|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 10, 2017Steve ProhmDeonte BurtonMonte MorrisKansas City, Missouri Iowa State - 84, TCU - 63 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with the Cyclones of Iowa State. The head coach, Steve Prohm, student-athletes tonight are Deonte Burton and Monté Morris. Coach, congratulations on the victory tonight, your thoughts? STEVE PROHM: Thank you. This was a great win. I thought from start to finish we got off to a slow start. I thought the game got off to a little slow start. Maybe teams just feeling each other out, but we need to play at a better pace and our guys did that. I thought defensively in the first half we were very good. You look at the numbers, we outrebounded them. We shot more free throws and held them to 39% shooting. That was great for us, a big part of our plan, ball screen defense. Deonte got us going the first half, but all the guys chipped in. I thought this was our most complete from 1 to 8 or 9 tonight when you look at our stat sheet. Great win. We beat a very good team, and now we have to get ready for a great opportunity tomorrow against one of two really good teams. Q. Deonte, first half and second half, you really got things going, 9 of 11 points for Iowa State in the first half, the first 7 in the second half. Was that by design or did it just come to you? DEONTE BURTON: It just came to me. We were playing basketball and I just happened to have -- happened to get the opportunity and took advantage of it. Q. Monte', you're the only one up there from Iowa State who has been here for as many tournaments as you've been here and we've seen you guys go to the championship game two other times in your career. When you guys are playing like this, what is it about this place, this building, this event that seems to bring out the best in you guys? MONTÉ MORRIS: I think we just lean on each other, personally, and we loving and trusting in one another to make plays and we are playing with high energy, and when you got guys like that and we all are pulling for each other, you know, it's easier to win games. Honestly, we got the best fans in the country and they travel well. So it definitely felt like a home game for us and that definitely gets us going like if we have slow starts like we did tonight. But we picked it up, and now we are forty minutes way from a trophy. Q. Whoever you play tomorrow you've got two entirely different styles. Do you have a preference on which style you play who you play tomorrow? DEONTE BURTON: No. Both teams are tough. So it's going to be a great battle whichever team we play. MONTÉ MORRIS: No, it really doesn't matter. We played both teams twice. We know the make-up of both of the teams. It's all about who wins tonight and we got a good coaching staff, mask great coaching staff and they're going to put the agenda to beat that team together whoever it may be. So we've got to watch the game and be ready at 5:00 tomorrow when the ball go up. THE MODERATOR: Okay, guys. We'll let you go back to the locker room. Congratulations on the victory. Questions for Coach? Q. Coach, can you talk about Deonte's effort at the beginning of each half and how much he really got you going? STEVE PROHM: He was great tonight. I thought he was the spark we needed in the first half. We were a little sluggish offensively in the beginning. When we become too set oriented we can become passive. I think those two guys got in some two-man game action which helped us. We move the ball off ball screens. They were trying to hard-hedge Monte', and he hit some pocket passes to Deonte and freed him up for some shots. Deonte has put a lot of time in this spring and summer to become a better shooter and you can see the results. He's had a really good -- this time when we've been playing really good basketball he's been really consistent for us on both ends of the floor and he was really good tonight. Q. What were you concerned about with TCU? I know they beat you guys earlier this year. What was it that they could do that concerned you? STEVE PROHM: You watch games from us from the first half of the conference. We're just a different team. We've changed the way we've played on both ends of the floor to adapt what's best for this team both offensively and defensively. What hurt us at their place was ball screen defense. It was getting spread out, second chance points. I think 54 be points in the paint to where at our place, 36. They rebounded half their misses in Ft. Worth, only a fourth of their rebounds -- in aims, so post defense, doubling the post, ball screen defense and rebounding and trying to keep Alex Robinson and Jaylen Fisher out of transition. Our defense tonight, when it was really good it was really good. The problem is when it's not good against them you can see, you can give up some really easy layups. But I thought defensively the first half and for the complete game we were very good. Q. Usually I try find a sequence, some key sequence in the game, but it just seemed like when you got going after that slow start there was key sequence after key sequence. Is that how you felt about it? STEVE PROHM: It was 4-4, then 8-8. Then it was be 11-10, 13-10, then it started to go our way, 16-10. Guys were making shots, making the extra pass. But I think when we're very good defensively, when we're in gaps, when our ball screen coverage is good and when we are rebounding the way this team is best is when we're playing with Monte' and Naz pushing the ball and making the extra pass and playing against broken defense. When we're doing that we're a very good offensive team. Q. West Virginia and Kansas State play entirely different games. Do you have a preference and does it make it hard not knowing until after 9:00 tonight? STEVE PROHM: It doesn't make it hard. I'm glad my guys answered the question the same way I'm going to answer the question. We don't have a preference. Both teams are very good. They're both very well-coached. We just played West Virginia, so, you know, obviously we know their strengths and weaknesses and they know ours. We played Kansas State a couple of weeks ago. They are two different, two totally different game plans. But you know what you're going to do right now. I'll watch this game tonight and whoever we play I'll watch our last game against them and then we will meet again in the morning. We won't show tape to the guys tonight. I want them to watch this game and go to bed, and we will have our edit before then when we have breakfast we will show our edit, but doesn't matter. We got a great opportunity and at 5:00 we've got to play really well to beat either team. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. Good luck tomorrow at the championship game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|