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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 2, 2017

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

THE MODERATOR: Co-champions of the league and No. 2 seeded Wichita Shockers are with us. Landry Shamet, Markis McDuffie join us. We'll start with an opening statement by Coach Gregg Marshall.

GREGG MARSHALL: I think we've had a nice year up to this point. We've gotten better throughout the course of this season. We don't have a recruited senior scholarship player. So basically, we had a junior class, a couple of sophomores, including Markis, and then some freshmen, a couple of JUCOs, and we had to just develop them.

The trip to Canada helped. We saw what we weren't doing well. We were able to work on that all fall and emphasize our deficiencies, and we played pretty well as the year's gone on. We keep getting better. It will be interesting to see how hungry we are in this tournament and how much we want to win.

Q. Gregg, at the luncheon, you mentioned pace slowing down, scores lower in tournament play. Why is that? Why does that seem to happen in these kinds of things?
GREGG MARSHALL: It's just my perspective on postseason basketball over the years. I've been doing this for 32 years. I've seen a lot of postseason basketball, and by and large, it's less transition and more half-court. I don't know why that is, but that's just my -- from my vantage point, that's what I've seen. Usually, that holds true.

We'll try it out in transition. We'll try to get some stops and steals. It makes it a lot easier when you can score without attacking a set defense.

Generally, you're going to see more half-court, who can execute better, who's going to limit the other team to one shot and secure that defensive rebound? They get an opportunity to go grind on the other end.

Q. Gregg, one of your potential opponents tomorrow, Bradley, has made some strides during the course of this season. Could you kind of, from your vantage point through seeing them in person and on video, kind of trace their development and what sorts of problems they might present to you tomorrow?
GREGG MARSHALL: I saw a team at our place -- you know, they had started with a bunch of freshmen the year before, Brian's first year, and then there was a second group of freshmen coming in right behind them. So the first time I had seen kids like Brown and Kennell and Koch Bar was at our place, and they didn't fare well, but they were very, very good at their place a month later, whatever it was. So right there I saw some development with his team.

Talked to Brian after the game. I said, man, you've got some good young players. They started winning down the stretch in the conference regular season. So they almost got out of the Thursday round, which would have been an accomplishment with that young team.

Who knows who's going to win tomorrow because Drake's had their moments as well. Either way, we're going to have to play well to win. This time of year, everybody's a little bit desperate, and a team like Bradley gets hot, plays three straight days of really good basketball, who knows how far they can go? But their first objective will be to beat Drake, and if they can beat Drake, then they'll try to beat us.

Q. Coach, as you mentioned, teams tend to play better this time of year, especially in this tournament. Why is that? Is it facing a team a third time? What is it that makes it so difficult to get wins in this tournament?
GREGG MARSHALL: I think, going back to what I said the last question, there's eight teams today in this league that have no shot of going to the NCAA Tournament unless they win this tournament. There's two that hope that they can get there without winning the tournament, but there's no guarantee. So there's a desperate feel in the air. Teams that want to go to the NCAA Tournament understand what that's like.

I've got guys in my program that have never been. Landry Shamet's never played in an NCAA Tournament, but he certainly has an opportunity.

But to secure that 100 percent, not have to wait for a week on the pundits and the experts and the selections committee, we need to win three games this weekend.

Q. Landry, when you start thinking about tournament basketball and maybe more half-court grinding, that kind of thing, what's that mean from a player perspective? How do you -- I don't know if you adjust or prepare. How do you get ready for that kind of scenario?
LANDRY SHAMET: Well, I mean, it's just being a basketball player, adjusting to your opponent, adjusting to the game, the flow of the game, and just knowing what you got to do coming into the game to beat the opponent. I think we've got guys on our team that understand and can pick up on things like that and be able to adjust and do things like that to get a win.

Q. Gregg, given what your team has accomplished this season -- 17-1, tying for the league title, the nonconference schedule that you put together, all that you've done in the development of the team -- how frustrating is it to reach this point and still have that uncertainty, that question mark hanging over you as you come into this weekend in terms of what's next after this weekend in the NCAA?
GREGG MARSHALL: It's frustrating. I mean, you -- I've watched this team evolve, and I've been around some really good teams. I've been around an undefeated team, 35-0 to start a season. I've been around a Final Four team. I've been around a Sweet 16 team. I've been around NBA guys.

I've seen this team go from a very inexperienced group, somewhat immature and not very tough -- on our Canadian trip this summer, gave up over 80 points a game -- to a team that is on par defensively with some of the teams that we've had in the last handful of seasons which are historically, in terms of points allowed per game and defensive field goal percentage and rebounding margin, some of the best that have ever played in this league.

But what has been most gratifying is to see how offensively we have developed as a unit. They share the basketball. They take care of the basketball. Our assist-to-turnover ratio is better than it was when we had two NBA guards in the backcourt last year. We have balanced scoring. I mean, Markis leads us. I can't even tell you what he averages, but it's not 15 points a game. We've got five or six guys that are all right there at the same level.

So we're a dangerous offensive team, and we've scored 80 points or more 20-something times. So I'm just -- all I can say to those people that say that is just watch our team play. I've said that over and over and over. If you have doubts, watch our team play. If you still have doubts, then either we had a really bad game, or maybe you don't know that much about basketball.

Q. Markis and Landry, could you -- I guess I'm curious. You don't have as much mileage on your legs now here in March as maybe some other players do because of the depth on this team. Do you feel maybe fresher or spryer just because of how the season's played out?
THE MODERATOR: Markis first and then Landry.

MARKIS McDUFFIE: I don't think it's any different. Whoever's out there is going to do what they have to do. That's Coach's decision to put in whoever he wants to put in. So we're just going to continue to do what we have to do.

LANDRY SHAMET: Yeah, with the depth we have, I think it definitely helps. That's another advantage of us being a potential tournament team. We've got a lot of guys that are, like Coach said, they can play at a high level with no drop-off, depending on who's in the game. So it definitely does help being deep with minutes and fresher legs, like you said, Paul.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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