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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2019

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Illinois State - 65, Evansville - 60

THE MODERATOR: What we have here is Illinois State, victorious tonight. They'll play Drake at 6:05 tomorrow. Dan Muller is the head coach. Keyshawn Evans and Phil Fayne represent the student body.

DAN MULLER: First, congratulations. Just want to talk about how hard Evansville's seniors specifically played in their careers, Marty Hill and big Chat and Riley. Those guys competed. Walter's done a terrific job.

It was ugly. It was real ugly, actually. It took forever. I think it's midnight. Made enough big plays down the stretch. These two guys led us like usual. Milik made a lot of big plays. But this time of year, survive and advance. That's all that matters.

Q. Phil, at halftime, what did you guys go in and talk about? You had the lead there and kind of let it slip away. What was the theme going into the second half?
PHIL FAYNE: We told ourselves we have to keep our heads defensively ready and not have too many let-ups. And we had to make adjustments and talk more. We were kind of stagnant and quiet there in the first half, but in the second half, we picked it up.

Q. Keyshawn, you guys get an 11-point lead, I think. We've seen that a lot of times this year. All of a sudden, Evansville's got the lead. What do you think enabled you guys just to kind of right the ship a little bit there and be able to pull it out?
KEYSHAWN EVANS: I think we just stayed together the whole time. That was constantly like a thing in our huddles, just stay together, keep fighting together. Even if they did get close, cut the lead down. We just wanted to keep playing hard and stay solid.

Q. Dan, Chastain had seven points, eight rebounds all in the second half, and his effort plays, talk about what he contributed.
DAN MULLER: He had big plays, a big block, two big layups. When Chaz plays with energy -- he always plays hard, but when he plays with energy, he gives us something that nobody else does. I thought he was terrific defensively on Riley in particular. Just the ability to make big plays in big moments, we needed it.

His role, he knows it. It's very specific. And we really like him to be aggressive offensively. Sometimes he doesn't look to be, but we've been encouraging him to do that. Tonight luckily he was at the right moments.

Q. Dan, when Milik picked up those two quick fouls in two seconds, I think it was, how much did that hamstring you guys a little bit?
DAN MULLER: He started to play so well too. It wasn't just the fouls, but he finally got his head up a little bit, and I thought he settled early in the first half for some jumpers. But when the Second Team All-Conference guy, a guy we think is one of the best players in the league and a guy that's one of our leaders gets in foul trouble and only plays 19 minutes, it's going to affect our team. I thought it really affected us offensively a lot of the game.

But we also have a lot of faith in all of our guys. You know, all ten played. I thought all ten guys contributed. Ike made big shots. Josh made big shots, Rey. Everybody contributed. So because we have enough depth, it doesn't kill us, but certainly we like Milik out there.

Q. Dan, you obviously played Evansville three times this year. What, especially with this game, do you kind of just take away from these early matchups against Walter's teams?
DAN MULLER: Well, his teams fight, and it's hard when you lose a lot of games in a row, and to pull out that last win of the year at Valpo and to come in here and fight and compete. It's not like we didn't think they would, but it's the character of these two seniors in particular and their coaching staff. I mean, it's hard being a first-year coach, a lot of new pieces, but I thought Walter and his staff did a great job.

All you can do is have your team play hard and compete. After that, sometimes the ball goes in, sometimes it doesn't.

Q. Coach, looking ahead to Drake tomorrow, what are going to be the keys to pull out a win in that game?
DAN MULLER: We played them pretty well twice. It starts with McGlynn. He's so good on both ends. He's so consistent. Being able to figure out to slow him down a little bit; he hurt us in our last game. Ellingson, he's such a great shooter. The thing about Darian's team is they're consistent. They're not up and down, so you know what you're going to get from them.

So we played them really recently. So the nice thing, even though we just finished playing right now, the scouting report will be right in the back of our minds. So I think that will help us. But we've got to get rest and go with our scouting report and prepare to play a very good team.

Q. Phil and Keyshawn, you guys have obviously both been through a lot the last three years. When you face the second game, does that maybe relax the team a little bit more being on the floor once and just kind of being through everything?
KEYSHAWN EVANS: Yeah, especially getting -- having that extra game under our belt. So we have an extra game, but we got more of a flow like on the court too. So I think it's going to help us feel more comfortable tomorrow.

PHIL FAYNE: Yeah, for sure. Like what Keyshawn said, just being able to be on the floor the first time, you get those first game jitters out and everything, so you're ready to go rolling. And now you're out there playing instead of thinking the second time around.

Q. For both of you guys, in the second half there when they went back ahead, were you guys thinking, my career might be over here in about seven minutes?
PHIL FAYNE: No, I never thought that down the stretch. Being a senior, being -- we've been down before in many other games, and we fought back per usual. So, no, that never crossed my mind.

Only thing that crossed my mind is we've got to get this next stop, or we've got to get these next stops together. We've got seven more minutes to pull ourselves back out of the deficit we were in.

KEYSHAWN EVANS: Same thing. I knew once the lead came, once they got the lead, it was just trying to tell myself to keep leading, keep staying positive and make sure everybody had the right mindset because I knew, if we stayed solid and played well, we'd come out with the win.

Q. Phil, I know that you won't necessarily have McGlynn all the time tomorrow, but what do you remember about playing against him earlier this year?
PHIL FAYNE: He has high energy for sure. He's everywhere, especially on the boards and everything. Ready to crash in the boards, and he's good defensively as well.

Q. Dan, Keyshawn played the most minutes tonight, 31. Going into tomorrow, is that kind of what you were hoping for, at least not getting anybody really heavy minutes?
DAN MULLER: Yeah, I was hoping 29 or less, so Keyshawn was two over, but that's okay. He's a complete stud of an athlete, physical specimen. (Laughter). He can play all day long.

Yeah, I like our minutes a lot actually, a lot. I don't think fatigue will be an issue tomorrow, and that's the only game that matters. So we do have to get back and hydrate and do all the things we need to do, but I do like our minutes.

First half, you can probably tell, I was trying to manage minutes a little bit. Foul trouble also affected us. It ended up, and I like them.

Q. Keyshawn, just back on Evansville real quick, just how frustrating or annoying was that? It didn't seem like they would go away, or did it?
KEYSHAWN EVANS: I didn't expect them to go away. We knew we were going to have to fight for 40 minutes, and I'm sure they expected the same thing from us. It was fun. It's fun to compete and play hard and compete and stuff. So I'm cool with it.

Q. Dan, what did you specifically have to say to Milik, especially maybe at halftime? Obviously, he was frustrated there when he picked up his second foul in the first half. What was your message to him?
DAN MULLER: Nothing special. Just, "Hey, we know you're going to play great in the second half. We need you." I do like to let him know we need him, how important he is to our team.

It wasn't a lot. We talked about going out there and being aggressive. We did talk about him settling. He did take a lot of jumpers to start the game, and we wanted him to be aggressive to the rim without charging, and I think that got him going, and he got to the foul line.

THE MODERATOR: Redbirds and Bulldogs tomorrow 6:00 p.m.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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