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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2010Osiris EldridgeTim JankovichLloyd PhillipsST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Wichita State – 65 THE MODERATOR: The Illinois State Red Birds are with us. Coach Tim Jankovich will start with a statement on the game then questions for the two student-athletes. COACH JANKOVICH: Hard-fought game to say the least. Really, really proud of our guys' effort. The only thing that comes to mind for me was how disappointed I am for them that the tournament did not turn out as we had hoped, particularly for the seniors because it's their last go round. We've got a group of seniors that certainly deserve to feel the joy and excitement of what it's like to play in the NCAA Tournament. But just came up short. Q. Late in the game you hit a couple of big threes. Could you maybe take me through the last minute or two of the game where you stepped up and started to hit some big shots? LLOYD PHILLIPS: I was just trying to win the game. Teammates found me, when your teammates find you, you're supposed to hit shots, but it wasn't enough. Q. Osiris, can you talk about your hand a little bit? You had it wrapped early in the game? You took the wrap off. How much did that affect you in the game today? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: It was pretty sore. Went up for that block last night and came down on my elbow and my wrist and sprained it. Just tried to play through it and do the best I could tonight to just be a play maker and try to play defense. But I guess that's the type of things you've got to try to play through when it's crunch time like this. Just disappointed we couldn't get it done tonight. But we fought at the end of the game and rallied pretty hard and put up a fight. I'm proud of all the guys that helped us and thank Coach Jankovich for being here these last past three years. If it weren't for him and the coaching staff we wouldn't have none of this. Q. Would you credit your one point in the second half to the soreness of your hand or the defensive approach? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: I wasn't trying in the second half to try to force anything, try to find my shot. But I was really trying to get to the basket more. I didn't want to take any jump shots because I felt how sore my wrist was and it just wasn't feeling right. And I couldn't get there because the team was helping on the defensive end. I was just trying to do what I could. Q. You cut the lead to one four different times in the second half. Can you talk about not getting over the hump and what affect that had? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: We had so many chances to go up and tie the game, even mishandle the ball. Made some minor mistakes, but that's how the game goes. You fight so hard and just can't get over that hump. But I think everybody played their heart out tonight and you can't discredit nobody for the effort they put out tonight. Q. When you picked up your fourth foul, it kind of swung momentum. Can you talk about how big that play was? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: I just tried to be as aggressive as I could guarding. Their guards and stuff like that when I picked up that fourth foul, I had to slow it down a little bit and just play a little bit less aggressive and kind of slowed me down. But it just wasn't the same as having leeway to be more aggressive and stuff like that. Q. After losing to UNI last year in the championship game in overtime, can you talk about how much it would have meant to you to have the rematch with them? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: You know, it felt great. You know, it's sad that we lost tonight, but that's how basketball is. Coaches did a great job of preparing us in the short time we had for this game. But we fell a little bit short. It's been great feeling. Playing UNI tomorrow in front of a lot of people just but we just came up short. Q. Can you talk about your free-throw struggles during the game? You shot 53% the entire game and 40 in the first half. LLOYD PHILLIPS: We just missed them. It's a part of the game. In games like you've got one possession, two-possession games you've got to have those. You've got to be able to come up with them. It wasn't one guy's fault, it was all of our faults. Maybe the guys that didn't get a chance, maybe we didn't inspire them enough. Maybe we didn't give them enough motivation to feel good about themselves and go up there and knock them down. But it's not their fault. They just missed them. You miss shots. That's how the game goes sometimes. But we still had chances. Even after all the free throws, turnovers, still had chances to win the game. We just couldn't get over the hump. OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: Kind of what Lloyd said, I think we just walked up to the line and were thinking about it a little too much instead of just walking up and putting them down. Q. Can you reflect on your four years at ISU for us? OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: It's been