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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 4, 2017

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Wichita State - 78

Missouri State - 63

THE MODERATOR: The co-champions of the Missouri Valley Conference are with us, the No. 2 seed Wichita State Shockers. Markis McDuffie, Shaquille Morris, Conner Frankamp represent the student-athletes. Gregg Marshall, the head coach, is ready for a statement on this game.

GREGG MARSHALL: First of all, I'd like to congratulate Missouri State on a very hard fought game. I thought they had a great game plan. They worked extremely hard. The game ended up being 15, but I thought it was a very close game and a very well played game on both ends. They're a young team. They keep getting better. I think they've got a bright future.

We're pleased to be going to Sunday. We'll just leave it at that.

Q. Markis, you kind of had that burst, a couple threes and a long two that got some separation. Kind of take us through what you were seeing at that point in the game.
MARKIS McDUFFIE: When Alize hit that three on me, I had to get him back. And then they had their hands down, so I just decided -- I hit one, so I'm like see if I can hit another one. Then I started feeling it, so I started gaining more confidence.

I didn't want to rush anything after that. So I just tried to move the ball and everything. I'm trying to win, same way they all are.

Q. Conner, could you kind of describe -- looked like switching defense, Missouri State switching defense kind of slowed things down, maybe threw you guys off a little bit. Just kind of describe their defensive plan and how that affected things tonight.
CONNER FRANKAMP: Yeah, they had a pretty good defensive game plan in the first half and the second half. They switched it up from zone to man pretty quickly. If we threw it high post, they went to man right away. Kind of took us a little bit to get adjusted to that, but once we got used to it, we got in a rhythm, and it helped us out.

Q. For all the players, I think most people came here expecting Wichita State-Illinois State to get to the finals. Is that what you guys were wanting? How much are you looking forward to playing them for a third time?
THE MODERATOR: We'll have Shaquille and then come over to Conner.

SHAQUILLE MORRIS: I mean, for me, it's not even about Illinois State or Wichita State. Anybody could have won. It's just about winning. I've been here. Personally, this is my fourth year in a row. Three years playing and not making it to the championship game in those three years. So we just want to win it all.

We haven't officially cut down nets, so that's what it's about to me.

CONNER FRANKAMP: Exactly what Shaq said. We're excited we're playing them, but we can only control what we can control. It will be a big game tomorrow, but we feel like we'll be ready for it.

Q. For Shaquille, you had 16 points in the second half. What were you able to do against their defense to find maybe some soft spots and get going offensively?
SHAQUILLE MORRIS: Our coaches did a great job of running and executing our plays to give me the ball, and the weak spots in the zone. My teammates just found me and kind of got me going and got my confidence up. So that was pretty much it.

Q. Only one conference game has been within single digits since the first meeting with Illinois State. What did that matchup spur adjustment-wise?
MARKIS McDUFFIE: None. I mean, we just continued -- can you ask that question again?

Q. Basically, what adjustments did you make after the first meeting with Illinois State?
MARKIS McDUFFIE: Oh, I mean, we didn't make many adjustments. We just had to be a tougher team. You know, the first time down there, we were still growing. We were still getting better. We just kept working.

I think we're coming to our peak right now, and I think we can only go up. We're going to continue to do that.

Q. Shaquille, you mentioned earlier that this was your fourth time, and you want to see that you guys cut down the nets tomorrow. Is that something personally that you're putting on your shoulders this weekend to make it happen?
SHAQUILLE MORRIS: I mean, it's just us as a team. We just -- we always got a chip on our shoulder. For being the best team in the Valley, winning the Valley three years in a row, back to back to back, and then sharing it with Illinois State, we had a lot of doubters of us winning it. So now we just want to let the doubters down and just win it all. So that's pretty much it. It's a team thing.

Personally, you know, I just want to win. You know it's in my blood, but it's in my brothers' too. So we just try to come and give it all we got.

Q. Markis, Alize Johnson had three offensive rebounds. I think he got two of those real late. He had one for most of the game. I know keeping him off the boards on the offense was a big goal. Describe what you do to kind of keep him from hurting you that way.
MARKIS McDUFFIE: He's a great player, great rebounder. Kudos to him. I just had to anticipate the shot and make sure I had to check him out every time the shot go up. I mean, sometimes he'd try to catch me, and I had to make sure I was able to box him out. It was tough boxing him out, but I want to win. So I'm going to do whatever it takes.

