|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 5, 2020Allen EdwardsHunter ThompsonKwane Marble IIJake HendricksLas Vegas, Nevada Wyoming - 75, Nevada - 80 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes. ALLEN EDWARDS: Obviously, excited to be here in front of you guys after tonight. Gutsy performance by our guys. Stayed the course even being down 10 in the second half, just stayed together and continued to chip away on the defensive end of the floor and was proud of them of what they did in the sense of sharing the basketball offensively. But gutsy performance by our guys and, again, just excited to come away with the win. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. Questions? Q. Jake, obviously maybe not the best shooting performance of your life time, but you made some of the most timely baskets. Is that something your coach gives you confidence in that even when maybe you're missing a few shots that you know your teammates behind you to make the shots when they count the most. JAKE HENDRICKS: You said it. My team and my coaches, every time, if I'm missing they all say, Keep shooting, keep shooting, and they always give me confidence. And it also goes back to the all the practice. Every day in practice we do shooting and it just gives you confidence when you shoot every day. Q. I haven't seen you guys play a lot this year, but at the end of the game when they were shooting free throws you had all your guys back. Is that something that you normally do? Is that a philosophy to maybe set up your defense and not have anybody up there to rebound a miss? ALLEN EDWARDS: Oh, I got Jeremy Shyatt on staff and we worked for his pop, Larry Shyatt, and that's just always something we always just did. And they just started doing it and I have no problem with it because I'm not so caught up in trying to get offensive rebounds from free throws unless it's league games scenario situation. But we have been doing that all year. Regardless of it being early in the game or it being late in the game, we just, it's just something we don't do. And it's not really something that was taught or like, Hey, guys, get back. It's more, kind of happened. Q. Jake, can you talk a little bit about the journey you guys have been on? You guys have had some really tough games where you've come up just short. All of a sudden now you're on a run, you're into the semi-finals. This has to be a really great feeling for you. JAKE HENDRICKS: It's been a great time. Like you said, we have been in a lot of close games this year. So it's given us, even though we lost, it's given us confidence that we can play with everybody in the conference, even though we're 2-16. We have had a lot of close games and we just didn't close them out. We made a lot of mistakes. And I think down the stretch last night and tonight we fixed those mistakes and it's just given us confidence that we can beat anybody. Q. Hunter, you obviously missed seven games with mono this year. Do you feel like you're really starting to get your footing back in this game and -- HUNTER THOMPSON: I mean, it's definitely nice to have my shot fall and I mean, cardio-wise I feel like I'm getting there, just getting a feel back for the game. And I mean, I just got back cleared this past weekend, so I mean, it's been a pretty quick turnaround, so it's definitely crazy. Q. Was that the biggest shot of your life? HUNTER THOMPSON: I mean, I don't know. That's, I guess that's up for you guys. Q. Marble, how do you hold, arguably, the best player, but the second best player in the conference to 2-13 shooting and that type of performance? What did you do to disturb him out there defensively. KWANE MARBLE II: Coach Edwards and the coaching staff drew up a good game plan on the defensive end. We work on defense all the time in practice. We hang our hat on the defensive end and we have all season. I just went out there and I took pride in it and I stayed in front of him as much as I could. Q. Jake, can you talk a little bit about, your Cache Valley guy, you get to play Utah State tomorrow night. Can you talk about what that means for you to go up against them again? JAKE HENDRICKS: I know a lot of the guys, so it's going to be fun, it's going to mean a lot. We just got to come out and work hard and follow the game plan and just see what happens. Q. Coach, maybe the regular season didn't go exactly how you had planned it, but this team has been obviously elevated to a whole new level here in the Mountain West. Do you think your team is playing at a whole new level or maybe like the game plan is just working out perfectly how you planned it from the beginning of the season? ALLEN EDWARDS: I just think we're a little bit more seasoned. A great example would be Kwane Marble. He didn't play as much early on in the season. And to be honest with you, this is probably the healthiest we have been, just getting Thompson back off of mono. So, you know, even throughout the year we had to kind of put Band-Aids over scenarios and situations. And some of our younger guys adjusted to playing at the college level. But Kwane, Greg Newton is a first year player. He had a great game on the road at Air Force. Kenny Foster has shown some brightness in his future as well. But Jake, Maldo, even Thompson -- well, Jake and Banks are our only lone seniors. We have, again, 11 freshmen and sophomores and a lot of those guys play minutes. So again, what I've talked to our guys about all year, it's still a process at the end of the day and like Jake was saying earlier, we were in a lot of close games, it just didn't work out our way. What I give these guys credit for is they didn't pout, they didn't have a "woe me" attitude, the next day when we showed up to practice they came with the right energy to get better. And I talked to those guys all the time, even when you're going through some tough passages, the best thing you can do is just keep going. You can't stop, you can't quit. And that's a testament for life. Because I always tell our guys, basketball is a direct correlation of life. The disciplines that you learn playing this sport, if you carry on with them in your life, you're going to put yourself in position to be successful. Whatever successful means to you. Q. Defense was a huge part of the win tonight for you guys. But offensive timely baskets were also big. How much confidence does this give you and your team going into the next matchup, given that like someone like Maldonado goes 1-10 in the game yet you guys are still able to have a combined effort and get it done on the offensive end? ALLEN EDWARDS: Well, again, like Kwane was saying, day one and even in the summertime, our biggest thing was hanging our hats on the defensive end of the floor. We understood that we were going to be young. We didn't know that we were going to deal with injury and illness like we did throughout the season, but you made the point about Maldonado, I think he was 1-8 in the first half and he only took two shots in the second half. And that's probably a testament to him, understanding that tonight wasn't his night, but he did a lot of other things, he defended and rebounded. And that's kind of what we always talk about. It may not be your night some nights, but how are you helping this team when you're out on the floor. So to be able to put together a performance like that and our leading scorer not being able to help, in a sense of point production, but having him on the floor is still a very beneficial thing to this program. THE MODERATOR: Okay, men, thank you for coming down. Appreciate your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|