great. You know, since my freshman year I experienced a little success. So I mean I can honestly look back and say that I accomplished a lot. You know, I'm proud of, you know, what I've accomplished. Just want to say thank you to everybody that had a part of it. Q. I know it's soon after the game and a tough loss for you guys. Is it going to be tough gearing up for a game and possibly in the NIT this year? LLOYD PHILLIPS: It is tough, you know. You want to play in the big tournament but, you know, that's a part of me and Dinma's job we've got to get everybody fired up again to play. If we're not fired up and ready to play, that's our fault, the older guys. It's the younger guys and the new guys they haven't done this before. They've been a great group of guys. They've worked so hard and came to practice every day ready to play. Came into the game ready to play. The older guys we've got to inspire the guys to come back and get back up again and keep playing. Q. Lloyd and Osiris, it seems like the defense had issues especially in the first half. Was that unexpected? How did that affect things tonight? LLOYD PHILLIPS: We kind of expected it, really. There's not too many guys in our league that can guard Dinma one-on-one. We played man and we've been doing a good job of giving them the ball and spacing around them. But we kind of anticipated a lot of zone. In the first half we were kind of squared up a little bit, but that's my fault. I'm the point guard. I have to bite down and handle the pressure and not turn it over. I think I had four turnovers in the first half, so I was probably more sped up than some of the new guys. But they played great defense. They got after us and sped us up a little bit. We couldn't really get the ball inside to Dinma like we wanted to and that hurts us when we can't really play to them. OSIRIS ELDRIDGE: Like Lloyd said, we played a little sped up throughout the game, but also we just had some good looks we couldn't knock them down. They had a lot of good looks inside that just didn't go. And we just credit them for the good defense they played. We just couldn't get some of our shots to go down. Q. They've run that play and had a lot of success with it. Were you expecting it or surprised? COACH JANKOVICH: Which one? Q. The home run play that Graham Hatch got the lay-up there. COACH JANKOVICH: Yeah, we said it every time out that they were going to go long. I was expecting it sooner actually. We were in a situation where we were desperate and we had to try to force them to throw it up for grabs with the guy on the ball. So we talked about that we talked about that every single time out. Q. You guys got to within one numerous times and didn't get over the hump? COACH JANKOVICH: I thought that was a great question, by the way. That was the entire second half how many times we had a chance to change the psychology of the game and we were not able to. You only get so many of those chances, and we felt we kept knocking and knocking and knocking. Never could take a one point lead to even change the whole feeling of playing from behind and that type thing. That was unfortunate. But definitely, definitely we were all feeling that on our bench. Q. Especially after you ended up making the run towards the end of the game, can you talk about how important the Garrett Stutz rebound, offensive rebound, on the missed free throw by Durley ended up being? COACH JANKOVICH: Yeah, it was pretty big, yeah. Q. Being down by ten with a little less than a minute and a half to go and getting it back down to as close as one or two, what does that say about your team? COACH JANKOVICH: You know, I feel when you lose a game like this and you reflect back, this is when you realize how much goes into an entire season. This is when it all hits you. This is when you realize how much heart and soul everyone in your organization gives for a long, long period of time. Through that a team is formed and a chemistry or lack there of, and a work ethic and a pride in the program, or not. I'm really proud of this team. I think we've become a very good basketball team. And the last minute and a half, I think, demonstrates some of the intangibles that this team has developed overtime. And I thought that from my perspective, as badly as you always want to win, truthfully sometimes you win and you played less than your best. You gave three-quarters effort, and you played with some selfish thoughts. I don't see any great victory in that. But what I try to always judge from our team is all the things that they can control: Their effort, their energy, their togetherness, their fight, their toughness, all those things. And I thought we did all of those well enough to win tonight, every one of them. I was very proud of our team. The only thing is we didn't shoot free throws well enough. That is really the story of the game. So many times when we had the opportunities to possibly take the lead and change the game, we missed free throws. And I would never, ever blame anyone for that because I can tell you if there's one thing guys are trying to do out there, it is make a shot when they get a shot. When