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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 6, 2020

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Drake - 77, Northern Iowa - 56

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Bryan Burwell Memorial interview room here at Arch Madness.

The victorious Drake Bulldogs are with us. They have a date in the semifinals tomorrow, first game against the winner of Bradley and Southern Illinois. From the student body, we have Anthony Murphy, Jonah Jackson, and Roman Penn. The head coach is Darian DeVries.

DARIAN DeVRIES: First off, I'd like to congratulate Northern Iowa on a tremendous year. They're certainly an NCAA Tournament team and deserve to be in the tournament, but wanted to congratulate them on just an incredible year.

For our team, certainly happy about the way they performed today and really competed, and it was fun to watch them out there for these 40 minutes.

Q. Anthony, can you talk a little bit about your defensive approach against Green, and how your team was able to regroup after UNI got it within two points there in that second half when you held them scoreless for a ten-minute stretch.
ANTHONY MURPHY: Of course, I had A.J. Green up the half-court so he wouldn't give me great shots or any drives to the paint. My team was on the offensive end, Roman, Liam, Jonah making big shots and kicking the ball out so we could get the victory.

Q. For you three guys, what does this mean to be able to pull this win off, to come together from the same area, and to do this?
THE MODERATOR: Start with Roman, Jonah, and then Anthony will finish.

ROMAN PENN: It means a lot. We're all from the region. Being able to play and represent the region as best as possible, it's a blessing and an honor. Just being able to be on the Division I level, five of us from the region, you don't really see it that much. So we want to represent to the best of our abilities and also represent Drake and our fans and everyone who supports us.

JONAH JACKSON: To go off of what Roman said, kind of humbling. Most don't have that kind of opportunity we have in this region, so we make the most of it.

ANTHONY MURPHY: Playing with these guys is great. To finish out my last year, I wouldn't want to do it with any other guys. I just love playing with these guys and the coaching staff.

Q. Darian, what did you see out of your team defensively after UNI cut that deficit to two and had a couple looks at it that allowed you to get those strings of stops to get that separation and put this game away?
DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought we got a little sped up coming out of halftime at the offensive end and got us a little disjointed. Defensively, they hit a few shots early to cut that lead pretty quickly down to two. I gave our guys credit coming out of the time-out and things. I thought they settled down a bit, really dug in more defensively, and made things hard. They're tough to guard. They spread you out. They can go inside with Phyfe and A.J., Player of the Year, and all the other pieces, they're just all tough. They spread you out so much.

I thought the guys did a tremendous job, just from an effort standpoint, of really fighting and competing and trying to challenge them on everything.

Q. For Roman and Anthony, can you take us through that play where late in the shot clock there's a scrum. I think, Anthony, you picked up the ball, kicked it over to Roman, you hit a three with a about a second left on the shot clock. Felt like the dagger of the game.
ANTHONY MURPHY: I saw Roman when I hit the ground, and I knew he was going to make the shot because he was hiding. I just had faith in Roman.

ROMAN PENN: Yeah, I don't know about that, but it was a scramble. I saw the shot clock going down. I actually was able to set with my feet a lot better than I thought I was, and I was able to actually get a pretty good look for the situation that we had, and I was able to knock it down, and we were able to get some key stops towards the end.

Q. Darian, to go from that blowout loss in your home gym the final game of the regular season, you lost three straight coming into this tournament, to accomplishing something that's never been done before in this tournament, what can you say about what your team was able to do to get to this point today?
DARIAN DeVRIES: I've told the team all year, we didn't finish where we wanted to, but we've been really close in a lot of games. We continue to believe in each other, and we went into this tournament saying every game is just a new 40-minute game, and we really approached that today.

Northern Iowa has had a tremendous year. We didn't have quite the year we wanted to, but today was just one 40-minute game, and whoever's better after these 40 minutes gets to play on. That was our challenge to them is just be the best us we can be today, and we'll take the results. I thought these guys really kept believing. It started yesterday and then today again. Just played with tremendous kind of effort.

And they had fun. They were having fun out there. It's awesome as a coach to see them enjoying playing the game.

Q. Coach, we're almost exactly 24 hours until your third game in three days. What's the next 24 hours look like?
DARIAN DeVRIES: For these guys, they get to go rest, and for me, just no sleep, but it's the best no sleep that there is out there. This time of year, I don't even know if you feel tiredness in March. I don't think it's humanly possible when these guys on this stage -- they just want to play. There's no way they'll come out and be tired tomorrow. They want that next game, and then they want to play one more. They'll be ready to go. They're resilient. I couldn't do it, but these guys can.

Q. Jonah, they gave you credit for a two-point shot attempt. You came close, I think. What is it about the three-point shot for you? And you have not hit a two-point shot all year.
JONAH JACKSON: Yeah, just, I don't know actually. It's just what I'm good at, so it's just what I kind of do for the team. The team needs me to make shots from the perimeter, from the three, so that's what I do.

DARIAN DeVRIES: Drew it up for him today to get the one shot.

Q. I was going to ask, is there a celebration planned for when this happens?
DARIAN DeVRIES: I told him this morning in our shootaround. We're going to run this play for you, and you're going to get a two-pointer. You can dunk it, do what you want with it, just don't trip and fall. It didn't work. He's got a unique skill set to not have any two pointers.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, congratulations. We'll see you tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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