	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2020

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

THE MODERATOR: The 2:45 to 3:00 session features the No. 6 seeded Missouri State Bears. They will play No. 3 Indiana State, 8:30 Friday night. Ross Owens and Gaige Prim represent the student body for the Bears. Coach Dana Ford is in the middle.

DANA FORD: Thanks. Excited to be here. Looking forward to the first game against Indiana State. Just happy that our players are feeling good about this experience and happy to start a new season.

Q. Coach, my condolences on what I'm sure has been a tough week for you guys. I was just wondering if you could say anything on the passing of A.J.
DANA FORD: It's been a tough week. Out of respect for his family, I'm just going to say that they're in our thoughts and prayers. That's how we're going to leave it.

Q. What have you kind of seen in a change in Indiana State in recent weeks? You guys were the last team to beat them.
DANA FORD: Obviously, they're shooting the ball well. They've got a veteran backcourt, well coached. Their two interior guys can both score the ball, although they're young, and defensively, they've gotten a lot better. Just playing well, just playing really well as a team.

Q. Dana, both matchups during the regular season were so different, and the state of the teams were different when they were playing at the time. Is there much that can be derived from both your win and Indiana State's win down in Springfield that apply to the way the teams are right this minute?
DANA FORD: I think a little bit. I think the first time we played them, we were still trying to find our way a little bit. We're definitely a different team today than what we were even the second time we played them. I would imagine that they feel like they are too, but I would imagine there's a few things that you can kind of take. It's a new season. The stakes are different. It's just a totally different game.

Q. For people in our area that only see you guys twice a year, what did change for your team that made you guys a better team in the last month of the year?
DANA FORD: Well, it started off by just playing harder. I think what ended up happening when we started playing harder is that we all started caring about the same thing, so that kind of connected us a little better. I think, when you have a group of guys that care about the same thing, you can get some things done, and I think that's kind of what we've had happen here since that loss against Indiana State.

Q. Yeah, that loss, Ross Owens played quite a bit, played the entire second half, if I remember correctly. What influence has inserting him into the rotation had on your team?
DANA FORD: Well, obviously, we -- it made us deeper because now you have guys who are starters coming off the bench. So it automatically made us deeper. He plays really hard, and I think that other guys kind of got the message that that's what we're looking for. He's a great teammate, tries to make people better, and everyone on the team likes him. So I think he's had a really good impact on our group. Inserting him in the lineup has definitely changed who we are as a team for the better.

Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you about Indiana State's Jordan Barnes and get your description of what kind of a player he is and basically your admiration for his game and all that.
DANA FORD: Really good player. He's not big in size, but you can tell his heart's big. He's made big shots for them every year he's been there. What I like about him is the things that I hear Coach say about him this year, how he sacrificed his game for the betterment of the team. I want to say this is the highest he's finished since he's been there, and he's a guy who's capable of 20 points, but if he felt like this year would be better to distribute and it's gotten him as close to a regular season title, I think, since he's been here.

I just have a lot of admiration for that, for being able to sacrifice what's better for the group.

Q. Ross, just these last few weeks, you getting put into the starting lineup and everything, kind of how crazy has that been for you? I don't know if it's something you kind of expected from the beginning or just what has this kind of been like for you?
ROSS OWENS: I'd say it's nothing like I expected, first off. It's been good for the team. We're playing better. We're winning. Everybody on the team is, what Coach said, working for the same goal, and that's winning. So it's been good.

Q. Coach kind of calls you contagious sometimes, just kind of with that energy. Do you kind of feel them feeding off of that a little bit?
ROSS OWENS: Yeah, I mean, it's gotten other guys who weren't playing as hard, and everybody's playing hard now. It is contagious. Guys that weren't diving on the floor at the beginning of the year are diving on the floor now, and that's winning basketball.

Q. And, Gaige, for you on Ross, just how have you kind of felt that impact throughout the season?
GAIGE PRIM: It's been a big impact for sure. You've got a guy like Ross, and you get to see him play and whatnot. He just sacrifices for the guy next to him. He's gonna be a help. Every other player on the team sees that and says I want to be just like that, and it kind of feeds off everybody else.

Q. Dana, one of the Indiana State's strengths is they don't turn the ball over very much. How do you get that team and those guards and even their bigs, who can distribute the ball pretty well, how do you get them to make mistakes? How do you get them to turn the ball over?
DANA FORD: I just think we have to play as hard as we can. If they turn it over, hopefully, we can convert those into points. If they don't turn it over, hopefully, we can make them miss. I don't know if there's anything that we're going to set out to do to make them turn it over. We're just going to try to play as hard as we can.

Q. Coach, kind of take me back to that Indiana State game, where you just decided to start playing Ross as much as you did. Just kind of what goes through the coach's mind to say, hey, this is the direction we need to go in right now?
DANA FORD: You've got to try to help your group. We had given almost everyone else an opportunity, and hindsight, we probably should have given Ross an opportunity sooner, but it was just his chance to get a shot. We had gotten that far down the bench. In terms of what we were looking for, we're just basically looking for guys that are willing to empty their tank, and he definitely is that type of guy. We're fortunate that he got to that point.

Q. For those 20 minutes that you played him there in the second half, was he fighting to not come out, or kind of what's the decision to go a whole 20 there?
DANA FORD: He was giving us the best opportunity to win. He was emptying his tank, took a time-out, let him fill up. We had a couple medias, and I just had more confidence that he would empty his tank than anyone else. I'm glad that we got in that situation.

Q. Gaige, just kind of how surreal is this experience so far? Is this anything kind of like you've played in the past?
GAIGE PRIM: It's definitely a new experience. It being Division I and whatnot, it's new, but I've been in this position before, so it's nothing really too surreal for me.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Best of luck.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297