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NIT POSTSEASONMarch 31, 2011Graham HatchGregg MarshallGarrett StutzNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK WICHITA – 66 COACH GREGG MARSHALL: Just really ecstatic with our victory tonight. I guess it's been a couple of weeks, if not three that, we have been able to prolong our season and to play into the Ides of March, and just a group of guys that deserve everything they have coming to them; an NIT championship, a National Invitational Championship, and they have beaten a lot of good clubs, including Alabama tonight. Anthony Grant does a great job and is one of the stars of our business and he just does a marvelous job with his team. We were just a couple of baskets better tonight. Q. You handled their defense well, shot 50 percent. What was the key to that? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: Having good players that are experienced and tough enough and mature enough to make good decisions; against their pressure it's going to be feast or famine, when you press and run and jump in the backcourt, you are going to cause some turnovers and we turned it over 19 times, too many, okay. But when we didn't turn it over, by and large, we got great looks and got some open shots to get us going at the beginning of the game. I remember late in the second half, we were able to beat their pressure and I think Hatch or Ben Smith threw a great entry pass to Stutz right on the block in front of our bench and he got fouled. Just things like that. You are going to get some high-percentage shots but you're also going to turn it over some. We did turn it over. Our assist to turnover ratio was not positive but we beat an SEC school by eight on the glass which is a little below our average and shot a great percentage. I said four years ago when I met you, we are going to play defense and we are going to rebound and when the ball goes through the basket at that type of clip we can play with anyone. Q. When they started forcing them to take 3s, which I think is what you wanted, you wanted to keep them out on the perimeter shooting? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: We wanted to keep them out of rhythm and establish our man-to-man. In the second half we extended our pressure court to a 3-2-2-1 and fell to a matchup zone and our guys did a great job of fighting off those ball screens and keeping the ball in front and we were able to match up as they swung the ball in the weak side and had the shooters in the corners. I thought our guys communicated well and again, it's a group of juniors and seniors with a couple of sophomores mixed in, and they just rose to the occasion and they have been rising to the occasion this whole tournament. Q. How big of a factor was it when Green went out with his fourth foul? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: I didn't see the play, but it looked like there was like a push-off or something. And he's a great player, especially in the first half where he was shooting it well at the mid-range. He's hard to guard. But that's where depth comes in, and you know, it was the Virginia Tech game, Durley fouls out with one minute gone in the first over game and we bring in Stutz and he goes for seven points in over time. Depth is certainly a factor that's helped us. We go ten-deep, at least, and everyone that came here that is playing this year, I've had one red-shirt, Roberts, that I didn't want to burn a year of eligibility just to get him on the court at Madison Square Garden but he will red-shirt and play next year. Everyone else played and got this great experience and should bode well for our future, and now we lose some good seniors. We lose some really good players, but we have also got some great guys coming in and this guy right here, when he shot those two basketballs late in the second half, the ball was in the air forever. It literally seemed to me, it took five seconds for the ball in its arc. It was a majestic rotation and just found the bottom of the net. He's put in more time and energy as a shooter and player than almost anyone I've ever coached. He's definitely in the Top 3 in 26 years of coaching, and it couldn't happen to a finer individual to make those big shots. One of those was a direct feed from Stutz and found his buddy at the top of the key and knocked down a big shot. Q. Talk about those two 3-pointers that were effectively the knockout blow. GRAHAM HATCH: My shots felt so good today. I was never so confident shooting the ball than I was tonight. It was just an unbelievable feeling, and I'm just so happy that I was able to be there for my team when they needed me. Q. Do you think all of those hours that you put in in the gym are worth it at a time like this? GRAHAM HATCH: This is what you do it for, these moments when you need to knock down a shot for your team; all of those times, all of those hours in the gym, this is what it's all about. Q. Finishing off the season with a five-game winning streak, what's it like? GRAHAM HATCH: We as a team have gone through a roller coaster year; being disappointed in our conference tournament. To be in this opportunity and winning such an amazing tournament as the NIT in this atmosphere, I couldn't have imagined it. I'm so proud of our team and the way we have come back from those disappointments. We have pulled together and just, you know, it's magical. It's just unbelievable. Q. Take us through your impressions from cutting down the net; what sticks out from the last 20 minutes out there? GARRETT STUTZ: Just a really cool experience. A great trip to New York. Something our team is going to have for the rest of our life, the memory of winning at Madison Square Garden. That's the biggest thing is we are always going to remember this day. Q. Offensively you shot better against this team than anybody; what was working well offensively? GARRETT STUTZ: Once again we had pretty good ball movement. We started to go away from like in-and-out touches and then Coach just pulled us back in and during time-outs we all bought into get the ball inside and kick it back out and we just got some shooters. They have been putting in a lot of time lately. We all had a meeting before the NIT and said if we are going to do this, we are going to try to win it, we are not going to do it just to get through it. Everyone committed to getting shots up every day, more than usual, and it all worked out. Q. Graham, what does it feel like to be the Most Outstanding Player of this tournament and