|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2010Ali FarokhmaneshBen JacobsonJohnny MoranST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Northern Iowa – 55 THE MODERATOR: The victorious Panthers are with us, and Ben Jacobson is here. Toward student-athletes. The procedure is the same. We'll have Coach Jacobson open up with a statement, and then we'll go to questions for the student-athletes and then we'll go to more questions with the coach. COACH JACOBSON: Thank you. You know, Drake obviously got off on to a nice start, and I think we saw the advantage of playing the game on this floor early with the way that Drake played and making shots and playing well. And fortunately our defense kicked in a little bit. I thought we guarded pretty well the last 30 minutes of the basketball game. Fortunate they missed a couple of shots, and Josh Young got them off to a good start. Obviously, this league is going to miss Josh. One of the finest players to play in this league. In all aspects. One of the best players, but one of the finest kids to play in this league. Our league is going to miss Josh. He got them off to a nice start, and fortunately again our defense kicked in and was good down the stretch. Q. You're a defensive guy. Have you ever seen a game shift or just change that abruptly? From you guys down 11, till you look at the scoreboard and you are up 10. And you did it with defense. JOHNNY MORAN: Yeah, that's definitely unusual. They came out, they were hitting every shot. We slowed down and gathered ourselves, and defensively we just stepped it up. We knew that was going to win us the game. The defense always does. And we found ourselves on the shots and the ball started bouncing our way. Q. At what point did you say to yourself, man, it's been a while since these guys scored? ALI FAROKHMANESH: I don't think we really noticed it that much. We were just more focused on getting stops. We were not looking up the score a whole lot. But it was probably just -- it was probably just more that we were looking at getting stops than anything. We weren't looking at the score and thinking about it as much. It was more the Coach was focusing in on getting one stop at a time. And it carried over to one stop, two, three, four, and then, you know. Q. What did you guys do different in the second half with your defense than what you did in the first half? JOHNNY MORAN: We didn't really change much. We just came out more aggressive, I think. We had that run in the first half and the energy from that carried over and we started playing with more energy, and that really helped us out. Q. Talk a little about that sequence. You hit a three, I think Johnny draws a foul and you hit a ball later. Can you take me through that sequence a little? Because obviously six quick points. JOHNNY MORAN: It comes under the hustle. Luke got the offensive rebound and kicked it back out to me. And Johnny's just always making plays that probably a lot of people don't notice out there. But everyone on our team noticed it. So he makes that play and my teammates find me open again on the other corner. That was one of the big keys in that stretch. But it definitely comes under hustling. And that's what Coach preaches all the time. We look up to Johnny and Luke, and they made plays for us in that stretch. Q. Talk about the total team effort on the defensive end, and how you kind of used that as energy to fuel your offense in that run there? JOHNNY MORAN: Yeah, our offense was struggling a little bit in the beginning, and our defense really picked up. Just everybody. The big guys were doing a great job in the post down low. The guards were doing a good job guarding the ball, making them kick it out and contesting shots. Defense gets us going. I think that's our thing. When we pick up our defense, we pick up our energy. Like I said, that run in the first half led to even more energy coming on out in the second half. Q. You were shooting 0 for 5 in the first half from three point. Pretty uncharacteristic, but then you picked it back up for 2 for 3 at the start of the second half. Was it just a matter of keep shooting and they'll eventually go in? What were you thinking throughout that time? ALI FAROKHMANESH: It was a little frustrating coming in there and missing the first five shots. I thought I had good looks at it. My teammates told me to keep shooting, my coaches told me to keep shooting. I'm never thinking about it a whole lot. If you worry about the last three shots you're not going to make the next one. Q. How much of a difference is it, and how much of a benefit is it to go into this game and be down and know we've done this before? We've been here, we've made this run, just the confidence that the experience gives you? ALI FAROKHMANESH: It makes it a whole lot easier. We look at each other and nobody's really stressing out. There are probably people in the crowd freaking out that we're down 11 and not shooting the ball well. But if you look at each other, we're just calm face. We're not worried. We know we're going to make a run. The big thing is our defense is going to be there no matter what, it's just a matter of time before our offense catches up to our defense. Q. You talked about your perimeter game. But in the second half you guys really outscored them in the paint. Was that something you were planning on doing earlier that just didn't work? How did you adapt to DOMINATE in the paint so well? ALI FAROKHMANESH: I think we just started attacking more. I think we probably said it a little too much in the first half. But it was more our Coach was telling us to attack the zone. Sometimes you get those looks and think you're going to make them but they're not always falling. We were trying to drive to