they get a free throw, they're trying their hardest to make it. Of all the things you can control, making a shot in basketball is the least thing you can control. So I feel so good about them. I felt great about the character they showed. And even though it looked insurmountable, it almost wasn't. I think that to me was a little about our team in a little microcosm. Q. You were able to bounce back from a pretty bitter defeat last year in a championship game to play a pretty good game in the NIT. Would you expect that same resolve after this wound kind of healed? COACH JANKOVICH: Yeah, I would out of this team, absolutely because of what I just talked about. What I think they're made of and how far we've come, the pride that they have in each other and the program. Definitely I think we'd bounce back and be thrilled to compete and raise our game. I wouldn't think it would be very good if it was tomorrow afternoon, but, you know, time will heal this somewhat. I also want to say, in case no one asks, Osiris downplayed his wrist. And in no way -- we lost because we didn't score enough points -- but Osiris deserves a lot of credit. His wrist is very swollen. We didn't even know if he could literally take a shot today to bend his wrist. He can bend it forward, but bending it backwards. For you great shooters out there you know you have to bend your wrist backwards to do anything with it. He didn't know literally until warm-ups if he could even take a shot in the game. And then during the game, of course, he somehow managed to throw a couple in, but played with tremendous courage. I want to say that because I don't want people to think that that was him with a healthy hand, because that was not him with a healthy hand. And I felt very badly for him that his last chance, you know, it just seemed so unfair that his last chance at getting to a NCAA Tournament had to end with a wrist that was painful, swollen and not as functional as he would like. I really take my hat off to him watching what he was doing out there. And he's such a great, great competitor. But I don't want people to think that that was a healthy Osiris. Q. Garrett Stutz emerging over the last few weeks, how does that make WSU more difficult to deal with? COACH JANKOVICH: Yeah, if you've got a seven-footer that can score double figures every night you're in pretty good shape. You can ask Northern Iowa about that. He's certainly come on and been a real force and a real factor. Obviously that kind of size is tough to deal with when someone gets their game put together, which he obviously has, and I think that's made them -- he's a different player than we saw earlier, without question. So it's definitely made them a much -- it gives them one more difficult ingredient. They have many talented players, many. And that gives them another tough match-up for you. Q. Osiris was at ISU when you came. But can you talk about the three years with him and what he's meant to this basketball program? COACH JANKOVICH: Well, you know, Osiris in the three years I don't think anyone would say anything. But he's had a huge hand in all the success that we've had. He's had a huge hand. If I'm not mistaken in the last three years we may have won, I don't know, it might be the winningest -- close to the winningest period in a three year period. He's had an awful lot to do with that. On top of that he's shown a lot of people in our program how to really compete. The thing I love about him the most. And believe me there's days when I wanted to kill him because he's a pretty free spirit on the court. I've always tried to give him a ton of freedom. That's the way I chose to coach Osiris from day one, and sometimes, you know, that's not been perfect. But when you really look at it, you know, as good a talent as he is, as great a talent and as great an athlete and all that, but what he is best at to me is a winner and competitor. He's found so many different ways to help his team over the three years that I've been here. You know, I'm going to miss him dearly. I'm going to miss Dinma dearly. You guys all know that. Just can't fathom going to practice without Dinma there and Osiris because it's been a long time. Lloyd, I want to say this to you, you may not write about it, but Lloyd makes coaching even more meaningful. Because he was a guy that I think it's well-documented that I didn't care for his personality all that much last year for a lot of reasons. And one year later as a senior, he became someone I loved being around. I loved to coach, I loved his attitude. He's going to blame himself. He didn't even shoot a free throw for gosh sakes and he's blaming himself for free throw shooting. That's where his mind is at. So what ends up happening with your seniors -- we were here the other day, and the three seniors were here -- and you realize that you know the hard part is you spend all this time and investment and you get so close to them. They become young men, and you have to say goodbye to them. I'm just unbelievably appreciative of all three of our seniors have given us. End of FastScripts |
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