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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 14, 2008

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

CHARLIE FISS: We'll joined now by Texas A&M and Coach Mark Turgeon, his two student athletes are Bryan Davis and Dominique Kirk. Coach, we'll call on you first for your comments on tonight.
MARK TURGEON: Well, it's just a great win for us. Beating K-State in Kansas City, you know, they got a great team, great players.
They whipped us pretty good at their place, you know, and the sky was falling in Aggie-land when they beat us the first time. So this one meant a lot to us.
Dominique Kirk did what he did in the NCAA tournament last year, really stepped up. Made two just -- we had nothing going. Their pressure was something else. We couldn't get anything going. Dominique just made two back-to-back big 3s. At the end we got the stops we needed. I thought we did a great job on Beasley. The last eight minutes of the game we had more help on him and we made him take tough shots.
He jumps in and draws contact and we just talk to our guys about putting their hands back all night and absorbing the contact and make sure the officials knew who was making contact. We got just enough rebounds, made just enough free throws, made enough shots and survived. It is great for us.
We've won game in the Big 12 tournament in 11 years and we got two in two days, we feel pretty good about ourselves.

Q. Dominique, when you banked in that three-pointer to beat the shot clock, at that point did you feel it was going to be your night?
DOMINIQUE KIRK: Well, I knew the shot clock was going down. There was three seconds left on the shot clock, and I was just trying to get it up there. It was just a prayer. It went in, went off the glass and made it. I was trying to go out there and just be aggressive.

Q. Dominique, even though this was a close game down the stretch, do you kind of feel like you had control of the game pretty much throughout?
DOMINIQUE KIRK: I thought we had pretty good control of the game. They made a great run on us. You just can't hold down a great team, if you got a great player on their team like Michael Beasley, they are hard to hold down. We went out there and just tried to execute every play. We just went out there and just did it.

Q. Tell me about facing Michael Beasley and then his shot toward the end and all how that unravelled for you?
BRYAN DAVIS: Michael Beasley is a great player. We just all try to come out and play him as tough as we can and just so happy the last shot came out.

Q. Dominique, can you talk about how sweet this is? I mean, this is your fourth time to come to the Big 12 tournament. Obviously a lot of frustrations in the past.
DOMINIQUE KIRK: It is very sweet, you know. Can't really celebrate too much. We got the Jayhawks coming in playing tomorrow and got to get ready for that game. That will be another great battle for us and we got to go out there and compete.
CHARLIE FISS: Okay, we'll let you go back to the locker room. Questions now for Coach? Congratulations on your victory.

Q. Can you talk about the plans to try and shorten the game a little bit. Was that part of the plan at all to hold the ball to drain the shot clock a little bit?
MARK TURGEON: Well, we have been playing this way for a while and, you know, it was hard for us just to get a shot off. I thought their defense the second half was fantastic.
But, no, we're playing a little bit more deliberate. We have been in foul trouble and just trying to survive games. They're so explosive, you know, we weren't going to win an 80-point game. They're averaging 79 points a game, 79.6 or something like that. So we just told our guys if we are going to win, it had to be in the high 50s or low 60s and that's what it was.
You know, I thought defensively for the most part we were pretty darn good out there. We rebounded pretty well. They average about 16, almost 17 offensive rebounds a game. We held them to 11. And they got a couple right there at the end.
They weren't making as many jump shots. We played at their place, Bill Walker and Beasley hit every jump shot; tonight they weren't. It makes a big difference. There is a fine line between a lot of teams in college basketball. Beasley's shot went all the way in and came out. It was our night and then we made two free throws.
We'll take it.

Q. You've been to the NCAA tournament, Sweet 16 and you've played these guys twice this year. Do you feel that this is a NCAA caliber team that you played against tonight?
MARK TURGEON: Oh, yeah, there's no question. They are a heck of a basketball team. They are not playing with the same confidence they played with when we played them in January, not quite the same animal.
But, no, they deserve it. Whenever you got a player like Beasley, you can beat anybody. This time of year they're hard to come by.
But, no, I think our league deserves a lot of teams in and they're one of them. To win ten games in the second-rated league in the country, they deserve in. They deserve in the tournament and I think they'll do well.

Q. Coach, you will be facing Kansas for the second time in less and week. With the quick turnaround in tournament play, does that help being familiar with a team like that and just talk about what your team will need tomorrow?
MARK TURGEON: All we're going to do is rest between now and 3:00 tomorrow. Yeah, playing them a week ago is going to help us. We're not going to change anything. They're not going to change anything. I'm a little concerned. They didn't play well tonight for them. They're going to start with a lot more energy than they did tonight.
KU to me is all about energy. When they have high energy, they're good. They had unbelievable energy at our place a week ago and we didn't play that bad. I mean, people can say what they want, we didn't finish the game well and we've done that a few times this year but I mean, we played well.
So I'm a little nervous going into tomorrow knowing they will be a lot fresher than we are. And we will have be to a little bit deeper and play with a little more depth and our guys will have to step up and try to hang around. They watched the same game you watched tonight so they're going to come after us and pressure us and we got to be able to handle it.
But we're looking forward to it. They whipped us pretty good on senior day, especially down the stretch. So we're looking forward to hopefully giving them a little bit better game tomorrow.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what you told your guys in the last eight seconds right after you made the free throws and what you were expecting them to do?
MARK TURGEON: Here's the deal. I played for a guy that always -- he always communicated with the players and asked the players what they wanted.
I grabbed Dominique coming off the floor and I said, "Dominique, do you want to foul?"
"What do you want to do, Coach?"
"I want to do what you guys want to do."
So he grabbed me and we went over there and we all huddled up and we were grabbing each other, and the guys said, Coach, we can get a stop."
So we subbed Beau, we switched all screens and we got a stop. We gave them one too many shots but we did everything right until the offensive rebound. Then the guy made a great play throwing it out.
They're playing the game. They are out in the middle of it. Obviously if they hit a 3 and went into the overtime and we lost, I would be taking the blame and not be telling you this story. I will tell you the story now because we won and I just wanted to know what they wanted to do.

Q. Can you give us a health report on DeAndre?
MARK TURGEON: Oh, yeah, I mean, he ate a little bit today. He got some sleep. His mom forced it down him, but he obviously didn't have it. We gave him a shot. Hopefully he will be able to help us tomorrow. They are a much bigger team and it wasn't really a great team for DeAndre to play against. Hopefully he will get some food down him tonight and we will have him back for a few minutes tomorrow.
Beau is playing his tail off and Junior is playing his tail off and we've had two great wins. So we'll see. But I hope we have him. We need a little bit more depth tomorrow.
CHARLIE FISS: Coach, thank you. Congratulations.

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