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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2019

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. On behalf of commissioner Doug Elgin and media coordinator Mike Kern and the entire Missouri Valley Conference staff, welcome to Enterprise Center and the 2019 MVC men's basketball tournament. These proceedings, held here in the Bryan Burwell Memorial interview room, tip off events in this building as the top six seeds are presented prior to games 1 and 2 tonight. First up is the No. 5 seeded Bradley Braves. They'll play Missouri State at the 2:30 game Friday afternoon.

Head coach Brian Wardle is with us. He's surrounded by student-athletes Luuk Van Bree and Luqman Lundy.

BRIAN WARDLE: It's great to be back here to St. Louis for Arch Madness. Tremendous tournament. I'm impressed every year I come here. We had a great luncheon today. We had a sharp practice today. We are obviously a group that is excited to play. We've been playing well for the most part other than the last game. We think we have as good a chance as anybody in this tournament to win it, especially if we're clicking on all cylinders.

We're excited for the opportunity tomorrow. We're playing a very good Missouri State team, a team that has some of the best one-on-one offensive players in the league and a very good one-on-one defensive teem. We've got to do a great job of containing their one-on-one play and not let Webster make play-make all over the floor, which he likes to do for them.

We've got our hands full, but we're excited for the opportunity and the competitiveness in the game tomorrow. I know these guys some experience in this tournament the last couple of years, and we're looking forward to hopefully using that experience to our benefit tomorrow.

Q. Brian, could you speak to your award winners this year. You had three guys that earned some big-time awards from the league.
BRIAN WARDLE: It's obviously individual accolades come with team success and respect in a way. I think a lot of people respect Darrell Brown and what he does for our program, and Elijah Childs, and obviously, Nate Kennell coming off the bench. To be honest, having five scholar athletes that were nominated today, I mean, you want to win games, but that means a lot to me with what we've done for our program and how we built our program and having five guys nominated for that today.

I think Darrell is, if not the best guard in the league, I feel he is. He gets a lot of attention every game. He plays through a lot of physicality, and he's been very consistent this year for us. He's matured a lot as a leader, and he's made big steps for us this year.

Elijah Childs, he's one of the few players in the league that demands a double-team. There's not many players that do, and he's one of them. I think he's come a long way from his freshman year to sophomore year. So I think he's made a lot of progress there. For him to be on the Most Improved Team makes a lot of sense from all of our perspective. As coaches and teammates, we've seen his work ethic really go up from year 1 to year 2.

Nate is just a completely unselfish young man who will do anything for the team. Having his scoring off the bench has been critical. These two seniors, Luqman and Luuk have both come off the bench and started for us this year. They understand the unselfishness of this group doing whatever is takes to win. Having that weapon of Nate Kennell come off the bench has been big for us.

Q. Speaking of Eli, is he back in the lineup? What's his status?
BRIAN WARDLE: He's all good. He's ready to roll.

Q. Coach, you mentioned five players being honored for their achievements in the classroom. Do you feel like your program has an added emphasis on education?
BRIAN WARDLE: I would say every program does, I would hope, but at Bradley University, we take a lot of pride in that. You've got to be sharp in the books at our school. What these guys were able to accomplish with our team GPA is always over 3.0. It's been a 3.3, 3.4. We've won that award the last couple years as a team.

We take a lot of pride in maintaining a very professional mentality in the classroom and on the court and how we conduct ourselves in both areas because, if you're struggling in one, you're going to struggle in the other. That's added stress to your life. These guys to play in this arena and these tournaments, for student-athletes, it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of stress. I've been there as a student-athlete. It's not easy. A lot of these guys make it look easy. I give them all the credit in the world, all the student-athletes playing.

Q. Luuk, what does it mean for you to be recognized in the classroom? And also since three of the guys recognized were international students, do you think that, coming from an international place has any influence on the way you take your education seriously.
LUUK VAN BREE: Well, it's a nice accomplishment. It's something that it's fun to be rewarded of because, as Coach said, it's not something the general public often thinks about, but it's something we all do. So to be recognized for that is fun.

The international part, I don't think it really affects anything. Maybe gives you a little bit of a chip on your shoulder, especially the first couple years, because of the language differences. You want to make sure you really pay attention, so you take maybe better notes because you might not know the language as well, so that might help. Other than that, I don't think it's a big difference in that regard.

Q. This is for both players. I'd like you to describe the journey of your season. You both didn't play a lot early on, and then midway through the season, you're in the starting lineup and you're still there. Just tell me how it all developed and how you're able to keep your spirits up in those early days, which led to a starting spot.
THE MODERATOR: Luqman, you'll be first. Thank you.

