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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2019

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Loyola - 67, Valparaiso - 54

THE MODERATOR: Welcome everyone to the Enterprise Center in the Bryan Burwell Memorial room. Today's game marked the first time in MVC Tournament history that a single team, Loyola, held four straight opponents under 55 points. Last year in order UNI scored 50, Bradley 54, Illinois State 54 in a title game, and today again 54. The first time in tournament history that a team has held an opponent to 55 or 54 and under four straight games.

Loyola is here. They have a date with either Bradley or Missouri State in tomorrow's first semifinal game. Porter Moser is here, Cameron Krutwig, Marques Townes. Porter, please.

PORTER MOSER: I didn't know that stat, but these guys have bought into the -- in this setting, you've really got to defend. I thought we did a nice job spacing and moving the ball on offense. But for me, I was so excited about how we started defensively. I thought that dictated everything. I thought it dictated our confidence in offense. I thought our bench came in, and there wasn't any letdown on either end. I thought our bench did a great job -- Frank, Bruno, Cooper, Christian -- those four guys did a great job off the bench elevating the play. That's what you want from your bench, to elevate the energy. I thought they did a great job defensively and continuing to do it.

Q. Now that you've won the award with the student turnout here, yeah, "MVP" chant.
MARQUES TOWNES: I wasn't really paying attention to that. I was so locked in. I got the award, I think, yesterday. It was cool.

Q. Marques, after Cameron's late dunk, you and Lucas both went like that. What does that mean?
MARQUES TOWNES: It's just something that ballplayers do. If you dunk on somebody, it's on their head. Like heads up, he dunked on his head.

Q. Coach, knowing the Valley is going to get the one bid this year, last year you guys were kind of a bubble team. Even if you didn't win the tournament, there was a chance you would have gotten an at-large bid. How much more of a sense of urgency is there with this year's tournament?
PORTER MOSER: I just want to comment on this. A very Jesuit, clean-cut way to get excited. No trash talking, a very clean, Jesuit way.

The second thing, I didn't do it last year. These guys will tell you, all we're talking about is right in front of us. We don't feel any urgency either way. We prepare every game through the whole year like the next game in front of us is the biggest game of the year. These guys don't feel any different with their prep. We prep the same way every game. We don't talk about at the end. We talk about what's right in front of us. We did it last year. These guys love that. They bought into it.

We also were just talking, whether you win by 20 in a tournament setting, by 2, 5, 8 -- it doesn't make a difference. It's still a win. It doesn't mean you're great because you won by this point total. It doesn't mean you're not as good because you won by one. You advance and get right back to it, and we've got to prepare the next opponent. That will have nothing to do with our next opponent. We've got to do better and focus in on what's right in front of us.

Q. For Marques and Cameron, the last time you were here last year, you won it all. When you step on the court, you're human. You must feel some emotions or have some flashbacks. Do you use that as motivation or try to put it out of your head? What were some of the things you were thinking about as you step on the court and how you handle that?
CAMERON KRUTWIG: Obviously, we were here last year, we played in a big-time game here, a couple of big-time games. It's good to be familiar. We know the surroundings. We know what the arena is like. We know where the bench is going to be, things like that, just to get familiar.

You can't forget about last year, but you try to just kind of block it out and just focus on the game that we're about to play. This year is a new year. So, yeah.

MARQUES TOWNES: Yeah, just to follow up on that, we have veterans and people that have been here before -- me, Krut, Clay, Lucas, Christian, Bruno. We have a lot of guys that have been here before, and all we try to do is tell the young guys that we had come in that last year we just had such a laser-like focus on blocking out everything and focusing on what we need to do game after game, just one game at a time. I feel like we did that today. We stepped it up on defense, and I feel like that's what won us the game.

