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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2010Khris MiddletonDonald SloanMark TurgeonKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Texas A&M – 70 CHARLIE FISS: We're joined by Mark Turgeon. Coach, your assessment of today's victory. COACH TURGEON: First, it was a great win for us. Defensively, we played just well enough. They shot the ball extremely well. They played with a lot of fight. Built the lead up to 14, I believe, and had chances to put them away. Couldn't do it. Got stagnant against the zone. Missed shots against the zone. Turned the ball over against the zone and stopped guarding during that stretch. Let our offense affect the defense. Got them back in the game, and in the end we did just enough to win. Khris -- Sloan hit a big 3 when it was a 1-point gain, just a huge 3. And then Khris hit a big 3, also, and then Sloan got the one in the paint. We really executed against the zone late. Wish our defense would have been a little bit better down the stretch, but all in all it was a good win for us. CHARLIE FISS: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Talk about the guard play without Dash, no turnovers out of the starting guards, you and B.J. DONALD SLOAN: I thought it was big for us. Dash is the guy who runs our system, runs our stuff very well. He's the glue to us offensively. Not to have him, it's a pretty big knock for us. Like you said, our guards stepped up tonight -- or today, and got it done. Q. Donald, along those lines, talk about not having Bryan most of the day. How did that exacerbate some of your offensive problems? DONALD SLOAN: Bryan is one of our key guys, especially down low, and for him to be in foul trouble, something that we've had to adjust to over the course of the season. We're used to it. But when he's in, he's one of our better guys. We play better with him. He knows that. We all know that. Just circumstances, I guess, of getting in foul trouble. It makes everybody else pick the game up and try to do a little bit more. Q. Khris, talk about your 3, when they cut it to 2. 57-55. How big was that? Talk about how the play unfolded. KHRIS MIDDLETON: Just wanted to have confidence in my shot. I shot it knowing it was going to go in to put my team up. And it was just a shot I knew I needed to knock down. Q. It was a big shot for the 2. But how about the one where they got within 1? That was probably the longest shot you took all day. DONALD SLOAN: I think so. I really wasn't, I guess, measuring it before I shot it. Just kind of in the flow of the game. Knowing that we needed something big. It feels good when you make it. But had I missed it, totally different story. It's just things like that, being in the flow, the rhythm of the game. Sometimes you just, you just do things that you don't normally do. That was one thing that I normally don't shoot I guess deep balls with. Q. Donald, did you come into this game feeling you were going to have to do more with Dash sitting on the bench there? DONALD SLOAN: Actually, I didn't know that -- I had no idea that he wasn't going to play, I guess, until this morning, shoot-around. I thought he was just kind of resting, he would be ready to go. But I found out, I guess, hours before the game that he wasn't going to be able to go. And, yeah, just had in my mind that we can't let this one get away like we did last year in our first game. If I have to do more, I would. We have a great team. I think everybody picked up the slack from not having Dash for B.J. being in foul trouble, things like that. So I think everybody pretty much had it on their mind this was going to be a game that we all would have to play good. Q. Donald and Khris, what do you think about your match-up with Kansas, you had a great opportunity to beat them before, what do you think about meeting them here again? DONALD SLOAN: We had an opportunity earlier in the year. Kind of let it slip by. This is another chance. I guess walking through it, we'll see tomorrow. I think our guys are ready. We're prepared. And come tomorrow I think our guys will be ready. KHRIS MIDDLETON: We have to be ready, tough game, be ready for a 40-minute game. We have to be ready the whole time, I think. Q. I think Bryan only had one basket, and you found him on the pass there on the baseline late. Did you just see him flash, or did you know he was going to be open? KHRIS MIDDLETON: When I caught the ball, I looked up, saw him cutting back behind the zone. Right when I saw I was going to have him, I passed it to him and he made the play. CHARLIE FISS: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Just talk about your guards gutting it out, your whole team, gutting it out without Dash but particularly B.J. and the job he filled and if you have an update on Dash? COACH TURGEON: This team just keeps doing it. And B.J. I knew would play well. He's done that before. I knew Sloan would play well. But Naji I thought 16 minutes really good minutes for us. Khris, another freshman, good minutes for us. Darko was in there for four minutes, he helped us. We've gone through a lot of injuries. Derrek Lewis is still hurt. He's not even practicing. So I was really proud of our guards except for Khris against that zone, two or three possessions in a row turning the ball over which he doesn't do, our guards were really good today. And they made big shots and they took care of the basketball. And we got a little -- we didn't flow as well without Dash out there against the zone. And it showed at times. But we did just enough, and I think Dash is day-to-day. I fully expected him to play today and he just couldn't do it. So we'll wake up tomorrow and see if he's ready to play. If he's not, if we're lucky enough to win we'll see on Saturday. But he's day-to-day. Q. You got outrebounded. Looked like Ray had a pretty good first half. Didn't play too many minutes in the second. What was your reasoning behind that? COACH TURGEON: It became a really close game quickly. They were zoning us and certain guys are better in zone offense. Ray really helped us in the first half. Ray had nine good minutes. Defensively, I was concerned about him. They're so small. Haven't been able to teach him since he didn't start practice until December all the things I need to teach him to be a better defender, especially perimeter defender. So Ray helped us, KU will be a big lineup tomorrow, Ray will probably get more than nine minutes tomorrow. Yeah, I thought he had a great nine minutes. Really helped us right before half. Q. You've been on the other side of this. You know what it's like to play Kansas, to beat Kansas in Kansas City. How do you prepare your team for what comes out of the stands tomorrow? COACH TURGEON: We won't care what comes out of the stands. We know there will be a lot of Jayhawks in here. But we've become a pretty good road team down the stretch. We've won four of our last five road games. We'll treat it like a road game tomorrow. We'll have that approach to it. I just hope we can get healthy overnight and give them a good game. That's the whole key. And seeing Bill's face at the end of the game, I don't think he was happy with his guys so I imagine the Jayhawks will be ready to play tomorrow evening, and we have to match their intensity. Q. Can you talk about the end of the first half that was a key situation that they were coming back and then they also had the ball in 5 and then you hit a 3 and had a good stop? COACH TURGEON: Went two for one. Ran a play for Sloan. And he got the ball in the paint, and they had two guys try to block it so Ray got the offensive rebound, got foul, made one for two. And made a big steal. We ran, which we like to do, and just unselfish. Khris found B.J. B.J. found Sloan. He's wide open and knocked it down. That was big. I think it put the lead back to 9. All day I felt like we were dominating the game, that they were just 8, 6, 5, 9, ten. You knew they would make a run, especially where we had the stretch we couldn't hit a shot. We were around 49 forever. Our guys are tough. Told them to relax, attack the zone like we were attacking with our man defense and they started to do that and we got better. Q. Looked like Bryan played pretty well when he was out there. But obviously didn't get a chance to be out there, get in the flow of the game. How fired up do you expect him to be for tomorrow as a senior to spend some time on the floor and get in the flow of it? COACH TURGEON: I didn't think any of our post guys played well. Probably Ray played the best. He played the fewest minutes. But I expect David to play better tomorrow. He wasn't very good. And Bryan has to play smarter than he played. He's been through too much to be sitting. It's his fourth foul. It's just not very bright. He's got to play smarter than that. Big three-point play. That was a lucky play. You have to be good and you have to be lucky. That was a lucky play for us. He'll be fired up. Hopefully all of us will be, and hopefully our bench will play better tomorrow and we'll be able to give them a game. CHARLIE FISS: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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