Q. Gregg, you get behind 9-0, but this is a team that literally time after time all season long has shot itself back into contention, shot itself the big lead. You never get, I would guess, not too panicked when something like that happens.
GREGG MARSHALL: Well, it was 9-0 and, I think, 12-2. They came out and punched first, and they did a great job of that. They started in zone, which is what they did a week ago when we really shot it well and won by 15 or 17, something like that, maybe 19. So we really anticipated them going man to man, but they stuck with their zone.

The first four minutes, we weren't very good, but then we loosened it up. We were able to get Shaq established inside. For the rest of the game, he drew a lot of fouls. He scored. When he stopped fading away, he scored.

Rauno scored once. Darral scored a couple of times. Kelly scored. The jump shots started falling as well. Conner and Daishon hit one. Landry hit a couple. The offense got going, and we played great until the middle part of the first half until the last couple of minutes, and we made a few mental mistakes. We were sloppy with the ball. And cut it to three at halftime. Very pleased with the way we continued to play in the second half.

Q. Coach Gregg, you mentioned about Conner hitting some big shots for you and some shots started falling. Conner really hit some big threes for you at some of the most opportune times at the floor of this game. Could you talk about that a little bit.
GREGG MARSHALL: He's as good a shooter as I've ever been around. I've been doing this now 32 years. When the ball comes out of his hand, it looks like it's going in from my vantage point. He can really score off the bounce. For a 6 foot, 6'1" kid, he can really score off the bounce. We isolate him sometimes at the end of the clock, just flat, which he's knocked down a big three. At that point, I thought the game was over.

But he's a tremendously skilled and talented young man. He can play golf, scratch golfer. He's a great ping pong player. He's got great hand-eye.

Q. How much time do you spend fretting or worrying about are shots going to fall? It would seem like that would be low on your list of concerns. You're more concerned with are we executing? Are we playing defense? Is that kind of an accurate way to describe it?
GREGG MARSHALL: I'm just like you. When that ball is in the air, I don't know how long the average three-pointer is in the air. I guess it depends on the trajectory. I try to line it up and see if it's on line. Is it going to be long or short? When that's going on, I'm looking at who's establishing defensive rebound position.

Just like you, that second and a half, two seconds that that ball's in the air, you're just hopeful. It's an interesting feeling as a coach when you really have no control over it. It's just watching the ball float through the air, and hopefully it has the right trajectory and arc and rotation and all that.

I knew we shot the ball very well last Saturday to win by, what was it, 19. I'm thinking, well, if we don't shoot it quite as well and everything else being the same, it's going to be a little closer game. We ended up shooting it well. But I thought they played well. I really did. I told Paul that after the game.

Jarred Dixon was really good. Alize Johnson is a tremendously talented youngster. They had a good game plan. They were really tough today.

Q. Gregg, Illinois State handled your team at their place. You more than handled them at your place. What do you anticipate tomorrow? Is this the game you hoped to have?
GREGG MARSHALL: I have no idea. It's two good teams going at it. I don't coach their team. I can only game plan for my team. Then I have to react to what they do, and they have to react to what we do. They've got talented guys. They've got size. They've got athleticism and skill. We have the same. So it should be two heavyweights going at it, slug fest, and hopefully we make more plays than they do and shoot the ball well and have a better game plan and come out on top.

Q. Shaq's had his ups and downs. He's playing really well now. Do you think about those kinds of things? You see him out there. He's doing the post-game interview. He's doing really well in this important game. Do you think about the progress he's made in his time?
GREGG MARSHALL: I absolutely do. That's a great question. I actually mentioned that to a couple of the referees as he was making his free throws and rebounding the ball and commanding post position and blocking shots and securing the loose ball. He was really, really good today. I mentioned it to two referees that rotated in front of me as he was shooting free throws. I said, you would not believe how far that kid has come.

You know, it's a testament to him sticking it out. There was a few times where I'm not sure that I wanted him around, and I'm not sure he wanted to be around, but we both got through it. And here's -- the end of the story is we both worked together, and he's come a long, long way as a young man, as a student, as a person.

He never did anything illegal, it's just little -- trying to get over on people and not quite really ready to work the way we like guys in our program to work. But he's developed that begrudgingly, and I'm really proud to see him have success now. He'll graduate, and that was very doubtful early on. And now he's really playing well at a very high level.

I think he'll be a pro for however long he wants to play, whatever country he wants to play in. I'm not sure he's an NBA guy. But it's been a success story to this point.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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