the basket a little more because they were pressuring so far out there. Our coaches told us to do that and we made the plays. JOHNNY MORAN: Yeah, our game plan is always to get the ball on the post as much as we can with Jordan and Lucas and Adam down there. They really do a great job for us. We just did a better job of finding them in the second half. Q. When you've looked at your team this year, you've had a lost runs where it's a 10-1 run. You just seem to ride waves of momentum. What do you think accounts for that, I guess? COACH JACOBSON: I think the guys mentioned it a little bit. Our defense has been very consistent, as you know. That's been where the guys take a lot of pride in rebounding. If we're doing that right and our communication is good, our rotations are good, and if we're blocking out, if we're doing it the way we're supposed to, eventually we feel our offense is going to catch up and kick in at some point. If we are having a little bit of a lapse at the offensive end. Once that does with the bounce we have on fence, once we get some rhythm going there, certainly that helps when you go on a run. But really it's just standing on our defense. Q. At one point you were down by 11 in the first half, and cut that down to one at the half. Then clearly that led straight into the second half. What did you do differently in the second half than in the first half? COACH JACOBSON: I think the biggest difference is we finally got some stops. One of the keys for us coming into this basketball game was trying to find some transition baskets, and Drake made just about everything they shot for the first ten minutes of the game so there were no transition opportunities to have. So that really slowed us down offensively. Then you have to play against their zone in the quarter court and their zone has gotten very good over the course of the years. So we had to find stops. When we did and finally got some misses, we got a couple of opportunities down the stretch in the first half. In the second half it really felt like we were pushing the basketball and finding some stuff in transition, just the result of getting some stops. Q. You guys went on a 29-2 run, they went 21 minutes without a basket. Is that the best your team has played over maybe a period of a game? COACH JACOBSON: Certainly up there with some of our best stretches defensively probably. That's a long time to go with just one basket. I mentioned Drake making shots early and kind of benefiting from playing yesterday and being on the floor. I think maybe -- I don't want to speak for them, obviously -- but maybe some of those jump shots are a little longer in the second half. They're a game and a half in, and we're just 20 minutes in. So we may have caught the better end of it in the second half with our guys not having to play yesterday. But I did think we did a better job of defending. We were in front of them more often. We contested more shots. I think that was really the key. Q. A lot of people focused on the RPI when they talk about the National Tournament. What would today's game show your team or show about your team that the RPI might not? COACH JACOBSON: I think when you watch our basketball team sometimes you've got to watch us for a little while. We're not a team you can watch for ten minutes and say okay, that's one of the top 25 teams in the country. It takes longer than that with our basketball team. If you'll take time to watch us, I think you'll see an efficient team at both ends of the floor, and because we are solid defensively, we've got guys that are willing to take charge, we've got guys that are willing to come up with loose balls and offensive rebounds. When you watch us long enough, I think you see a very efficient team at both ends of the floor. And because of that, up five, down five, it really to these guys doesn't make that much difference. We can play and we can play different styles and different circumstances because we have the experience and depth to do it. Q. Obviously we don't know who you're going to play tomorrow. But can you talk about the two possible opponents, Bradley and Creighton and what you've seen of them? COACH JACOBSON: At Bradley in our second game with them I thought they played a very good second half. We had a nice lead at halftime and played well. Bradley played a good second half and able to win that basketball game at their place. Obviously with Taylor Brown at the four, really playing four perimeter guys presents some challenges because they can drive it. And Maniscalco played at a high level for a couple of months now, and Warren has continued to play better the more he's played after sitting out last year. And Roberts is doing a nice job as a senior. So having four perimeter guys is a real challenge to defend. And Creighton has had a nice two-week stretch winning basketball games and playing good basketball. And obviously this time of the year they've always played well. They're going to play 10 or 11 guys, so depth isn't going to be a problem. Guys being tired isn't going to be a problem. So real challenges with both teams. Q. Lucas, four offensive boards, eight boards in total, eight points, diving on the floor. Did he have a little extra jump today? COACH JACOBSON: Yeah, I think so. We see what we saw today most of the time. But this is probably in the top four or five games of our season this year in terms of his energy level and his toughness. We felt like trying to find some transition baskets and really rebounding. We had to have some offensive rebounds and look got four of them today for us. Today he might have been even a little higher level, yeah. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
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
|