Q. Porter, you often say you're created by culture. Valpo is going through a culture thing right now of getting into the Valley. I guess in year 2, playing them here, what are you seeing from their journey, their culture, and getting them to where you guys may want to be, or where you guys are?
PORTER MOSER: One, this league has always been about defense. Valpo is one of the best defensive teams in the league. They play physical. They play hard. They get up in you. They definitely made a step up from last year. I've been through it. Their arrow is going up. I think you've got to really start by defending if you're ever going to be at the top of this league, and they're doing that. I think Matt's got them playing unbelievably hard defensively, and our guys will tell you that. So that's a big thing when you come into this league.

And you'll start to get familiar with the teams. You know, you start to get familiar with the teams and the venues and everything, that helps too.

Q. Maybe it gave you a little scare when Lucas had to leave the game for a little bit. Did he just kind of land awkwardly and tweak something there?
PORTER MOSER: It's funny because he won't even acknowledge anything. He walked off the court. He game back, "I'm fine." "Lucas, you want to go back?" "Yeah, I'm fine," like nothing ever happened.

Yeah, of course it does. Any of our guys. But bumps and bruises are part of this. We'll see. He'll get all the treatment, the recovery, and we'll see. But, yeah, you can see what he means to our team defensively right out of the gate for us, and he gives us another space guy that spaces everything.

Q. You mentioned the bench play. Is that the best you've seen out of them in that way?
PORTER MOSER: I would say collectively. Each one of them have had some big games here and there. Cooper's had some big games. Bruno's had some nice games, Frank. But just completely came in collectively, and you want an energy lift when your bench comes in, and I thought they did that. I thought the energy defensively -- you know, getting up and down the court, getting our transition game going, and that's what you want.

We talked about it in the locker room. You're going to need nine, ten guys in this thing to keep going. I thought we had contributions from everybody that played. We had contributions.

Q. Cameron, so you scored 18, so that's top not only for Loyola but of the game entirely, and you were up against Sorolla a lot, who's a tough player. What got you going and really brought that out today?
CAMERON KRUTWIG: Those two bigs for Valpo are both really big. They're both 7 feet and strong and physical, so it was definitely hard to go against them.

Honestly, I'm not really worried about the points or anything like that. We got the win. That's all that really matters. Just to get myself going, the coaches were kind of stressing to be aggressive early. We had a couple plays set to kind of give me the ball in the post and things like that and just kind of go to work. Other than that, it wasn't anything different than I did.

Q. Porter, you mentioned the defensive start, but how important was the fast start? I mean, you guys scored the game's first nine points, and you were up by 22 at halftime.
PORTER MOSER: It's always great to do that. We've had games we've done that. We've had games we didn't. We always say your offense can't dictate your defense. If we were missing those shots, I really feel that guys are in a good place, and they're not going to let up defensively.

It's always got to be your defense dictates your offense. If the fast start dictates -- or a slow offensive start dictates your defense, you're in trouble. These guys have been through enough. They've heard it. Me pounding it in their heads enough. And I think just seeing the energy, how they defend it.

I really think they were connected defensively today, and I think that's a big -- they're understanding that, especially when you hear that stat. That means they're bought in and understand that in this tournament setting.

Q. You guys last year were at the top of the bracket. Now you are again this year. How significant is the advantage to get those few extra hours between games?
MARQUES TOWNES: Yeah, definitely. Nobody really wants to play that first game on Thursday because then you have to play that game, and you've got to come back and play early in the morning again, and you've got to try to win four games Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So definitely that meant a lot to us. We like to keep our legs fresh. I know today everybody came and contributed, like Coach said. That's our mentality, you know. We had the trust factor. Everybody trusted each other, and everybody came in and uplifted each other. We've just got to keep that going.

That meant a lot to us to get that Number 1 seed and to win the regular season championship. Hopefully, we'll be playing again on Sunday.

CAMERON KRUTWIG: Like he said, it just gives you a huge advantage with rest and things like that. And also now that our game's over, we can focus on the next one and kind of get scouting and things like that. So we can just move forward from our game because we're the first game today. So we'll just move on to the next one. After we know who wins this game, we'll be all on top of it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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