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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 4, 2017

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Illinois State - 63

Southern Illinois - 50

THE MODERATOR: The victorious Redbirds are here, No. 1 seed, getting to the championship game tomorrow. MiKyle McIntosh, Tony Wills, and Paris Lee represent the student body for Illinois State. Dan Muller is the head coach. We'll ask for a statement on this game.

DAN MULLER: Obviously, we shot the heck out of the ball. I think we made eight threes in the first half, or nine, whatever it was. We were pretty locked in.

I want to credit Barry and Southern Illinois for the way they played the game and the way he coaches. He does a terrific job, and they compete like crazy.

But we shot it well. Our bench was terrific. Again, I really liked our minutes. It was a good game for us.

Q. For the players, could you guys kind of tell during pregames or anything like that that you guys were, as the Coach said, locked in?
THE MODERATOR: MiKyle, you start. Tony finish.

MiKYLE McINTOSH: I feel like, in warmups, I think we came with the right mindset. We were coming in and hitting shots, and everybody was getting loose. We had our trainer here with us, Ryan, our strength and conditioning trainer, and he was getting us loose. I think we did a good job with that and just focusing on the game plan and listening to what Coach had to say before the game.

TONY WILLS: Yeah, I kind of agree with MiKyle. I think the coaching staff did a good job preparing us. So, yeah, credit to them.

Q. MiKyle, you had a much bigger game than you did yesterday, scoring 14 points, whereas yesterday you scored 5. Where was your head at coming into today's game?
MiKYLE McINTOSH: Just to be more aggressive, not to pass up shots or anything like that, but just try to be more aggressive on the offensive end and realize when to take a shot and when not to.

Q. Tony, last week Coach Hinson said they basically left you uncovered and almost dared you to shoot. Did you think they were going to do that again today? Especially you came out firing really the first couple shots too.
TONY WILLS: Well, yeah, I wasn't for sure. I just tried to keep taking care of the process. You know, my teammates, they always tell me to just shoot it with confidence. The coach has got unbelievable trust in me, and they tell me to shoot it with confidence. So I just try to take the right shots.

Q. Paris, you're 8 for 12 from the field. You had five assists. Is that something that your coaching staff as well as yourself wanted to do for this tournament? You kind of draw the strength for this team. Is that kind of how you want to lead this team the rest of this tournament?
PARIS LEE: For sure. I'm the type of player, I like to see my teammates get going, whether it's Deontae on the block, MiKyle on the wing, Tony on the wing, wherever it's going. And then when it's my time to take my shot, just be ready to knock them down.

Q. Paris, a year ago you said you wanted to get Illinois State back, and you promised you would get back to this game. Now that you're going back, what are your feelings?
PARIS LEE: We're just going to keep playing the right way, play Illinois State ball, just keep chopping wood. We're not going to do nothing different.

Q. Paris, there's a substantial amount of ISU fans here today. Can you talk about that a little bit, what that means to you.
PARIS LEE: That means a lot to us, man. Just to see our fans out here supporting us and just traveling with us. That gives us a lot of energy, and we feed off of the fans. So shout out to Illinois State fans.

Q. MiKyle, could you describe how this team has evolved, how it's changed since the very first game of the season back on November 11th.
MiKYLE McINTOSH: I think our team changed a lot from the beginning of the season because we went through a lot of different things, different losses, different wins, and just practices we went through. I think our team grew from all the losses that we had, and from the practices we had, I think our team just grew together and became more like brothers than anything.

We learned that we can't do without playing defense or we can't do without being there for each other. So I think that's one of the things that I see from our team now is that we're more together. We look out for each other, and we take more pride in our defense.

Q. MiKyle, I don't want to assume anything about the winner of the next game, but you didn't play in that first game -- or second game against Wichita State. Can you just kind of describe, when you were watching that game, what was kind of going through your mind in Wichita.
MiKYLE McINTOSH: I just wanted to be out there and help my teammates win. Nothing else. I just wanted to be out there to help them get the win. It was unfortunate that I was unable to be out there, but I was just looking forward to hopefully playing them again, and now we are. So I was looking forward to it.

DAN MULLER: We don't know who we're playing yet.

