good defensive players. They've got good team scheme. In terms of fundamentally they support each other very well. So if you're good on the ball and you've got good support, that's why they're good defensively.

They've got good size. You can't really isolate any of them in terms of a mismatch. It's just really good defensively.

Q. Coach, what kind of advantage do you think it is that your guys were in this position a year ago? A&M, even though they have seniors, this is their first tournament run; they have not experienced this before. Do you feel like that's a little bit of an advantage?
LON KRUGER: I think the advantage we received from that was just a feeling we had, I think, was motivating during the spring, summer, fall workouts. You know, losing at that point where you are close but you go home instead. I think that had our guys better focused during the off-season to improve, make progress, work at it. I don't think either team will be thinking about it tomorrow. Don't see a big difference there. But I think it was motivating for us in the off-season.

Q. Billy Kennedy said after the win on Sunday that he considers you something of a mentor. Can you share with us some background on that?
LON KRUGER: I've just been a big fan of Billy's from his days early on. He's always done a good job. I have always thought his teams played good basketball. They were very sound defensively. They spaced the floor well offensively. I thought they played the game the right way. Just always respected how he did things. I guess during the course of a year, after a big win I'd send him a note and congratulate him and he'd do the same back. So we've had that type of relationship. I think certainly we've had a great deal of respect for how he does things.

Q. You're obviously playing a Texas A&M squad that's been pretty dominant in the paint throughout the NCAA Tournament. How does Manyang's absence affect you going into that game?
LON KRUGER: Typically we have between Khadeem, Mankin, Jamuni McNeace, and AK, we have three guys that rotate in there. Without AK that becomes two and may slide Ryan Spangler in there a little bit as a third guy. So it hurts a little bit from that rotation standpoint. But we understand the difficulty for AK, and certainly just move on from it.

Q. In the last game you guys got off to a fast start and really got the crowd energized, the home crowd. Obviously, you won't be in front of your home crowd this time, but how important is it going to be to get off to another fast start in a big game like this?
LON KRUGER: Always prefer that for sure, especially in tournament. You like to play from the lead with the margin, typically. You're playing a good team that's going to be good stretches, poor stretches. Anytime you can have a little margin to play with in anticipation of that stretch where the other team gets it going is better.

So anytime you get off to a good start, you like doing that.

Q. Dana Altman, obviously you gave him his first break in the business. Can you reflect on what you knew of him to hire him at K-State and what he was like in his early days coaching with you?
LON KRUGER: Dana's always been fantastic. Really, really good guy. Terrific basketball coach. I think he's done clearly -- maybe he and Bill Self are the two guys in the country this year that have done the best job. When we watched Oregon play, I talked to Dana about every ten days or so throughout the year, and just many times I said over the last two months, "I think you're the best team in the country. I think you've got your guys playing freely with confidence, moving the ball. They're versatile." And he just kept winning, and I kept saying that.

So he's done a great job. He's just done a terrific job.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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