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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: SALT LAKE CITYMarch 27, 2010Curtis KellyFrank MartinJacob PullenSALT LAKE CITY, UTAH Butler – 63 THE MODERATOR: We have Coach Martin with us. We'll begin with an opening statement from Coach Martin. COACH MARTIN: Real proud of our guys. Given me an unbelievable ride this year. Given K Staters an unbelievable ride this year. With all that said, this moment right now is not about K State, it's about Butler University. Unbelievable effort by those kids. They absolutely kicked our tails and very well deserving of going to Indianapolis and representing their school and their conference at the Final Four. Q. Do you feel like fatigue, emotional, physical, played a role in this? COACH MARTIN: I don't think physical fatigue did. But I think mentally we looked tired. We were sluggish. But, like I said, I don't think it was about our wrongdoing as much as it was about Butler's right-doing. They annihilated us on the glass. Every time we made a couple shots, they stepped right back up and make a shot or make a play. It's a lot of credit goes to their kids. We didn't play real well. A lot of it had to do because of them, not so much because of our wrongdoing. THE MODERATOR: We have the student-athletes from Kansas State. Let's direct questions to the student-athletes. Q. You fought so hard to get back, took the lead. What in your minds happened after you did take that lead? JACOB PULLEN: We weren't able to guard. We had defensive breakdowns. We didn't make shots. We made some bad decisions on offense, and they capitalized. They're a good team. Q. Curtis, talk about your first half, coming alive, keeping this team into it at a time when it was very difficult for you to score. CURTIS KELLY: Uhm, I just -- I was just doing what I felt I needed to do. I don't think I did anything special. They gave me the ball and I was just trying to score it, you know. Second half, I tried to let Jake and Denis take over the rest of the game and just play my part. Q. How tough was it for you to get any flow in the first half and for the entire game? JACOB PULLEN: First half I tried not to force it. I was trying to ride Curtis. He was doing a good job of scoring the ball. Second half, I got some more looks, trying to be more aggressive. Just didn't go in the hole. Q. Have you had an opportunity to talk with the seniors, and particularly Denis, and what was your message to those guys? CURTIS KELLY: Uhm, I just told them I love 'em, and he gave us a good season, and I feel bad that we could happen get him to the Final Four. But Butler played great. They did the things they had to do, and we fell. Q. Curtis, did they do something differently on you in the second half? It seemed you got taken out of the offense. CURTIS KELLY: I don't know. We ran the plays coach drew up and we tried to run them through. And I think they did a better job. You know, everywhere I went, it seemed like Hayward was on me, even an offensive rebound or anything. He was everywhere I turned. A little bit the first half, I think he eased up on me and let me catch it. But the second half, they just was everywhere. Everywhere I looked, there was somebody there. Q. There are people in this country who still think that Butler is some quaint little story. I know you never took it that way. Now that you've played against them, what do you think makes them such a good team? JACOB PULLEN: Do a great job of controlling the pace of the game, you know. They never try to let the game get out of their reach. They don't try to get sped up. They try to do what they want to do when they want to do it. Defensively, they just try to hound everybody, try to stay in the lane, pack it in so there's nowhere to drive. Then they just sent five to the glass every time. Did a good job rebounding. CURTIS KELLY: I think they're a really good defensive team. I don't think they get credit enough for their defense. Then they got a great player in Hayward. They put the ball in his hands, they like to drive and kick off him. They run ball screens that are real effective. Their offense is fantastic in my eyes. But they don't get enough credit for they defense. They defense is tough to play against. Q. Jake, could you put into words what this ride has been like, your junior season here. JACOB PULLEN: It's been amazing. Too bad it had to end today. But it was a great ride. We grew. The whole season we learned a lot. I don't know. I can't really put it into words, you know. It was a great experience. But it hurts to have it end today. Q. After such an epic game the other night, was there any emotional or physical fatigue that you felt today? JACOB PULLEN: You know, when the adrenaline start pumping, I don't really think people worry about being tired or fatigued. Or the last game we played. I think we was trying to focus in on this game. But things just didn't go our way like it's been going the rest of the tournament. CURTIS KELLY: I don't know. They just -- I was okay. I felt good. Adrenaline, like Jake said, helped me out. This game was more emotionally draining I think than the last game. The reason why that is, because the game yesterday, I felt like we was in control of the game the whole game, and today, I didn't feel as in control. I felt like we kept having to fight back. Q. You both still have a future at Kansas State. Has this run built a foundation for you in your mind for this program, even looking immediately to next year? CURTIS KELLY: I think it definitely has. A lot of people didn't think we was going to make it this far, and we have. We made great strides throughout the season. We did some great things here, built some great tradition. But, uhm, me personally, I'm just happy to be a part of it. And I'm just happy to make such a great change in my life. And I think K State and Coach Martin and the rest of my players basically saved my life. They took something I didn't have anymore and made it grow back to something. They gave it more life. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes and direct questions to Coach Martin. Q. You battled back, took a lead. How did you think your team handled that after taking the one-point lead? COACH MARTIN: Not well. Not well. We committed two away-from-the-ball fouls which I thought we were really starting to defend them halfway decent. Committed two away-from-the-ball fouls. That puts them on the foul line. We gave up the little lob layup, because we don't do our job, once again, off the ball defensively. Then they had that driving layup off that high ball screen, close to the halfcourt line. We were supposed to be soft, what we call soft-hedging ball screens. There was a problem for us all night. Their guard got it to the rim. We were late rotating over, which is fine. I got no problem with people driving the ball from the halfcourt line to the rim. That's kind of what I want them to do. We were late on the ball screen and we were late on our rotation. Give their kid credit, they scored. Then offensively I thought we settled. We got back in the game by attacking the rim, then we settled. Jake takes that long three. It's hard to get upset at somebody that's made so many of 'em to help us get to this game for taking that shot. Like I told him, second to the last time out, it's not the time for that one right now. We've gotten back in there by driving the ball, getting to the foul line. I didn't think we handled those last four minutes real well. Q. I know you want to credit Butler, but they turned the ball over 20 times, you took 11 more shots. Do you feel like you blew an opportunity here today? COACH MARTIN: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We didn't make free throws. We weren't very good on offense. We had a chance to convert some plays. We didn't convert. We stubbed our own toe. Our offense has hurt us when we've been bad during the course of the year and it hurt us again today. Q. The slow start offensively by Jake and Denis, how did that impact the game? COACH MARTIN: That's a credit to Butler. They came out and they stayed with those two guys and hounded them. That's why Curt was getting those open looks inside. Then we didn't run great offense either. We accepted their ball pressure, to try to take hurried shots or hurried possessions, which is what we try to do to people, they did it to us. But then, you know, we kind of settled down. At halftime we spoke about running offense, spreading them out, driving them, passing the basketball. I think we had one assist at the half. It's hard to win when you've got one assist, especially in a game of this magnitude. Q. Curtis seemed to be very effective in the first half. What did they do differently or what happened in the second half? COACH MARTIN: Started paying more attention to him. They did a better job of not letting him catch the ball in the block. We have a rule with our big guys. If they can't get their post-ups right around the block, don't pass it to them. It was a physical game. They did their jobs. They knocked us off the block. Our guys didn't hold position. We got knocked off in the second half. That's why I say, give them credit. They didn't accept those post-ups. They fought us on the post-ups. That's what good defensive teams do. They don't accept things. They fight you when you're trying to do something. Q. As you mentioned, you did kind of defend them halfway decent coming down the stretch. It seemed Hayward was the one matchup you never could really adjust to. Can you talk about the problems defending him. What problems did he cause you? COACH MARTIN: That was my biggest concern. I believe I spoke about that at the press conference yesterday. I said that he gets credit for being a shooter, and all these other things. What he does better than most bigs that we've played against is how he drives the basketball. He can take it from 25 feet and two bounces, get it in the rim area. That was a problem for us. Our bigs going into the game, that was a concern of mine. What our bigs didn't do is they didn't do a very good job of making him catch the ball a little further away, which is part of our game plan when we play good players. Don't let them catch the ball close to the game. Make them catch it further away. So then you need an extra dribble to get to your comfort zone, which allows us to rotate and help the way we want to do it. We weren't great there today. But once again, we allowed him to catch it in areas, but then you've got to be a good player to go make a play. He was real good. He's a heck of a player. Q. It looked like Denis laid it out on the line. What has he meant for you and in his two years as a player? COACH MARTIN: Man, he was great. He's got two -- I don't know if he would have been able to play next week. He's got two real bad thigh bruises from two ball screens early in the game. How he was able to finish this game today, I didn't think he was going to make it past the first media timeout. I didn't think he was going to make it. But that's the courage he's brought from day one, that fight, that will, that makes him such a special kid, not just such a special player, but a special kid. He lays it on the line for you. That's how he approaches everything he does. Those are the kind of people I like to be around. Winning is very important to him. Is he perfect all the time? No. Neither am I, neither is anyone else. But the one thing you know with him is that he is laying it on the line for you every single day because winning is the most important thing to him. There's a reason why our program has taken steps forward since the day he started wearing that jersey. Now it's the underclassmen's responsibility to learn from that and continue to improve our program. Q. Could you share a little bit about maybe the message you sent to the team. I know it's been a memorable year for everyone. COACH MARTIN: I told them that winning and losing hurts, but that's very superficial. Winning and losing, when you invest a lot, should hurt more when you don't win. But in the big scope, in the big picture, these kids have made a lot of people live for something again. They've made people, K Staters around this country, believe in them, believe in the program, believe in their school, stick their chest out. That's a heck of a lot more important than winning and losing a game. Their approach, their belief, their commitment has revived our program, has revived K State across the country to take tremendous pride in our team. It's unfortunate 'cause we all get judged on winning and losing. But when you can make the impact that these kids have made in so many people in the community of Manhattan and K Staters across the country, big picture's always a lot bigger than that immediate hit of winning or losing the game. Q. Maybe it's too close, but you're a guy who has grown up in basketball. As a basketball guy, can you appreciate what this means for a program like Butler to be going back home to Indianapolis? COACH MARTIN: Big-time. I'm real happy for them. I'm telling you, you watch them on tape, they're real good. I said it the other day, for somebody that's as young as Brad is, for him to be able to coach a team the way he coaches 'em, to get them to play the way they play. 'Cause they don't play like that just tonight; they play like that every day. That's big-time. It's hard to be happy for someone when you lose. But I got to think it's going to be a great, great week for Butler people and people in the City of Indianapolis to have one of their own in the Final Four. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH MARTIN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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