MiKYLE McINTOSH: If we play them. Sorry.

Q. Paris, can you talk about Madison Williams. You call him your little brother. For him to pretty much hold his own on defense today and good playing time too with 20 minutes.
PARIS LEE: Correction. That's my grandson. No, Madison Williams, man, he's just a spark off the bench, man. Every team needs a player like Madison Williams, who he's relentless. He's not scared of anything. Sometimes he loses confidence when he makes a mistake, but that's what we're here for to help him out. But Madison Williams, he's definitely a pitbull on defense.

Q. Paris, you obviously talk about are you in, are you not. What does that mean to you guys up there now that you can control your own destiny and take care of it and get the automatic bid tomorrow?
PARIS LEE: We really don't listen to it. We hear about it, but we don't listen to it, whether we're in or not. Our next goal is just to make sure we try our hardest to win the next game.

Q. Paris, that was probably the best first half really you guys have had in quite a while. How important was that just to maybe set the tone even for tomorrow's game?
PARIS LEE: Well, like I always say, it started with the leadership of the team. Coming in, even this morning, I texted Tony, MiKyle, and Deontae and just told them you've got to make sure everybody is locked in. And I think we all did a good job of making sure everybody was locked in and focused, whether it was on the bus, pregame, even in the locker room and the Coach wasn't even there. I feel like the voice in the locker room really helped us set the tone first half.

Q. Again, this question is if. If you play Wichita State. Tony, just walking out of the arena that day in Wichita, what was kind of the feeling about possibly playing them again?
TONY WILLS: Good question. I don't know. We really wasn't thinking about it. We knew we just got to take one game at a time.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, Coach Wills, thank you (laughter).

Q. Dan, just kind of on the first half there, did you feel that was kind of your best first half in a while? Did you kind of sense that maybe coming today?
DAN MULLER: You know, it's hard to sense. I knew we were ready. I knew we were ready yesterday. It's hard to predict with this team when we're going to make shots. We don't have -- we've got a bunch of guys that are really good shooters. We don't have guys that every single night we're just going to hit four, five threes individually. Clearly, when you make shots, you look better.

The second half at Northern Iowa was really good. Played two solid halves yesterday of good basketball, but certainly that was a great half for us. But, again, any team that makes nine threes in a half is going to look good.

I thought our rim protection was good in the first half. I thought our bench was great again. I did like the look we've had. We've had that look other nights. We just haven't made those shots. These guys are -- as we say, we're pretty locked in right now. Doesn't mean we're going to play great every day, but first 27 minutes we did.

Q. Dan, MiKyle and Paris played 15 and 17 minutes respectively, yet they both scored in double figures. With that said, you're getting quality minutes from your team. I wanted you just to talk about the conditioning of your team and how important being the No. 1 seed coming into this weekend was for you guys.
DAN MULLER: We talked about the time of the games and how much it could help us. I liked our minutes yesterday. We got a lot of rest afterwards, some work on their bodies, got them off their feet, and I think that helped us today.

The fact that we looked down, and it's 24, 24, 25, and as you said, two of our starters played less than 20, you would think that would help us for tomorrow. And as you said, very productive minutes. So we're as healthy as we've been. It allows us to play Madison more. Our bench is really good.

And now we get to go into tomorrow's game, I think -- and I don't have to worry about minutes. I just play who I think needs to be in the game.

Q. Dan, you guys didn't shoot a free throw the whole game. Have you ever been in a game where you won that you didn't shoot a free throw? Did that catch your attention at the end of the game? You looked at the stats and said, we didn't shoot a free throw.
DAN MULLER: I think when I was in fifth grade, we had no free-throw attempts. That is amazing. Obviously, we shot a lot of jumpers, but we -- no, it's a wild stat. I don't remember a game, win or lose, that we have not shot one free throw.

Q. Coach, I thought your team came out with really strong defensive intensity just right out of the gate. How much did that defensive effort and focus lead to the strong offensive first half that you had?
DAN MULLER: I'd like to say a lot, but we've had a lot of great defensive efforts where our offense didn't flow. One doesn't always result in the other. They help. We did get the ball on the break a couple times on some blocks and some rebounds. You know, our defense, we had them at about 26 percent with about ten minutes left in the game, and we were really guarding. I thought their game yesterday, they had some tired guys. I think that affected them also.

