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NATIONAL INVITATION TOURNAMENTApril 2, 2019Casey AlexanderRob MarberryGarrison MathewsNew York, New York Lipscomb 71, Wichita State 64 COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: I just tell you, all I'll say in the opening statement is what I told our team there in the locker room there, it was really brief. I said, if there's one thing somebody asked me about our team is that we've got tough kids. Nathan Moran had a really bad night, and I put him in to shoot a big shot and he shot it and made it, got a hand off to Garrison, got to have it and he tied and he makes it. He makes all his free throws down the stretch, and our team gets seven straight stops to finish the game, and that's a tough team, so really proud of them. Q. (No mic.) ROB MARBERRY: To be honest with you we've been in this position a good amount so we've seen it before. We know we can come back and when the pressure gets on, we've been pulling through lately and we try to settle down and do what we do and get some stops and it worked out for us. Q. (No mic.) GARRISON MATHEWS: I went cold there for a little while, so it was good to finally knock one down for my team and help them kind of get over the hump. We got some key stops and big rebounds -- we had 15 rebounds which was huge for us. So it was good to do it for the team and kind of give us a lift. Q. (No mic.) GARRISON MATTHEWS: Yeah, it's pretty awesome having all those people here. We had like a sea of purple come in all at once and I was pretty shocked about it, seeing all those people come. We're really fortunate for the fan base that we have this year and last year, too. But yeah, it was kind of disappointing after the Liberty loss, but they are as resilient as we are coming back and cheering us on for these last games. Q. (No mic.) GARRISON MATHEWS: I think people should know about us now, wining conference last year, playing UNC, pretty close to the end. And then this year, we're still playing, we're one of four teams still playing after the first two games of the Final Four from March Madness. So any time that a team is playing in late March and early April, it's a pretty big deal. They are a great team and I think people can finally see that Lipscomb is a basketball school now. Q. (No mic.) ROB MARBERRY: I mean, like I said before, we've been there before and it's huge to be able to trust your guys and know that they are not going to get rattled. We didn't get down, like Coach said, we tried to be a tough team and not worry about that kind of stuff. We play our game and hopefully usually the outcome is in our favor. Q. (No mic.) Garrison MATTHEWS: It's pretty awesome. North Carolina was good to us. Honestly I think our team knows we play better on the road so been pretty fun, trip to North Carolina here and obviously here, New York is always an incredible place to play and Madison Square Garden is magical, so it's always fun to play here. Q. (No mic.) COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: We did very little different, honestly. I actually felt like the quality of shots in the second half was better than the first. They just didn't go in. So that 12-minute time-out, that eight-minute time-out when things were not going our way, two things. One, they got in a rhythm offensively, and that's atypical of us defensively, so we just tried to gather ourselves there and try to get a little bit more solid on the defensive end. Then I just challenged the guys to perform. You know, you can't win a game like this against a good team without guys performing when their number is called, and so they responded. Q. (No mic.) COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: Well, it says a lot about our program and the current state of it. We've got some guys with three straight 20-win seasons and an NCAA Tournament last year AND three road wins in the NIT before we came here, so they have accomplished a lot. Not to put ourselves on the same platform as wish that state and what they have done, especially in the postseason, but in the last ten years, but it's a building block for us obviously. We're going to live in the moment and enjoy every minute that we have now with this team, but we want to be able to look back five, ten years from now and say where it all started 2018 tournament, and 2019, great NIT run, and hopefully they will be talking about us in that vein. I don't know if the budget will ever get there, though. Q. (No mic.) COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: It's just tougher in the second half, every game you play. Fatigue sets in. Guys tend to lose focus a little easier. Defense is on the other end of the floor instead of right in front of you in the college game, and so you know, and we didn't handle that part very well. They got the momentum, and they are physically strong, tough, big physical kids. That's how they play. That's what's made their program so good for a long time, and so they won that battle during that stretch. There's a stretch in the first half they scored eight out of nine times and a stretch in the second, half maybe eight out of 11 times when we weren't scoring and that's where the score flipped. Again I told them at the 12-minute mark, I told them, we can win by ten. I told them at the eight-minute, just keep playing. We're barely off. We just got to be a little better on that end, a little better on that end, and just keep playing, trust yourselves. Q. (No mic.) COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: All I said to them at that time-out was, what more could you ask for. I think it was maybe a four-point game at the time, and you know, so there's a lot of possessions left for both teams. It's real easy to start squeezing a little bit when you get down to that time of the game, but the team that wins close games, last media time-out games is usually, the one, again, executes, for one; doesn't make mistakes. I thought defensively, we made no mistakes and we forced tough shots and got first-shot rebounds and offensively we capitalized and guys made big shots. I won't say we got great shots but we didn't have turnovers. We got ourselves a shot and guys made big ones. Q. (No mic.) COACH CASEY ALEXANDER: Yeah, real hard to do for me. You know, but again, you know, it's easy to say up here after you win a game like that, but I really do trust our players. I never doubt where they are mentally. I never doubt their want-to. And so it's a little easier to stay composed and it's a little easier just to keep coaching the game. They are the ones that have to perform and make the plays, but we try to put them in good positions to do that, and when you've got good players and a good team that plays together, then, you know, they are going to perform. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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