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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2012Gregg MarshallToure' MurryJoe RaglandDemetric WilliamsST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Wichita State – 72 THE MODERATOR: Welcome Wichita State, please. COACH MARSHALL: I was very pleased with the effort today. I thought we started out great. Just a little low on the last play of the half, and then the first couple minutes of the second half they came out, and Indiana State played really well aggressively and we didn't score. After that, we were able to get it back to 20. When you can beat a team that good by 20 points in a setting like this, you have to be pleased. So excited to move on. Q. Can you talk about your defensive pressure particularly in the first 20 minutes of this game? It was as stifling as I've seen, and I've seen a lot of basketball from you guys this year. THE MODERATOR: Joe, then Toure'. JOE RAGLAND: We knew they were a solid team. Offensively they could really create and score. Especially with Jake Odum as their general. So we just tried to put a lot of pressure and clog up everything in the paint and close out the shooters. We did a real good job of that the first 20 minutes. TOURE' MURRY: The thing we learned was they got to the rim too easy last year. We watched film a lot on this team. Today we just clogged the lane and made Jake Odum pass the ball and not get in his sweet spot. I think we did a good job today. DEMETRIC WILLIAMS: I was on Jake Odum most of the night. I knew he was the head of the team, and I wanted to go out there and make it as hard as possible and make it not easy for him to create plays and his teammates and stuff like that. Q. Demetric, talk about Toure' referred to the sweet spots that Jake Odum has. What sweet spots did you try to take away? How did you take away his game? DEMETRIC WILLIAMS: He likes to stretch the D in transition, and get in the paint. He likes to jump in the air and pass. He does a very good job at that and his shooters. We knew coming into the game that he likes to do that. We just wanted to get our hands up and deflect the pass and make it hard for him. Q. Toure', how much was last year's game‑‑ because you mentioned it‑‑ on your guys' mind heading into today's game? TOURE' MURRY: It was definitely on our mind. It was one of the top thoughts in our mind. You know, Indiana State, the defending champion, to get to the championship, we've got to defeat the defending champion, and I thought we did a good job today. Coming out with intensity and defensively, I felt like the first one was to the floor. That was going to help us win, and I just tried to do that. Q. Toure', do you believe this was a statement game to show the nation how good you guys are? TOURE' MURRY: Not necessarily, no. Every game we step out there we're trying to make a statement just for ourselves and for our fans. The whole Wichita team. We play for one another. We try to play as hard as we can. Q. Joe, during the second half when you had that stretch, they went on a 9‑0 run to open the half, what did you do to regroup? JOE RAGLAND: Had to make the shot. Once we made the shot everything opened up. Got a couple stops and got a couple transition lay‑ups. That's the reason why we were so successful from the beginning.  They were just bringing it to the chest like Demetric told us, and we had to stand up and not back down. That's what we did toward the latter half of the second half. Q. Joe, getting snubbed last year from the NCAA Tournament, how much did that hurt and impact you guys as motivation heading into this season? JOE RAGLAND: It was definitely motivation, especially for the seniors. Especially for Toure' Murry, Garrett Stutz and David Kyles, guys that have been in this program for four years, and myself. Last year I felt we had a great team to get in the tournament. That was last year. We didn't get in, so this year was our motivation, and that's why we work so hard. Q. I'm assuming with this year's tournament you're not willing to let anything to chance by putting things in the tournament committee's hands? JOE RAGLAND: Not at all. But we're not thinking about the NCAA Tournament right now. We're just thinking about the Missouri Valley tournament and trying to do as well as we can in this. It's kind of the same atmosphere, one game do or die. We just want to be successful in this and allow this to propel us in that. Q. Joe, sometimes when the cameras are on they zoom in and go into your face. You've been deploying a let's go, amped up kind of scowl that would make Kobe jealous these days. I wondered if you have an intensity level that's picked up for this tournament? Both at practice yesterday and today, it seemed you may be stepping it up to a new level. Is that true? JOE RAGLAND:  No, I think that's who I am. We have a lot of leaders on this team. Stutz is our speaker leader. He gives great speeches and makes sure everybody is doing their job. I feel like I'm the emotional leader. Toure' Murry leads in a different way. We have a lot of great leaders on this team, and that's just my way of leading this team. Q. Demetric, Toure' is getting in the lane and passing it out. How important was that to this offense today? DEMETRIC WILLIAMS: That's very important. We told Toure' that him getting in the paint is something he's very, very good at. It helps out our team that he gets us open shot asks does a very good job at it. Q. Joe, getting back into rhythm, it's been kind of a long week and you guys have battled a lot of sickness internally on the team, being able to get back out on the floor and get back on track so quickly, can you talk about how important that was? JOE RAGLAND: That's definitely important. When you sit out for so long and don't play games for almost a week that is the first thing that's on coaches' minds. Because we don't want to start out lackadaisical. We did a good job of bringing the energy from the tip off and just not saying, okay, we haven't played on this court yet and they have. So let's feel it out first. No, we just wanted to be aggressive and play hard from the tip off. Q. What is your plan for the rest of the day? TOURE' MURRY: We're going to watch Northern Iowa and Illinois State and just learn what they did again. We played Illinois State not too long ago, and we're just going to watch film a little bit later. That's about it. Q. Do you feel this was a little bit of a revenge game after you were knocked out of last year's game? DEMETRIC WILLIAMS: Yeah, coming into the game we knew last year that this was the team that let us out and shut us out. We were just coming in the game hungry. We just wanted to go out there and set an example from the jump, right off the tip. Just get up and play good defense. JOE RAGLAND:  Yeah, like I said earlier, Indiana State are defending championship. Like I said, to get to State, we have to defeat the defending championship. They're