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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2011Gabe BlairJ.T. DurleyGregg MarshallST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Indiana State – 61 THE MODERATOR: Wichita State Shockers are with us now. We'll have Head Coach Gregg Marshall make a statement on the game then questions for the student-athletes. COACH MARSHALL: Indiana State played us two very close basketball games during the course of the year, and we were fortunate enough to come out on top. Today they played better than we did and deserved to win the game. We'll leave it at that for questions. Q. Can you both talk about the offensive frustration? Just couldn't get shots to fall. J.T. DURLEY: Yeah, it's frustrating. Especially when you have a five-point lead going into the half, and they come out and play great basketball. I mean, it's more than just our offense. The defense lacked in the second half. It's just, I don't know, it's just tough. GABE BLAIR: I think we had a bunch of good looks, man. We just weren't making them tonight. Then once you stop making shots, sometimes you can relax on defense at that time, because you're a little frustrated about that. If we're making shots, it's a whole different story. But we didn't tonight. Q. Gabe and J.T., was there any sense of maybe looking ahead to Missouri State at all? J.T. DURLEY: I don't think so. GABE BLAIR: No. Tonight was the team we had to play to get the job done. There was no reason to look ahead to Missouri State. Indiana State played better than us today, and we took the L. Q. J.T., you're up 30-22. Get that three-point play to start the second half. Did you feel you had some momentum at that point? What kind of changed? J.T. DURLEY: Yeah, the momentum shifted. They started making threes and getting the ball inside and finishing inside. I mean, it's just they made a run, and we couldn't counter their run it was just a little too late for us to come back. We made our push a little too late. Q. Gabe, bench played really well. Got you the lead and kept bringing them back. Talk about the bench's contribution, and energy seemed to be the big thing. GABE BLAIR: We always try to play hard. That is expected from everybody, not just the bench. Not just the starters, but I think we had a good little push there in the second half to where it brought us back close probably more than one point or something. But we've got to sustain that throughout the whole team, not just the bench is going to win the game for us. Q. Can you talk about Myles Walker's effort? He's obviously had a big effect on the game. J.T. DURLEY: Yeah, he played great basketball. He worked hard on the offensive end and got deep posts. When you get 'em that deep, it stresses the defense and he played great basketball tonight. Q. The season's not over. You'll be playing somewhere. I guess you probably take a couple days off and try to get this out of your mind and play some more? I'm sure you don't want the season to end. J.T. DURLEY: It's a sad note to end the first part of the postseason like this. Of course I don't ever want the season to end, but I'm just disappointed that we didn't get to play on Sunday. GABE BLAIR: We can't control the way we play and who we play and stuff like that. Right now it's a bad feeling losing in the semifinals of the conference tournament. So I mean, that's that. Q. You guys were 7 for 29 from beyond the arc. Do you think you're too reliant on the three-point shot today? COACH MARSHALL: Yeah, I do. I think we were too reliant on the three-point shot overall. We took a lot of those late in an attempt to come back. But we were especially too reliant when you only make 24%. So the guys that started the game made three of 17, so it's not good enough. Q. Indiana State's run to start the second half, you guys had five turnovers. Talk about the effect that that had? COACH MARSHALL: Yeah, when you shoot the ball the way we did tonight and turn it over 15 times, it's certainly a recess he pee for disaster. That's what happened. We didn't play well offensively and they did. They did. They made a nice run in the half to take the lead quickly. And they pushed it out to I think 9 or maybe 11. Then we came to go down one for the look, and Durley was called for a foul on the offensive rebound and that was it. Once they pushed it back out, we couldn't answer that with that push. So too many turnovers, too many threes, too many missed shots. Q. This has been your best look at coming here as a 2 seed. Just assess what this does to a season? COACH MARSHALL: I think last year we were also a 2 seed and in a comparable position. It's disappointing. You want to come and try to win your way into the NCAA Tournament. So instead of being one half shy last year, we're three halves shy. Q. Did they do anything different in the first two meetings that turned out to be important tonight? COACH MARSHALL: Greg does a great job. I really like how he coaches his guys and congratulate him on a tremendous season before and after the game. He's got a good young team. We didn't notice anything dramatically different. Just got to play better. Got to play better, got to make shots, you've got to be smarter with the basketball. Other than J.T., we had two field goals from the other four starters. I mean, it's hard. 2 for 19. Q. I didn't remember Walker having as much impact on the first two games as he did tonight. Has he improved? COACH MARSHALL: He's a big, strong kid. Does a great job sealing and sitting in. Better than our two guys with deeper post touches. That's what we talked about at halftime. Durley had a pretty good game statistics-wise. But we challenged Stutz and Durley to be as physical with your sit-ins and put your behind and your hips on a guy and catch it where you don't need to bounce it. Catch it tighter, catch it deeper. That's what he did. He turned around with that little jay hook and you're buried. Our guys allowed that to happen, and on the other end, they don't attack him in the same manner. Q. Toure's been such a big part of this program now for three years, but has not played well here at the end. Do you know why that would be? COACH MARSHALL: Well, he's not making shots. You know, three turnovers, 0 for 3, 20 minutes. If I knew, I would try to help him correct it more. We talked to him about it to try to figure out how we can help him. So far we haven't been able to come up with it. So that's a mystery right now. Q. What do you do now? Do you take a few days before you start thinking about what comes up next as far as more basketball this season? COACH MARSHALL: Yeah, I'll go back and sequester in my room tonight. Fly back tomorrow, hopefully safely. Figure out somewhere to recruit the next few days. Assistant coaches have already got that mapped out, just in case. Wait around till next Sunday. I'm sure it will be some type of postseason play. Not the one we were after. Figure out where you go from there and when you start practicing again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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