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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 1, 2012Geno FordWalt Lemon, Jr.Dyricus Simms-EdwardsST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Drake – 65 THE MODERATOR: Bradley Braves are here. Coach Ford, a statement, please? COACH FORD: Good ballgame by Drake. I thought the start of the game was really big. We struggled to score and didn't score for about 7 minutes. That was really the difference. They were able to get a lead and get comfortable, and we were never able to get them under any game pressure where the game tightened up. We had a couple shots, couple open threes that we could have cut it to six a few times or seven, and they were never able to get it to a two‑possession game. I thought they guarded well and kept the ball out of the paint, which is what they did to us the other two games. Give them a lot of credit. Rayvonte Rice and Simons are great players and they made a lot of great plays. Q. From your standpoint, what was happening out there in those first few minutes with you guys? Was it tightness? How can you explain it? DYRICUS SIMMS‑EDWARDS: I think it was a little bit of tightness. But what was going on out there, they were getting in gaps, and we kind of got stagnant with our ball movement. We weren't moving the ball fast enough to get them on defense, and they were able to sit in the gaps and basically force us to take contested shots with the shot clock going down early in the game. Q. As a team you guys shot 34% tonight for the game. Is that a frustrating night for you? You had a lot of shots that didn't seem they were falling for you? How frustrating was that? DYRICUS SIMMS‑EDWARDS: It's pretty frustrating. But those type of things you have to work on. Getting up shots is something we're going to have to work on going into next season. Make sure everybody's prepared to be able to hit those shots, because like you said, we've got a lot of good shot that's just didn't go down. But that all comes with preparation and work in the gym in the off‑season. We're going to fix that. Q. Dyricus, you guys had a pretty good non‑conference season and started off with the loss to Wichita and the rest of the season kind of went, as you know. Can you explain your feelings and emotions right now as you look back on that? You know, how you're feeling and what you're feeling going forward? DYRICUS SIMMS‑EDWARDS: Basically looking back on the season, we started off good in non‑conference like you said. We got to conference and we lost our swagger a little bit. But there were stretches in there where we just weren't really good on defense. But toward the end of the conference we stepped it up on defense, and we played great defense. We were actually giving ourselves opportunities to win a lot of games toward the end of the conference season, and we just, it was just a little inconsistency throughout the conference play. The feeling I have right now is just the seniors that are going to be leaving really want to guard and play hard for them and give them another chance to be a part of something that they'll never be able to be a part of again, and that really hurts me the most that they didn't get another opportunity to go out there and do what they love. Q. Walt, you got off to a rough start but got going after a while. What changed for you out there tonight? WALT LEMON JR.: At the beginning of the game I was rushing and anxious to play. Last year I didn't get to play that much. So this year coming in and being a starter, I was anxious to get everybody out there and get everybody going. But my coach told me to relax, calm down and play the way I know I can. When I got back in the first half of the second half, I just slowed down and let the game come to me. Q. Coach mentioned starting out in a hole and taking a long time to get that first shot to fall kind of put you guys in a tough spot to start with. How deflating is that or how hard is it to bounce back or before you break a sweat, you're already in a decent hole? WALT LEMON JR.: Yeah, it's very frustrating when you don't make shots at the beginning and then you've got to stick it, and then you're coming down and trying to score and not making them. So it's frustrating. But the key is getting around on defense and getting stops. Like Coach said, shots are going to fall. We were getting good shots, but it was about keep shooting with confidence, because if you don't shoot with confidence, you're not going to make it anyway. Q. Walt, can you sum up the season from your standpoint both from a personal standpoint and the strides you made plus from the team's standpoint? WALT LEMON JR.: For the season I think I've accomplished a lot for my freshman year as far as minutes and production as a team. As far as from being my first time ever being a point guard, first time in my life, so it was a major milestone for me. But I've got room to get better for it. As a team, like Coach and everybody said, we started off good non‑conference, and conference deflated us a little bit. But as the season went on towards the end of the conference, we