But our defense is pretty consistent. I think we're third or fourth in the country in defense, field goal percentage. And you're not going to be there unless every game you're guarding pretty well.

Q. Dan, what's the hardest part about playing three games in three days?
DAN MULLER: There's the physical fatigue, if it's a factor. Two years ago we played two really tough first games. I thought I saw that fatigue in the first half of the Sunday game. I don't think that should be an issue this time.

Once you get past that, if your minutes are okay, it's just staying focused for -- what would that be? Around 50 -- how many hours would that be? 48, 50, whatever, 65 hours straight just to stay focused and be locked in for that long. It's hard to do. It just is.

Make sure you don't get too high off wins. Make sure, if you have a bad game, that you can come back the next day. It's always a mental thing as long as your minutes are okay.

The leadership we have on this team, the entire year and right now, is high level. So I don't worry about that one bit. But it will be important for our guys to stay focused. Of course they're going to be focused. It's a big game. Well, they're still 20 years old. So I think they will, but it's not easy.

Q. Coach, how would you evaluate how Daouda has progressed from the beginning until now?
DAN MULLER: He's doing well. He topped our team in minutes today. He played 25 minutes. He's so good at rim protection. He only had three blocks. It felt like he had ten. He just developed with this confidence. You know, he's not going to score a ton, but he's a threat at the rim. He's rebounding the ball better.

In the first half, he still had balls you see, and he kind of has them, and he bobbled them a little bit. He started getting those the second half.

We really missed him. He didn't play the first nine games of the year. We really missed him. He gives us great depth. A little different feel on the defensive end, and I'm really proud of his growth. It's been fun to watch.

Q. Dan, how would you describe how the team has evolved and improved since that very first game back in November?
DAN MULLER: They talked about it. We had three close losses at the beginning of the year. Daouda wasn't playing yet. Tony wasn't near 100. He was probably 60 percent. But all three games we lost, we had the lead with 1:30 left, and our defense let us down. Whether it was that last 1:30, the last five minutes with bigger leads. We certainly -- the players made a commitment to the defensive end after our third loss at Tulsa, and it's just shown.

Our leadership has been good since the summer. Our buy-in has been good since the summer. They've liked each other as much as any team I've been on since the summer, but I think that commitment to the defensive end was made clear when we lost games, period. Ball carrying defense. That's why we lost in the last minute of the game.

Q. Dan, the term chopping wood that you use repeatedly, your players use it repeatedly, where does it come from? I've heard it. I understand. But where did you start using? Where did it come from as part of your program?
DAN MULLER: Well, each year we actually have a different theme. So this is the chopping wood theme. We just with my coaches try to figure out the best kind of theme to have for each year specific to the team we have. In the end, everything we have is about taking care of the process. We just have different ways of saying it.

This year we all had -- we had them all read a book. There's not always a book to read for the themes we have. It's a terrific book, "Chop Wood, Carry Water". You should get it. Yeah, I'm not joking. It is not a good book, but a great book. And our guys have bought in. They've bought in every year. Last year was don't let go of the rope, but it's all about taking care of the process. That's it. It's just a different way to phrase it, a different way to say it so you're not always saying take care of the process because players stop listening to stuff like that.

It's been our focus the entire year, but really the last two weeks. We've really focused on that. We say it every day. We say it in practice. We say it in the locker room. We say it in time-outs, and the players say it.

Q. Some of them are still saying take care of the process, by the way.
DAN MULLER: We mix that in. We do say that. I say chop wood nine times in a row, and then I mix it up.

Q. Did you specifically tell MiKyle today he needed to be more aggressive than he was yesterday?
DAN MULLER: Yes and no. I mean, we tell MiKyle to be aggressive every game. I've been telling the entire team to be aggressive. Our offense is better now with MiKyle back, but it's also better now because everybody is ready to make a play. We had a stretch where we were expecting Paris to make every play for a while. So MiKyle fits in that.

He's a really good shooter. He doesn't shoot enough threes. He did tonight. But it also opens up the court when you have other guys make a bunch of shots. Not in particular. He's encouraged to be aggressive every single game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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