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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2019Dana FordJarred DixonRyan KreklowSt. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness THE MODERATOR: Student-athletes for Missouri State are on their way. We'll start with Coach Dana Ford. DANA FORD: Congratulations to Bradley. I thought they played a complete game. In terms of our guys, I thought the first half, obviously, we made some shots, and we played with a little bit more spirit than some segments there in the second half. Ultimately, I just thought they were way more physical than us, and I think it kind of wore on us as the game went along. Our guys did what they've been doing all year, kept fighting to the end. We came up with a late play there, and I thought, like everybody, we had a chance there to win it. Kind of what we do is we control the pace and try to make some plays at the end. Tonight we just didn't make the play at the end. So unfortunately, we come up on the short end. But very proud of our players and definitely proud of these two guys that are getting ready to have a seat. They're winners, and they're good, good young men, and that's about it. Q. Coach, now that your first season is over, can you kind of just put it in perspective a little bit? DANA FORD: It's hard to think about everything right now. What I will say is that the type of kids that we want in the program are established. These guys that are sitting beside me. We want overachievers. We want guys that people count out, that exceed expectations. One of the things that's really upset me this year -- and I'm going to say it -- everybody talks about our league is down. We returned a lot of starters on teams that were picked to be good, and if our league is down, it's because teams that were picked to be good weren't good, and we finished as well as most. That to me is a discredit to these two guys sitting beside me. So that's my initial thought on my first year is we exceeded expectations, even if people considered the league to be down. Q. For the guys, what are you most proud of? Last game together too. THE MODERATOR: Jarred, you're first, then Ryan, please. JARRED DIXON: Just proud of how we just fought all year when a lot of people didn't really think we were going to be anything this year. Coach just told us that like I guess us three seniors, we like turned the program around. Turned a lot of heads and put this program in a great place for the future. That's really -- that's all you can really ask for. You can't always win every game because life doesn't always work like that. Just proud of how we all came together and just left it all out there and put this Missouri State basketball program in good hands. It's going to be a joy to watch now from afar, the success it's going to have. RYAN KREKLOW: Yeah, I would piggy-back off that. I'm just proud of the fight we brought all year. I don't know if I've been a part of too many teams that were as close as we were on the court and off the court. This is just a family out there. We were just out fighting for each other. Like J.D. said, I'm proud to be a part of what this program's going to be in the next few years. Q. Ryan, could you just kind of talk about that last kind of frenzy, last couple of seconds, stole that pass, had a shot. Just your thoughts when you got that and putting that up. RYAN KREKLOW: I caught the ball with about eight seconds left, and it was kind of frantic. I mean, I knew I was open, and I knew that -- I knew one thing, that there was a shot right there. So I didn't know if I held the ball, something else was going to happen. So that shot, I was feeling it. I thought it was going to go in. I shot with confidence, but it just didn't go our way. Q. Jarred, just the fight at the end, looked like they hit a three and then a two after that. It could have easily folded up, but the battle back to have those cracks at end. You got the ball with a second left and shoot it, right? JARRED DIXON: Yeah, like I said, all year we fought to 0-0. I mean, when I made that shot against Illinois State, I guess you can't always make them all, but just keep -- you got to keep calm, and the game's not over until it's over. You've got to keep crawling and scratching and trying to find a way because sometimes games can fall your way. It just, this time, I mean, we always -- I believed we were going to win until the clock said 0:00. I never thought we were going to lose. Sometimes it just doesn't go your way, and this just happened to be our time that didn't go our way. Q. Coach, you've talked all year about their impact, but now that it's over, what can you say about the two guys sitting next to you and how much they've built this culture for you? DANA FORD: That's a good question. They are responsible for the culture as it stands today. The thing about cultures, you've got to fight for it every day, and these guys have literally fought every day. They have yet to have a bad practice. They haven't always played well, but they've really fought. When we talk about culture, we talk about behavior that we will allow, and these guys have, first of all, come from great families, so they know how to act. I don't have to worry about teaching them how to be young men. I just have to worry about developing them into men. They're definitely a great example of that. And then obviously on the floor, we just tell our guys to do your best, and when you watch these two guys, I don't think you ever guess if they're doing their best. They've definitely upheld that obligation for this first year. Q. For the guys, just how hard, how easy was it to fight for that culture every day? When you're looking back if there's any success into the future, just how much are you going to feel like you guys have an impact on that? RYAN KREKLOW: Me and J.D., we've been playing for a while together. I'm sure most of you all know that. That's just the type of players I feel like we've always been. We've always been fighters. We've always been team guys. So when Coach Ford came in, we kind of embraced his culture. We felt like we were perfect for it. JARRED DIXON: Yeah, just the same thing. Just to have him say like we were, I guess started this whole culture of just being good teammates and stuff like that, it really makes us feel better. We came in as seniors that went through three years that was kind of tough, and for him to just come in and just open us up to his arms and his family like he's known us for all our life. Just for us to stick with it and just start a new thing, a new program, a new atmosphere, just a lot of good things is going to come to this program, I believe. It just makes us feel better. Q. In that game, Coach, Tulio just 3 points. How tough was that? And just the job that Bradley did to shut him down. How much did that break the back of the game plan? DANA FORD: Yeah, when you get to March, your marquee guy has got to play. I mean, teams have a week to prepare for people. Same way we prepared for their marquee guys. They did it on him for 40 minutes. We were only able to do it on Childs for it looks like a half. Players got to play, man. We'll have to go back and watch the tape, but I thought they were really physical, and maybe that was the reason why. But without watching the tape, analyzing the tape, I can't tell you exactly. But player's got to play. Q. Coach, as you enter really your first full off-season, just what do you want to see improved, and what's the next few weeks look like for you? DANA FORD: I think like most people, we'll hit the road recruiting tonight. Our guys will be out somewhere tomorrow, and we'll try to fill the voids that we have in our roster. This year we had guys sitting out, so our numbers are down. We lost guys throughout the year, so our numbers continue to decrease. We have players on our roster that just aren't quite ready to be thrown in the fire. Overall, they would hurt the team more than they would help, so our numbers have been limited. So we've got to do a good job of building up a roster with 13 available bodies. Some of our shortcomings this year have come when we can't keep our intensity level high. The guys obviously get tired and worn out and we have to get creative how we're going to do things. But moving forward, hopefully, we don't have that problem. Hopefully, there's what we like to call competition of opposition, and that's the first thing we need to do. And the second thing we need to do is let our players that are returning rest, give them some time off, have our end-of-year meetings. I guess spring break is this week, so that means the semester is coming to an end close, right around the corner. We have to finish well academically, and then we'll talk about our summer. This business is about recruiting and then building a team, and that's basically what we'll be doing. Q. For either or both of the student-athletes, given where you guys were two to three weeks ago, a chance to win the regular season and then to have it end as quick as it did here, does that add to the level of frustration or disappointment that it ended the way it did? JARRED DIXON: Definitely, definitely. Like you said, we were close to winning the conference, something we haven't -- this school hasn't done in a while. Just take the positives with it. Just try to come in and prepare for this tournament as hard as we could, thinking we were going to make a run. We've lost a couple games, but you see teams that don't win the regular season and they win tournaments like this, and the teams that win the regular season lose the tournament. It's definitely frustrating. It's definitely frustrating all the work we've put in, put ourselves in a position to win this game. But it's only going to be one team that wins the tournament. So it's tough. RYAN KREKLOW: Yeah, I think Jarred said that well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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