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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2019

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Bradley - 57, Northern Iowa - 54

THE MODERATOR: UNI Panthers are with us. AJ Green, Wyatt Lohaus represent the student body. Ben Jacobson is the head coach.

BEN JACOBSON: Our guys played great. We came out and played the way you're supposed to play in a championship game, and we've obviously come a long ways to get to this point. Just tremendously proud of our guys for everything that's happened here in the last -- to get to the point where we could play the way we played this last month. It's taken a lot of things to get everybody on the same page and get everybody moving in the right direction. These guys were able to do it. In my 13 years as a head coach, it's one of the most impressive things that I've seen and been a part of is what these guys have done and the way that we have played here in the last month and the way that we played today.

Give Bradley a lot of credit. They were in a tough spot with 10, 12 minutes to go, and they were able to get their offense going and make shots on consecutive possessions, after we had defended them very, very well, and give them credit for making that run to get back in the game. Had we been able to fend them off a little bit during that stretch, we, of course, would have been in a great position under the eight-minute media time-out.

Like I said, just tremendously proud of our guys, and give Bradley credit for getting back in the game.

Q. Ben, during Bradley's run, what in particular were you seeing out of your team, and how much of it is a matter of fact of tipping your cap to them for making shots and then compared to what the conversation was in the huddle, what you were trying to figure out?
BEN JACOBSON: They had gone a long time, the entire first half. I thought our defense was good. In the first half, it wasn't just a matter of them missing open shots. I thought we defended them really well, and we defended them really well to start the second half. I thought defensively we were still good, and they had some guys make some shots. Lundy made a three that was an important shot for them. He doesn't take very many, and he hasn't made very many in the last however many games. So that was an important shot for them to kind of get them started a little bit.

Then they had a couple other ones, a couple of other important jump shots they made in that stretch. They were covered. It wasn't a situation where it felt like they were -- guys were completely uncovered when they shot them. I think our defense was great for 30 minutes. I thought it was good. Their offense was just better than our defense in that four, five-minute stretch when it went from us having a big advantage to a six, seven, eight point game to now where you've got a ball game.

Q. What was the explanation you received for the technical on Luke? How tough was it to have a six-point possession at that point in the game?
BEN JACOBSON: I haven't seen the play yet. They said it was clear that Luke had brought his arms up and caught one of Bradley's players above the shoulders, but I haven't seen it yet. That's what they saw. That's what they said they saw. They were confident that they made the right call. Yeah, at that point, if he makes both free throws, we're down one. Instead, we're down five. That's the worst possible scenario at that point in a basketball game.

I'll tell you what, that could happen to a lot of teams, and you don't recover. You've got a minute and a half in this game and you've got a six-point possession, all of a sudden you're down five, and now with 20 seconds left, you're down one. What a response in that minute to be able to get a couple stops and get a couple baskets. We got the ball down one after that six-point possession. These guys have just been tremendous.

Q. Wyatt, it seemed like Bradley was able to get up into you guys a little bit on defense, but obviously, AJ was able to get loose. What were the difficulties in facing their defense today, and what made it possible today for AJ to be the guy that got going?
WYATT LOHAUS: I would say they switched one through five a couple of times. They were kind of switching up how they guarded the ball screen. And then compared to the last two games, they were pressed up with their five man even when they weren't switching. So we didn't have as much room for the pull-ups.

That's what AJ has been doing all year. He's been great in the ball screen being able to create his own shot, and tonight he got going.

Q. AJ, what stood out about this first championship game experience for you and the start you got off to knocking down eight of those first 15 attempts from three-point range?
AJ GREEN: I think just that it takes the whole 40 minutes in order to come away with a win, but I mean, I love the way we started. First half was great. We were playing hard, defending, but, yeah, you got to put together 40 minutes.

Q. Coach, that last huddle there with a couple seconds left before the last play, what was kind of the topic of conversation there setting that up?
BEN JACOBSON: We had started Spencer and then broke him off, brought AJ in. If AJ was open, we were going to throw it to AJ and try to catch it as close to half-court as we could because at that point it felt like with 2.4 seconds you've got at least two dribbles, and that's going to get you to somewhere between 25 and 30 feet. You're going to get a good look.

AJ was covered going to Isaiah's right, and then Wyatt was the last guy to break, and he was going to kind of come in behind all of that. We had AJ going one way. We had Wyatt as the second option. When he caught it that far up the floor, that's exactly what we were looking for. He did a good job of getting between them, and he got to that somewhere between 25 and 28 feet. Given the circumstance, Wyatt got a good look.

Q. Ben, you spoke a couple times about how proud you are of the things that have come together to make this run possible. What things in particular, if you could describe them, are front of mind for you in regards to those comments?
BEN JACOBSON: Yeah, we were -- you start the season, and we knew we were young. We knew that was part of it, that we were new and we were young, and even the guys that were a little bit older hadn't played that much. So we knew we were starting the year with an inexperienced team. What you didn't know, of course, was that Phyfe was not going to be able, that Ty was going to have another injury, and then you get to the Illinois State game, and Miles tears his ACL, and we lose him. Then Biggie's (Goldman) out for ten games, and that does it for him. Those things are outside of your control, and it happens to everybody.

Between those two things -- and then we put them through -- you know, our schedule in November and December, I think it's a top ten non-conference schedule in the country. So we had them on the road all over the place. We were hardly home at all over a stretch of 3 1/2 weeks. So that's a lot. Dealing with one of those things is a lot to get sorted out. Dealing with two is, of course, even more. Dealing with all three of those, it's just a lot for a team to get their feet under them.

So to be able to manage their way through all of that and continue to do the things that we asked them to do every day, and that's just look forward to the next practice, that can get hard to do when you're not playing the way you think you should be playing, and Miles and Wyatt were terrific. The work ethic of these two guys -- and I could name a number of other guys in our program. That work ethic on a daily basis brought us to the point where we started to play pretty good. We played 17 of 18 league games. We had them in position to win, and we game down and got two, and we were in position to win a third.

It is. It's the most growth, and it's one of the more remarkable things I've seen, given all of the stuff that was -- all of the moving parts in November and December. I'm not surprised. I see these guys every day. So I'm not surprised, but I'm just telling you, it's one of the most remarkable things I've been a part of.

Q. Wyatt to go 9-9 in conference play and to go on a run like this to get to the championship game, Coach mentioned the growth. What stood out to you about what's allowed that growth to occur, and how do you assess the position you leave this program in?
WYATT LOHAUS: I would say the details with the little things defensively, getting more dialed into the scouting report, playing more as a team, and offensively we started really clicking as well, really playing well off each other, really balanced. So it was an entire team thing. It wasn't any one or two guys. Everybody bought in and kind of dug in to improve in any little area they could, and that made a big difference for us.

So the way we finished the season, really proud of our guys, and I feel really good about it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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