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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: HARTFORDMarch 20, 2019Steve WojciechowskiHartford, Connecticut COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: First and foremost. We're incredibly excited to be a part of the NCAA Tournament, for all of our players and coaches. It's something that, as a young person, you dream of being a part of, and so we're certainly excited to be here. We know we have a huge challenge in Murray State, having been able to watch them and study them since Selection Sunday. Have a great deal of respect for their program, their players, their coaches. They really do things the right way, and they're an outstanding team. Q. Studying Murray State, I'm sure you spent a lot of time on Ja Morant. What do you think would be the one or two things you guys need to do? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: Obviously Ja is an incredible player and prospect. I want to make clear this is not a one-man band. Murray State is not in this position because it's a one-man show. Certainly, he's got special talent. He's unbelievable in transition. I think they get the ball as a group, and he heads it all down the floor as fast as any team we've played all year. They score the ball early in the shot clock and often and he really keys that. And then you get in the half court, he's terrific off ball screens, so our ball screen defense will be tested, not only with his ability to turn the corner and score, but his ability to come off ball screens and set other people up for really good shots. Outstanding team, certainly he's an incredible talent. It's going to be a huge challenge for us. Q. I'm most curious about your reaction Sunday when you saw the match-up and I'm sure as a coach, your thought goes to it's going to be a lot of emphasis on that individual match-up between Markus and Ja. As a coach, does that bother you to think about all of the focus being on them, you know, in the media, or do you just roll with it? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: You know, we can't really control what the media's focus is, and so we try not to worry too much about things that we can't control. The things that we knew that we're in control of was our preparation for an outstanding Murray State team, and, you know, I think a lot of people won't want to make this a one-on-one duel. But, from our perspective, this is Marquette versus Murray State. Q. I was wondering if, drawing on your experience both as a coach and before that, there's this whole thing where, of course, you want to win every game, especially you want to win your conference tournament. But a loss in a conference tournament could be used towards like kind of waking your team up and being like, you know, that's the last loss you guys can take before the season's over. And I'm wondering how you've, you know, kind of lead your team on that thinking over the past week. COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: Yeah, well, first of all, we never want to lose. You know, so I'm not like a firm believer you have to lose to be motivated. I don't think a loss should cause you to be more motivated. So we haven't really talked a great deal about what happened in the Big East Tournament in preparation for the NCAA Tournament. However, those experiences go into what our guys have now as we start this new season. We have a lot of reference points, mostly from things that have done really well, and then we have some reference points where things didn't turn out the way we hoped. So we use all of those as we're at this point now. Q. I know it's a team assignment, but Sacar is probably going to be the initial defender on Ja. What makes him a good player his feet, instincts? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: Number one, he wants to. Sacar takes pride in trying to be a stopper and trying to play outstanding defense, and he combines that mindset with really good focus. Because, you know, in order to be a really good defender, you have to have great focus and concentration throughout possessions, especially when you're assigned to the other team's best player, which he often is. So he's got the right mindset and want to. He's got great focus and he's a really good athlete. He can get low in the stance, he can move his feet, and the combination of those three things is the reason why he's, I think, one of the better defenders. Q. Do you think playing against all of those, you know, those great guards in the Big East, Myles Powell, Phil Booth, do you think that's prepared Sacar for this match-up? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: I certainly hope so. Obviously Ja is the guy that people are saying is going to go in the top two or three in the NBA draft. But Sacar on our team has had the challenge of playing other really good and great college guards. So hopefully we can use that experience to our advantage. Although Ja may be a little bit of a different type of guy. Q. Coach, I know you weren't coach of Marquette in the old Big East days, but is it cool to you that you guys have Villanova, you guys, and not Leonard Hamilton as Big East experience. Is it cool for your experience here in the former Big East building? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: Yeah. It's cool. I haven't really thought about it that way. Certainly I'm happy for all of the current Big East teams in the NCAA Tournament who earned that honor. And know Coach Hamilton from not only his days of being a Big East coach, but ACC, and have a lot of respect for him and his program. A lot of focus has been on Marquette and Murray State, try to stay in those two lanes. Q. Murray State's got a couple long-armed defensive guys, Shaq Buchanan. Turnovers has been an issue for you guys off and on this year. What are you telling your guys to prepare for that defensive attack? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: You know, I think we've seen -- and Murray State can really pressure the ball, and as you mentioned, they have a lot of -- especially on the perimeter, very active defenders, and they can turn you over. Buchanan's a heck of a defensive player. Ja Morant gets his hands on a lot of balls. He gets a lot of deflections. Again, we have to be strong with the ball. We have to keep it simple offensively and be as fundamentally sound as we can possibly can be, because if you turn it over against them, you're probably going to end up on "Sportscenter." Q. Woj, when you have an outstanding player like Markus, and they have Ja, an All-American player who can dominate a game, is it a different coaching challenge for you right from the beginning of the year to get your kids to adjust to that, and then not sometimes not maybe be tempted to just kind of stand around and watch and rely on them so much? COACH STEVE WOJCIECHOWSKI: Yeah. You know, I think the strength of our team this year has been our team and certainly Markus has had an incredible year with incredibly high scoring output. But it's a function of team play. And, you know, I think our guys are wildly supportive of Markus, and Markus is supportive of the other guys, so, you know, our offense runs best when we don't turn it over and we got to really take care of the ball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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