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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Dorian GreenPierce HornungTim MilesLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Colorado State – 81 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Colorado State. Coach, if we could start with you, your remarks on today's game. COACH MILES: I thought the kids played great. We played seven guys in our regular rotation, six in double figures. Our pace was really good early on offense in terms of ball movement, player movement. I thought our defensive effort was better. We got to their three‑point shooters, which they made 24 threes in two games. They were 2 for 20 tonight, so I think that was obviously a key. THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Pierce, obviously you were playing like somebody possessed out there. What were your thoughts about how important this game was to this program? PIERCE HORNUNG: I mean, we know how important the conference tournament is. We came here with one goal and one goal only, and that's to win this tournament. I mean, it's the first step to doing that. It's very important. Q. Could you put this game in perspective in terms of the performance. Where does this rank in terms of your best performances this season? DORIAN GREEN: I think it's definitely our best start. We felt really focused and came out to an early and quick start. That was key for us. I think we kind of just have been playing at a better pace and intensity on defense. We just got to continue to keep that up. Q. 50 points in the paint. Didn't shoot as many threes as you often do. Was that a focus? PIERCE HORNUNG: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a game plan to attack them, keep attacking them, win down there in the paint. The threes will come when you do that. Q. Pierce, everybody talks about you doing the dirty work. Is that the type of role you just love to do? PIERCE HORNUNG: I'll do whatever role I'm put in (smiling). I love to be in the game. So, like I said, I'll take whatever role and run with it. Q. When did you guys know that Greg was not going to play? DORIAN GREEN: Right before I talked to you yesterday (laughter). Yeah, definitely, he just tweaked his ankle. Second year in a row that's happened. We knew guys had to step up, be a collective effort, get on the boards. Hopefully we can get him back for tomorrow, Saturday, whenever. Q. Dorian, obviously you get SanDiego State tomorrow. Played them well both times. General thoughts? DORIAN GREEN: I'm excited. I know it's going to be a great atmosphere. They're a good team.  We've had two really good games against them. I'm expecting a third one. Q. This is a team that it seems like every time you get your bench thinner, you get more contributions from the guys that are left. What does that say about this team as a whole? DORIAN GREEN: I think we have a lot of heart. We're a bunch of scrappy guys. We got great team chemistry. We all get along. We kind of fight for one another. I think that's kind of how we are. When guys get hurt or whatever, we got to pick each other up, and everybody has to do it. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student‑athletes at this time and continue with questions for Coach Miles. Q. Coach, some say you needed this win to solidify a shot playing in the NCAA tournament. Can you comment on that, extra motivation of this game. COACH MILES: Well, we came to win the conference tournament. We thought that we could do what we could do till the end of the regular season to have a high‑finishing conference and put ourselves in this conversation. But, you know, about the time you say, Oh, we might need one to be in, Boise upsets SanDiego State, so now you can't lose to Boise. It never ends. Try to win the conference tournament and see if they can keep us out that way. They can't. I think our guys are trying to focus at the task at hand, and that's the conference tournament. Q. Before the season you said something about Pierce might be the best defender in the conference. Talk about his defensive ability, rebounding, toughness. COACH MILES: I think at the end of the season, Pierce Hornung is the best defender in the Mountain West Conference. The kid is unreal. Has great heart. Plays with great physicality. Had a nose for the ball. Every time he doesn't come up with the ball, I yell at him. Can you give me a break? No, we need you to come up with the ball. He's unbelievable. He's the epitome of what you hoped your son to be, or anybody, the way he plays. Q. The tweeting at halftime. I assume you do it yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong. COACH MILES: That guy does it right over there. I walk by him and say something, he edits it, then we go out with it. Q. Is it like a superstitious thing? COACH MILES: No. Q. In the NCAA tournament, any issue there? They have some very odd rules sometimes about those things. COACH MILES: I think we'll do it and see if we can break the rule and see what happens from there (laughter). No, it started, Ben Chulick, the University of Arizona, was our marketing guy. He came up with the Twitter commercials we did, all that stuff. He came to me a couple years ago, I don't know when it was, and he said, Hey, I want you to either Facebook or Twitter. I'm not doing both. Twitter is 140 characters. I'm in, that I can do.  Just be yourself, do your thing. I'm like, I don't want to recruit on it. So that's what we do. The interesting stuff, the stuff that I would find interesting if I was reading somebody else's, we try and post. Then he comes to me with the halftime deal. I'm like, Well, okay, fine. How we going to do this? Am I going to have a laptop with me? My phone. No, Danny will do it. What did we tweet at halftime, Danny, like, 20 more minutes? I was going to do, Got to go to work, hashtag Jay Bilas, then I decided not to. What if we lose this big lead, everybody will make fun of me, it will be a bad deal. We didn't. We just gave the old generic one tonight. Usually we try. I walk by Danny, he posts it. Only screwed up one time, twice. But last year we were at Air Force, we were about to go, we were about to get beat, and we were 9 for 12 from two and like 2 for 15 from three. I walked by him and I'm like, We just need to get more threes up. I was so mad. So Danny posted, We got to get more threes up. Yeah, then I get murdered afterwards, like what an idiot. They didn't quite get the sarcasm there, I guess. It's been interesting. It is what it is. I don't want to tell you where I send all my best tweets, but it's not that hard to do. Q. Could you talk Greg, do you expect to have him at any point? COACH MILES: I'd say it's a mild sprain. He did it probably 20 minutes before the end of practice last night. Lost Adam Nigon at the end last year, too. I don't know, I'm starting to think we're not going to the Cox Arena anymore and do the deal. We'll see. I think he'd be ready next week. I'm not sure about this weekend. Those seven that played were really tough, so ride 'em out. Q. Can you talk about Jesse and Dwight coming off the bench. COACH MILES: I'm glad you asked that. I thought Dwight was tremendous in the first half. I think it's a brother thing, too. Those two guys look out for each other. When Greg went down, I thought little brother to the rescue. I thought that was awesome. Then Jesse, you look at his line, almost a triple‑double line. 9‑9‑7, something like that. Jesse looks like he had the speed he had when we recruited him. Then the kid pulls his groin, turns into a pelvis fracture. He has to deal with coming off that. I think he lost his confidence. I think his confidence is as high as it was when he was coming in as a freshman years ago. Q. How excited are you to have that rematch with SanDiego State, get another shot at that team in the semifinals? COACH MILES: Well, I'm very excited. Consider the alternative. But SanDiego State is a great team. They find ways to win. They're our league champion. I think it's our most favorable matchup of those three in terms of UNLV and New Mexico. So you can't ask for more as a coach. Our kids, we've got a really competitive bunch of kids. I think it will be a fun game. Q. Jamaal Franklin continues to excel. Big game against you last time. What do you have to do to shut him down? COACH MILES:  Where is Jeff Gillooly at or whatever his name is? That was a joke. If something happens tonight, it wasn't me (laughter). No, I don't know. I got to think about that. That's a different nightmare for me to have about 2 a.m.  He's really good. He's really good. It's going to be an interesting matchup. Greg had been on him. Now Greg is unavailable. Dwight will get a crack at him, Pierce will get a crack at him. I didn't pay attention to how they played, if they started with the wing or the 4.  We only got seven, so we'll figure it out. There's like four of them that can't guard him, for sure. Those other three will get him. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH MILES: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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