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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 3, 2017

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Wichita State - 82

Bradley - 56

THE MODERATOR: The second seeded Shockers are here. Darral Willis, Jr. and Rashard Kelly represent the student-athletes. Gregg Marshall, the head coach, is in the middle. We'll ask Gregg to start with a statement on the game.

GREGG MARSHALL: Well, I thought we played very well from about the first media time-out on. We were a little -- had a little jitters at that point early, but after that we shared the basketball. We really rebounded it well. Our defense was very good. We come away with a 26-point win. So we'll take it.

Q. Rashard, looked like Wichita State kind of got going with some energy when you came in. I know that's kind of what you think your role is. Kind of describe how you helped get that game going in a better direction for the Shockers.
RASHARD KELLY: Earlier in pregame, Coach was asking us what could we do to affect the game today? That was one of the things I told him I wanted to be able to do, just to communicate as much as possible. And I think, when I communicate, that helps gets us going. So I just did what I was asked to do today, honestly.

Q. Darral, big rebounding advantage, big advantage at the foul line. Did you think that your height, Wichita State's height in the lane was where you could really make some damage against Bradley?
DARRAL WILLIS, JR.: Yeah. Coach really stressed us going to the offensive rebound glass and everything like that. He just wanted us to beat them on the offensive glass and rebound more the second half, so I guess that's what we did.

Q. Darral, I think they're double-teams in Peoria were kind of effective. Were you guys ready for the double-teams? I know you had one play and spun away and made a nice pass to somebody.
DARRAL WILLIS, JR.: Rashard.

Q. Yeah, Rashard. Dealing with the double-teams, was that part of the task for the big men tonight?
DARRAL WILLIS, JR.: We knew it was coming. So we practiced on it yesterday a lot. So we was ready for it.

Q. Rashard, you've played in this tournament now several times. Is there anything to just getting the jitters out, being comfortable on that floor, getting through kind of the first game kind of a thing?
RASHARD KELLY: Well, we've been working since June together as a team. We really didn't accomplish our goal yet. So that's what we're working on now. We kind of broke down our season into different segments and different things we wanted to grade ourselves on, and this is just another segment we're working on together as a team. So I think our mental preparation and our mental focus going into this tournament is kind of helping us move forward.

Q. Darral, can you describe the first ten minutes or so? It was kind of a defensive battle there. The other team was getting a lot done offensively. Was Bradley doing anything differently during that stretch, and what did you guys do to change the tempo?
DARRAL WILLIS, JR.: Well, like Coach said, this is a chance for everybody to get to March Madness. So we're going to get like everyone's best effort. So at first it was playing good defense, and Coach made substitutions. Rashard came in, and he just energized guys. He's the one that got us going and everything like that.

Q. For both of players, yesterday Gregg mentioned he'd be interested to see how hungry this team was. Do you feel like you guys did play with that kind of desire?
RASHARD KELLY: Well, yesterday -- Coach do a great job of challenging us every day. I mean, he don't allow us to slack off one minute. So I think that's just kind of our everyday preparation. And everything going to be Ps and Qs and easy or look good. So I think our energy, we control our energy and our effort. So we just got to keep building and never be satisfied.

DARRAL WILLIS, JR.: Like Rashard said, we've just got to keep building. Not settle for anything, get to where we want to get.

Q. Gregg, can you talk about your exchange with Brown after the intentional foul and then the reaction of Brian Wardle?
GREGG MARSHALL: Yeah, I just -- I thought he could have displayed a little more restraint. I basically said, hey, can you do that? And Brian didn't like it. Was that the most important thing you saw out there? That's quite a question. We scored 82 also.

Q. Yesterday you mentioned you'd be interested to see how hungry the team was. Was that kind of your way of challenging them, or had you seen something you didn't like in the lead-up to this?
GREGG MARSHALL: We had beaten this team twice. It's hard to beat a team three times, the old cliche. They'd been playing well, four-game win streak for them. I read somewhere it's been like 2008 or something, 2009 since they've done that. So we watched the videotape, and we thought they were playing very well or better.

You have to have a mental edge. You can't go in with young people thinking it's going to be easy. It's never easy.

Q. Gregg, what about the bench play tonight? 45 points off the bench. Two double-figure scorers came off the bench. Has that been pretty characteristic of your team this year? Seems like you can expand the lead when you go to your reserves.
GREGG MARSHALL: It really is. This team is really deep. I thought even our third group was effective. I mean, they weren't -- they didn't give up a lot of ground. The second unit, as we talked about, Kelly gave us a lot of energy. Darral was very efficient tonight offensively. We rebounded the ball extremely well from those spots. Daishon was running the team pretty well. Austin was okay. And I guess Rauno didn't have his best game, but he was okay.

They've all helped us. They've all been interviewed after games and have been players of the game. We have a very deep team, and I feel very confident that I can go 10 or 11 deep at any given time.

Q. How did you feel the big guys handled the double-team from Bradley?
GREGG MARSHALL: Not very well on the first four or five minutes. After that, we got a couple of good looks. We shared the basketball. Usually, we have a better assist-to-turnover ratio, but we turned it over five or six times before the first media. So we slowed down at that point and didn't turn it over quite as much.

We got the ball inside. You can't get to the foul line unless you drive it or get the ball to the block. It's evidenced by 45 free-throw attempts. We were getting the ball inside. Occasionally, their double-teams work. Sometimes it didn't. It's feast or famine at times. But we were certainly content on continuing to go inside.

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