a very good team. Hopefully they'll be in the postseason. We're moving on, and we're excited about that. TOURE' MURRY: I feel it was a revenge game because of the fact that they beat us last year. They didn't just beat us. It wasn't like it came down to one shot. They clogged our offense and they stifled us. So that was in our minds all night. Watching the game against Southern Illinois, I kind of knew we were going to play them again. So our mindset was on being strong, being tough, and being ready to play in this big game. Q. Coaching a team like this that's playing at such a high level right now, do you change anything when the team's so confident? Coaching confidence, can you just talk about that a little bit? COACH MARSHALL: I love it when my teams play with that type of confidence. I don't want it to be cocky. I don't want it to be demeaning or disrespectful or unsporting like. But I love when they have a swagger about them, because any athlete that plays at a high level talks about when they get in the zone and they feel the next shot's going in. You don't want to play tentative or scared or with reservation. So this team is playing like that right now. The key is for us to continue to defend and play hard and smart. If we do that, the offensive end is really flowing for us. I'm sure teams will try to do some different things. Indiana State today tried a little 2‑2‑1 pressure, and back to man‑to‑man, back to zone a couple times. But we've got veteran players playing at a high level, and they just figured out I have nothing to do‑‑ one of the plays I was most proud of is the first time they went to that today, it was in the first half. They went 2‑2‑1 back to zone, and we ran the zone play. Joe just got us into something. The next thing you know, I don't know what our break down was, but the clock was running down and Murry drives left to right, and finds Joe Ragland cutting back door behind the zone for the lay‑up at the end of the shot clock. So those guys are just doing that right now. That's because we've played a lot of basketball. They're supremely confident, and supremely talented. Q. As good as you guys have been defensively this season, all season, was the first 20 minutes as good as you've seen this group in a while? COACH MARSHALL: If we had not fouled them and not celebrated coming off the court after scoring the last basket in the first half, we held them to three baskets at that time. The way they were scoring was free throws. It was a very good defensive effort. They started to get to the line on Ben fouling Mahurin on the three at the top of the key. But I was very, very pleased with our defensive intensity. Demetric Williams brings a lot to our team with his ability to guard guys like Jake Odum. There are a lot of guys in our league that‑‑ well, there's not only one Jake Odum, but there are a lot of guards that are head to the monster. You'll see Anthony James, and Nic Moore, and those type guys. You've got to guard them. You have to shut them down. We have our own Joe Ragland. He does a good job. I thought he did a great job on Jake early on and didn't let him get started. Q. In the first half there were several instances where the shockers were on the floor diving for loose balls. Was that reassuring to see them playing with desperation like they were the ones that had to win? COACH MARSHALL: Well, again, we talked about if we played harder and smarter and tougher than that team today, the way we're playing it's going to be hard for us to come up short, and that was the tone. Don't leave it to chance. Play harder, play smarter, be the first one on the floor for loose balls. Go for rebounds with two hands. I thought Garrett Stutz really rebounded the ball big today. He looked good. There were times where it was only him at the level the ball was coming off the rim. He was going and getting it with two hands. Not one time did they body him and try to knock it loose today. It was his ball. He ignited some of those fast breaks with good outlets. Q. For the defense on Odum, there was also a lot of off ball confusion on Indiana State's part. They had five turnovers in their first 11 possessions. Can you talk about cutting off the head of the snake? Part of that is cutting off a snake's options. Can you talk about the defense which was also good for you today? COACH MARSHALL: We were trying to get in the gaps today. Murry mentioned that last year they were able to get two deep of penetration, get to their sweet spots. Today the guy on the ball as well as the guy defending the ball screener were doing a very good job in our effort and our communication. But the other thing that was happening off the ball, in the gaps, on the weak side, we were really flooding and making them make the extra pass and maybe the extra and one. We were active. I think we had 18 deflections with like 7 or 8 minutes to go in the first half. We keep that chart, and we were very ratty. That is a word I like to use. Ratty. If we can be ratty defensively, that's going to help us down the road. Q. You've talked a lot about the start so far. A lot of times in these games we see the team that gets to play the night before. They have their feet wet, they come out and get off to a fast start. How was it you were able to get out there and stop all that momentum and use the experience you've had here with the players before getting that start today? COACH MARSHALL: That is certainly a concern. They got their jitters out. I thought they had their jitters early. Neither team played great early, and they assumed command of the game midway through the first half. So they have that advantage. But they have the disadvantage that they had to play last night. We were watching and resting, and that is a disadvantage. Last year when we played the same group we started out very well also. It was like 13‑2, we were up, and then boom. They just make a huge run and from that point forward just beat us. I certainly reminded our team at one of the media timeouts that we're not going back there. We're going to keep our foot on the pedal and keep pressing and pushing, and not pressing basketballwise, but pressing the issue, playing hard and trying to be the initiator instead of reacting to what they do. Q. Your mom made the trip here 750 miles to come to the tournament. How happy are you that she's here? COACH MARSHALL: It's great. She's a special lady. She carted me around when I was not much bigger than a basketball. So she came to the Davidson game, she listens to every game. They watch when they can. She loves to hear Mike Kennedy's call of the games. Just to have her here, she used to come a lot more when it was in the Big South. But for her to make the trip and the effort with my step‑dad is awesome. We're trying to make the most of it. Hopefully they can stay around through Sunday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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