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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN DIEGO

March 15, 2018

San Diego, California

THE MODERATOR: The student-athletes, Jon Elmore, C.J. Burks and Ajdin Penava. We will open it up immediately to the student-athletes.

Q. Jon, or any of you, Coach Dan D'Antoni seems like a character. Is he what he happens to be on the outside? Does he have that personality? Do you guys see that from him?
JON ELMORE: I would say that's a perfect word for him. He's a character. He loves what he does. He's passionate about it, but he has fun doing it. So you see him smiling on the sidelines, joking with the fans during the game. Sometimes we will look over and be like, Coach, what are you doing? Because he will be behind the bench talking to people. He has fun with it. He jokes around a lot. But when he needs to be serious he's serious and his players love him. We speak really highly of him.

Q. What do you guys think of that suit, t-shirt combo that he was rockin' a few times? And I would like C.J. to follow-up.
JON ELMORE: We think it looks good, man, you see a lot of people crackin' on him, chanting where's your tie and stuff like that. But he's comfortable and thinks it's a good look and we've all accepted it and think it looks good. So more power to him.

C.J. BURKS: It does look good. It's very in style. It's a different style. It's a very well-liked. It looks different, so he likes it a lot and he's very comfortable. Looks very good.

Q. Ajdin Penava, how do you get from your home in Bosnia to Marshall? How do you make that decision?
AJDIN PENAVA: Well, that's hard question because I'm not really sure a lot of people ask me that and I don't know how to answer that question. All I can say, it was a big difference. I was probably like homesick, seriously homesick for a year, year and a half. But, you know, I have good people around me. I had coaches and teammates that really supported me, so that made a difference and made the transition a lot easier than it was supposed to be.

Q. You guys have really finished strong, even before winning the three games in the conference tournament. If you would comment on just maybe what was a key turning point, something that's happened that's really lit this team up?
JON ELMORE: It's been a roller coaster of a season. We dropped some games that we probably should have won and lost a couple that we probably should have won, so it's been tough and it's been streaky. I think we're hitting our stride. I know everybody is getting comfortable. I know it's 30-some games in the season. But, I think we're getting better and it's cool to see. I think we're getting hot at the right time. We have tough competition coming up, but we're going in focused and I think we're going to play the style of Marshall basketball that we can be successful with.

Q. How would you describe your coach's style of play or philosophy? Is it fun? The connection to the NBA, is that a factor in liking what he does?
JON ELMORE: I would say it's the most fun style of play in the country. I've seen a lot of college teams play and I might be biased, but I think we have the most fun. We shoot a ton of threes, throw alley-oops. The crowd gets fired up. Personally I think it's the best and it's kind of funny we will be watching NBA games in the locker room or talking about the highlights before on SportsCenter and we run a lot of NBA plays. Everything Houston does we do, the D'Antonis of course, and you will see Golden State running our plays and we will run their plays. Then you will see Cleveland running some of that stuff and it's very pro oriented. That is where they came up was in the pros. I think it shocks a lot of college teams when they play us or see what we do because it's getting integrated into the college system and we're one of the first teams to do that.

Q. C.J., as a young kid growing up in West Virginia your thoughts about your goals for your basketball life and obviously they must be coming true with this trip to the NCAA Tournament?
C.J. BURKS: Definitely is, being a kid growing up from West Virginia, being overlooked all my life and we have a lot of players on our team that have been overlooked as well. But it definitely playing with a chip on our shoulder and moments like this, just been watching this all my life and watching the tournament growing up and being like, man I want to be in that tournament and it's a big accomplishment as a little kid watching an NCAA Tournament like that. So this is a big blessing and very, very ready for the task.

Q. Jon or anybody want to jump in on this, all of you are juniors, but you've got a pretty young team and you're going against probably the most experienced team on your schedule, definitely looks like the most experienced team in Wichita State under Gregg Marshall. When you take the court are against a team that experienced what can you tell right off the bat?
JON ELMORE: I would say it's a matter of focus. With our young guys and kinda early on in the season we had our bumps, but as the season progressed, you see those young guys learning. They're sharper, more fluent in what we want to do, are more fluid. But you look at a team like Wichita, veterans, they have that program history where they come in every year and expect to make that run in the tournament. So that's a team that you can kind of look up if to in a way going through the year and as you raise your program. Now we're to the point where we want to beat times like that. Wichita is a class act. You never hear anything bad. You only hear how good they are and how great their players are.

So we have strived to do that and we're getting to the point where we want to beat teams like Wichita, have a better program than them so when we take court tomorrow our young guys are going to be old guys. They aren't going to be freshmen anymore that looked shaky at the beginning of the year. Our veterans have done a good job of leading them throughout the year, so I'm confident in them and I think we're going to excite people and change some people's opinion on Marshall basketball.

Q. How many of you guys have been to San Diego before this? Will you have anytime to see the city? Is it going to be all basketball, hotel, and film?
JON ELMORE: I've been to San Diego once. I came out here for a camp, basketball camp when I was in ninth grade. But this is a business trip for us. Yeah, we might go to the beach or see some sites, but at the end of the day we're locked in and we're focused. We might get out a little bit, walk around the town, see some stuff. But we're here for business.

Q. C.J., we were talking about the style of play and how fun it must be. I'm curious has to how much of the scout and preplanning for teams comes organically and how much of that comes from watching NBA games? Just to piggyback off that, how cool is that? Jon was saying you're running the same plays that the W's are running and the Cav's are running. How cool is that?
C.J. BURKS: It's very fun. Just playing that style of play, just playing freely. We dint play under a system to which, get guys locked in and in a she'll of being players they can be and being a team that can. Dan D'Antoni did a great job of having your offense and we progressed all year and I think we have gotten better and still room for improvement and it's a very fun game when we're playing like this, we have chemistry, and everybody gets along with each other so it makes the game more fun.

Q. The Wichita State guard, Landry Shamet, any thoughts on his game?
JON ELMORE: He's a tough player. You see him on some of the those draft boards, potential first life round pick. We're fired up, we think it's a good match-up, we're excited. We've got some pretty good guards in my opinion, as well. So I think it's going to be an interesting match-up and we're going to turn some people's heads. But like you said, he's a good player, first-team all conference, I believe, so it will be a tough match-up. But we're looking forward to it. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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