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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2011

Jacob Pullen

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Colorado Â– 87
Kansas State - 75

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Wildcats. We're joined by coach Frank Martin and student-athletes Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly. Opening comments.
COACH MARTIN: Lot of credit to Colorado. They took it to us. We couldn't defend them. They beat us three times, so they're just better than we are. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. It's been proven on the floor.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. First half, Alec Burks hurt you, second half Jacob did a great job on Alec but Higgins hurt you?
COACH MARTIN: That's the problem, with playing Colorado, they're a hard matchup for us because their two wings are real good off the dribble and our weakness the whole year has been our ability to guard the dribble. And that presents a problem for us, and they -- Alec obviously came out of the chute and was as aggressive as he can be and played like a good player, and then Higgins, you know, just played like a senior that was determined to get his team deep into this tournament and hopefully to play past this tournament.
And they're to be credited for that.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Jacob, what you guys have been through on this really good roll to come in here and drop this first game, what do you need to do to bounce back now that it's NCAA time?
JACOB PULLEN: We've got to understand that this is it. Every game now is your last game if you don't come out to play. And hopefully as a team we can understand what we did wrong and try to build from it with this little bit of time we've got off to prepare for the NCAA Tournament.

Q. Jacob, Coach mentioned during the middle of the season that one of the teams' goals is to be in position to win, I think, with less than four minutes to play. And you were obviously in position to do that today. Why do you think you couldn't finish it out?
JACOB PULLEN: Just made some bad decisions. Same thing that plagued us when we weren't doing well in Big 12. We were undisciplined. We gave up some easy shots. And we just made some bad decisions offensively. And it cost us the game. And this time of the year, you can't have those type of breakdowns or those types of lapses or you'll never be able to beat a good team.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. How fast do you put this game behind you and start focusing on next week?
COACH MARTIN: Not much you can do. What are you going to focus on this game for? We've been doing this for six months, so we obviously didn't play well. But I don't want to even get into that, because that would be trying to discredit those kids at Colorado.
You know, us not playing well had a lot to do with them. But you can't dwell on that right now. We didn't dwell on it six weeks ago. We're not going to start doing that today.

Q. You talked earlier about how it's just a bad matchup, you lost to them three times now. But with that in mind, was there anything that surprised you, anything different in the way you guys played today as opposed to when you've been on this pretty good roll here for about five or six weeks?
COACH MARTIN: No, we tried. We tried to go at the rim. The first time we played them we never threw it inside. Today we threw it inside. We drove the ball. We did everything we could to pressure the rim and we never got to the foul line. And that freshman kid protects that rim. And the times we had some opportunities, we shot some contested plays in there that we just didn't make.
But, still, I think in the second half we settled for the 3-point shot a little too much, and when we do that as a team, it gets us in trouble. And we had gotten past that. And all of a sudden today we reverted to settling for 3-point shots.

Q. You mentioned you guys have proven resiliency this year, and how does that -- how much confidence do you have going forward to the NCAA Tournament because of what you achieved with that kind of resolve?
COACH MARTIN: The same I did January the 1st. The same I did January the 31st. The same I did yesterday when I went to bed. The same I did before they threw the ball up for the jump ball at the game today.
My confidence ain't going to change. I mean, confidence changes when you don't trust the people around you. I trust those guys. We didn't play well today. That doesn't mean I'm going to bail on my kids. That don't mean we're going to lose confidence in guys that for six months have been grinding it out, putting us in a situation to get better every day to find success.
And it just wasn't meant to be today.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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