what's it like now that it's over? GRAHAM HATCH: I couldn't imagine being given that award of outstanding player. I'm just thankful that I was able to be there for my team when they needed me and I can live -- I can die a happy man now just knowing that we were able to cut the net down as a team. The team has been through so much. I was telling Garrett, third time is a charm, because we have been in this situation two other times. I'm just so thankful our team was able to have this feeling. Q. Have you looked at some of the other players on the list of Most Outstanding Player? GRAHAM HATCH: I haven't done that yet. COACH GREGG MARSHALL: We'll have fun with it. I will say this, and it goes for Garrett, as well. You cannot find -- I don't care about basketball right now. You can't find two finer young men than the two that flank me right now. That's a fact. You can't find them. You may be able to equal it, but you can't find two better ones. Q. Can you just describe the roller coaster of emotions you've had since the Indiana State loss and leading up to now? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: It's a tough loss, but the best coaches in the world win 75, 80 percent of their games. So you know, it's just a little bit -- probably twice as good as an All-Star hitter. All-Star hitters are going to hit around .300. So if you can win 60 or 65 percent of your games in college basketball, you're pretty good. You're going to win some. You're going to lose some. It was a devastating loss, but the key is, and this is what athletics and especially intercollegiate athletics teaches you, is that you have to deal with the rough moments, the downslides. And just like a hitter who is in a slump, Indiana State played great that night. We didn't. But by and large, 29-8, coming here and beating all of these teams in this tournament, winning a championship, seeing the smiles on these kids's faces and seeing all of the yellow there on the Madison Square Garden floor, celebrating; and I know Wichita is on fire. I think it's a pretty big deal. Q. To rephrase, to go from a low-low, to this high, can you imagine at the time that this was even possible? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: I knew we were a good basketball team. We were -- two of the teams in the Final Four, we could have easily won those games. And you would have to sit and watch film and understand the film that I watched to understand what I'm saying. And they won the games. They deserved to win the games. They deserve to be in the Final Four. They are great teams and we could have easily beaten either one of them with one different whistle, one different play. So when you think about that, I know we're a pretty good basketball team. Q. How good was it for Graham Hatch to be able to hit those back-to-back triples and really cement the win? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: It's amazing. I still see that ball in the air and I still see him with that lefty stroke -- here is a kid with a two-year Mormon mission and he's given me testimony of what he did those two years and he befriended a homeless guy and all of those people he tried to help. I had never met him when he walked into my office his freshman year. Mark Turgeon had recruited him the year prior. We met the first day of school. I should have red-shirted him. I had never coached a young man coming off a mission, and he was rusty that first year. He was kind of chunky. His body wasn't cut up. He was a guy that was slow. You're talking a step slow, if not a step and a half. After his freshman year, all he did was shoot the ball fairly well, probably played seven or eight minutes a game, you'd have to look. And we weren't very good. We had a terrible year and we still couldn't find time for him because he just wasn't very good. He came into my office after his freshman year for the end of the year meeting, and he said, "Coach, I feel inadequate." And I had never had a player say that to me. And I said, "First of all, never tell anyone in authority or especially me, I don't ever want to hear that word coming out of your mouth again. You've got two choices: Change and don't be inadequate, or go." He talked about not being able to -- "I don't think I'm quick enough to guard these guys in practice and I feel this level is too much for me." And he went to work. You're talking about a testimony to hard work; I'm telling you, in 26 years, I've seen a lot of players, and I can't tell you one that's worked harder than Graham Hatch, cutting up his body, becoming quicker. He's a guy, he's thinking about -- he's an academic All-American. He's thinking about not going to dental school and following in his dad's footsteps, but he's thinking about becoming a Navy SEAL. He's an incredible success story. Those were huge shots. They were back-breakers. Q. Ellis hit some really big shots, too. COACH GREGG MARSHALL: Unbelievable. Q. Can you take us through that? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: The kid played with unbelievable confidence. We actually ran a play for him to get a jumpshot with five minutes to go. And you know, it's -- there have been nights where we haven't shot the ball well and our offense has stagnated and we have been bludgeoned and bloodied and we haven't played well. I've seen these kids and worked with them and now how much time they put in and how much they care and how they allow us to coach them and buy into the team concept. I think it's really cool that Aaron Ellis, when we embraced after the game, I just congratulated him on hitting big shots, because that's not his forte. But he knew what I called 37 option, which is a play for him to set a play for Hatch and for him to receive that screen, no one will believe -- we ran what we call a gate play for Murry (Toure'). He hits a huge 3-pointer midway through the second half and he's shooting 30 percent. But when you call these kids's numbers, they know that you believe in them and they go out and knock them down at the greatest of moments in their career. Q. When you called the play for Aaron, was that the one that put you up 58-51? COACH GREGG MARSHALL: It was like a 17-foot jumper. It would put us up how many? Yeah, so we were up five. How much time? Q. 4:40. COACH GREGG MARSHALL: When was Murry's three? That was like eight minutes to go? Q. Seven. That put you up eight. COACH GREGG MARSHALL: Another big play. Big shot. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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