started to come together more as a team. I think next year we've just got to start with me and Dyricus being the leaders on the team. So we've got to make sure we're the leaders from the beginning to the end, not just the end. But I think next year we're going to be better. Better off next year. Q. I know we've documented the 12‑0 start. But after that it could have gotten really ugly, and you guys kept it respectable. Can you take us through the mindset of how you tried to work through that with the kids and get them back into it? COACH FORD: For us, we've really been able to convince them the last month to be focused on defense. Offensively we're going to be able to score what we can score, and it's not a ton of points. We're not holding the ball. We just don't shoot a great percentage. So it puts a lot of emphasis on defensive possessions. We not only need to get the occasional turnover to get us the easy basket, but we can't give up any easy ones. When they jumped on us 12‑0 they had two huge put backs and those were huge plays. It should have been 7‑0. For us 7 points, we don't just rattle them off quickly, so 7 is a big number. So we were just trying to keep talking about rebounding. Offensively we were kind of similar in both halves. We just struggled to finish, which was kind of a theme all year. But from a defensive standpoint I did think we buckled down. They didn't get wide open shots, they made a couple of broken plays where we trapped and the ball went free and we can't come up with it. We're right there, guys diving and giving great effort, just unfortunately the ball bounced and they get it, and it ends up being a dunk one time for Rice and the other one is a lay‑up for the big kid. Those possessions for us are more hurtful than they are for other teams because we don't make as many jump shots to cancel them out. Q. You mentioned your opening statement and Drake talked about it as well as far as their plan to keep you from being able to drive and make you shoot jumpers. Do you think you settled for jumpers too often or was it more what they were doing defensively? COACH FORD: Some of them were deep in the shot clock jumpers, so I didn't think so. We had a team that struggled to shoot threes, but because Walt was really pretty exceptional during the season of getting to the rim, it gets the lane more congested. And we've played them three times. They've guarded us the same all three. So it wasn't I wouldn't say we were shocked. Could we have worked a little more clock? Maybe. But it was hard to get it inside. Two of our turnovers were trying to throw it in the post and the guys guarding the post feeder stole it because they were five feet off and not up pressuring as much. I don't think they had a bad game plan, what they did worked. It was hard for us to counter. The way you counter is by making a few. We did have games this year where we made shots. The other night at Northern Iowa last road game of the season we made five of our first six threes, and we were up 7 at the half. So we were capable, we just didn't have a consistency about us shooting it. Q. Geno, at this moment what is the number one thing that you've learned? COACH FORD: Well, here's what I would say, big picture. We have the best kid that's I've ever been around for a season. That's not coach speak. That's genuine. We've had the best grades that we've had in the history of the program. We didn't have off‑the‑court issues from the time practice started all the way through. There aren't many programs that can claim that. From a win‑loss standpoint, it was extremely disappointing in some ways. In other ways, it's the process of getting better, and you have to have a place to start. I believe in the younger guys in our program that they're going to get better. Last spring we came in and we took four‑year guys that can hopefully continue to get better. We're trying to develop Walt and Prosser and Dyricus and some of those younger guys that we'll have back. I think it was a success in a lot of ways. The season overall was a huge success except for the scoreboard on game night. Which you can get caught up and make that your number one focus. If it is, it's a horrible year. But if you take a step back and say, okay, what kind of people are they? How did they work? Did they represent the school well? They did all those things off the charts better than any group I've been around, and that's a credit to those guys. In a year where it would be very easy to give in to being a distraction or making a slip up because you're not playing. We had a lot of games where we weren't necessarily playing for a championship. Instead of guys caving in and making poor decisions and poor choices, they continued to not only do the right thing, but do more and more of the right thing. That is a sign of quality kids. Under extreme adversity, they were great. We need to find a way next year to do the same things we did in every area except on Wednesday and Saturday night we've got to score more points. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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