LUQMAN LUNDY: Well, my role as a leader, whether I was playing or not, was going to be the same, you know what I'm saying? I felt like, even before I came here, Coach described to me as, you have a very great personality and you're going to be a great locker room guy for us. Whether I was playing or I wasn't playing, that's what I was going to do regardless. But getting more minutes is fine, but like I said, being a great leader is what I strive to do every day and a great teammate.

So the minutes is cool, but I just want to be a good leader and teammate. That's all I care about.

LUUK VAN BREE: Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Every season is a roller coaster ride. It wasn't my first season, so I knew the ups and downs of the season. There's a time where you just have to be ready for your number to be called. Everybody on our team, I think, has done that and has played significant minutes this year in their career.

It's not always just about the guys on the court. You know, guys that are practicing, even the guys that are playing less minutes now are having a huge impact on the way we've been playing better in this stretch too. We're all a team, and we just all try to do our part and being successful.

Q. For each of you, just speaking of Missouri State, it's been a long time since you've played them. What do you remember about those games? What do you need to do better this time?
LUUK VAN BREE: Well, yeah, it's been a while. I think they haven't seen our best basketball yet. So that's something we hope to showcase tomorrow. And you've just got to be aggressive throughout the whole game, stay positive. They're a good team, so you have to stay aggressive, stay positive, and just stick with the game plan. I think, if we do that, we have a good chance of beating them.

LUQMAN LUNDY: Yeah, just to piggy-back off what Luuk said, if we just stick to our game plan and play the way we've been playing lately, I think we'll be fine. Missouri State is a great team, and around this time, anybody can be beat. So we have to bring our A-game because they are, but just stick to our game plan, and we'll be fine.

Q. Brian, as someone who's coached in the Horizon League and now here in the Valley, you had a really good team at Green Bay a few years ago, regular season conference champions, but yet you were left out of the NCAA Tournament. What do you think the tournament committee can do to make that field of 68 more inclusive for the mid-majors?
BRIAN WARDLE: Well, I could talk a while about that. When it comes to scheduling, I think a lot has to come down with scheduling we have to create opportunities to play as many power six league teams as we can, and that means get to exempt tournaments pretty much now, because they're not playing us a lot in home-and-homes ever. Two-for-ones, they're not even looking to do. It's changed over the last three, four, five years. It's gotten harder and harder and harder.

So we've got to get very creative in scheduling as a mid-major. I think it's very tough for the Missouri Valley league in general. We're a top ten league, and we're a league that needs to go play Quad 1 games. We need to find Quad 1 games in the nonconference, and it's hard for us to do that. And then you've got to come to our conference this year where everyone's between -- I don't know. What is it? 120 to 200. We've got ten teams all bunched up, very competitive league, and we're all beating each other up. So it's hard to find that way to get that at-large when you have a league that we had this year and how competitive it was.

But ultimately, scheduling, you've got to find a way to put yourself in position in the nonconference, play some high major programs or teams that you just think are going to have a good year. Sometimes it's all hypothetical. It's a year out. Sometimes it doesn't play into your advantage. And then you've got to go into your league and handle your business, and you've probably got to at most lose two, three games, and that's a lot of pressure, especially when you're in a league as good as ours.

So it's a very complicated question to get more teams into the tournament, but I think -- I know we're all, as leagues, I know everyone is trying to put their heads together and try to figure out a way to get these games set.

Q. (No microphone) mid-majors or maybe some extra criteria? Like a regular season conference champion with X number of wins?
BRIAN WARDLE: I'm speaking as a mid-major coach. Yeah, you would love for them to look at us now. Ten years ago, they're putting 14 at-large bids from non-power six leagues, and now it's gotten smaller and smaller. And you could throw the American league into those power seven leagues, when you look at what they're doing in scheduling and their league matchups against each other.

Bottom line is we've got to schedule as smart as we possibly can, try to play as many Quad 1 games as we can in the non-conference, and then when you get to your league, you've got to hold home court and steal some road games. It's pretty similar to a lot of different leagues, but I just think the Missouri Valley is in a tough spot right now, but we can figure out ways. There's ways to do it.

Q. Coach, when you look at it from the mid-major perspective, how differently do you approach the recruiting trails than a Power Five conference school?
BRIAN WARDLE: Well, you've got to work. You've probably got to work two or three times harder in the sense of building a relationship and staying consistent with the kid and the parents especially. But what you're seeing is that a lot of young men look to go to the biggest arena, the biggest school possible for the most part, and you just got to stay in the game, stay in the game, and hope that they realize maybe you're the fourth or fifth option for them, and you're our number one option, and you just to recruit it that way and sell it that way.

You've seen how transfers have impacted our league, and this year especially, but in all years it's been a league where I think our last two Player of the Years have been transfers. You definitely have to be open-minded and look to find a good transfer if you can nowadays. They're out there, and there's more and more every year. I think that's becoming very relevant in recruiting in the Valley.

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