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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 14, 2012Chris AllenScott ChristophersonFred HoibergRoyce WhiteLOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY THE MODERATOR: Please welcome the Iowa State cyclone student‑athletes to the desk here. We'll begin by throwing it out to questions from the media to our student‑athletes here. Q. Chris, obviously, you have a little bit of experience against UConn. Does that matter at all? Is that too long ago, all that kind of stuff? CHRIS ALLEN: That was way too long ago. They've got a totally different team. It's all about preparation now and watching film and trying to get the "W." Q. Royce, can you talk about where you got the guard skills? Were you short at one time and grew? Or how did you get those skills? ROYCE WHITE: I wasn't always one of the bigger guys in my age group. I had a growth spurt like probably going from eighth or ninth grade. I always worked on my guard skills coming up, and some stuff I had naturally. Then when I became a freshman in high school, I had to refine my game because all the senior guards that were playing on my team at the time had left. Q. Refined your game to be more of an inside guy? ROYCE WHITE: No, to be more of a guard. I was playing center when I was a freshman in high school. Going in my sophomore year, I had to go into the gym and do a lot of guard work. Q. Can you guys just talk about your game plan going up against UConn. You guys know that they struggle a little bit with outside shooting. Are you guys going there with that being your strength? Can you just talk about that, Royce? ROYCE WHITE: Our game plan stays the same from game to game. We want to definitely defend, first of all, and then rebound. And we know that if we can do those things and be successful in those areas, we'll have a chance to win. As far as our preparation for UConn specifically, just helping each other a lot. They're really talented, so it's hard to pick where you want to get beat from, so to speak. So we're just going to give a lot of team help. Q. This is for Royce and Chris. Was there an adjustment period at the beginning of the year for you guys just because so many of you guys were transfers and you hadn't played together before? CHRIS ALLEN: I mean, I don't think it really was an adjustment. We were sitting out all the previous year with each other. So we were playing with each other, seeing how each other's games are. It kind of just played into effect once we got on the court under Coach Hoiberg. ROYCE WHITE: It wasn't that big of an adjustment as far as how the transfers match with each other. It was more of an adjustment, just me personally, not playing for two years. I think that was a tougher adjustment than to play with these guys. They're all really great players. Q. Scott, can you talk about how much the three‑pointers are a weapon in your game. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I think it's pretty well‑documented that we've got a lot of different guys that are pretty good shooters from the perimeter. We're kind of a unique team because we have a ball in Royce's hands quite a bit more than what I'd say a normal college team does. So we do a lot of different things with dribble handoffs and use Royce's abilities to kind of manipulate the defense to get looks for our shooters. Q. Is there an intimidation factor at all for any of you? As a team, have you thought about playing the defending national champs? SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I mean, Kemba Walker is not coming back, is he? Obviously, we know Connecticut is one of the most storied programs in all of college basketball. We know they're the defending national champs. So they've got a ton of talent. We feel like we earned our way to be here too. I think we respect them, but I don't think there's like a fear factor with them at all. CHRIS ALLEN: Coming from Michigan State, just from playing on that team, I mean, going in the gym, you kind of felt like it was teams intimidated by us. But at the same time, it was just a lot of respect. So we have a lot of respect for UConn and their program, and it's not really an intimidation factor, though. ROYCE WHITE: I think the respect's definitely there. Their program speaks for itself, and the players that they have on their team speak for themselves, but we just‑‑ we're just going to go out and try to win the game. We've got goals that we're trying to meet. There's no room to be intimidated. Q. The fact that it is your first trip back to the tournament in several years, how much confidence do you take from beating teams like a Kansas and a Baylor, teams that have been here the last couple of years? CHRIS ALLEN: It's definitely kind of a normal feeling for me. But for a lot of the younger guys, they've never been to a tournament. So my role in this is just talking to them and getting them ready for it. But I don't feel likelike we don't have as much confidence as anybody else. I feel like we have just as much because we've done the stuff that they've done during the year, and I felt like we have a chance at winning it just like they have a chance to win, any other team. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I think, if you talk to UConn, they'd probably say some of the same things. Any time you go through your whole conference season, it's a grind. You play great teams pretty much every night. We had some games where we were able to beat the better teams in our league. We take a lot of confidence from that coming into here. ROYCE WHITE: I'd say definitely, it definitely helps with confidence to know that we've already played with some of the better teams in the country. UConn is another one, and everybody in the tournament is good at this point. There's not too many weaknesses in a lot of teams. So we've just got to go out and try to play the same way that we did against those better teams. Q. You guys think that Royce is a tough defensive matchup for teams, maybe particularly a team like UConn, in that he can take it inside, outside, has the ball a lot, but he's a big guy. Is he a tough defensive matchup? CHRIS ALLEN: Definitely is. It's not too many bigs can move their feet good enough to guard him. So any time he has a 6'10", 260 big guard, it's not going to be too hard for him to get around them. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I definitely think, obviously, he handles the ball very well. He's a big strong guy. He can play inside and come outside. He allows the guards to do so many different things with dribble handoffs and setting ball screens and things like that, as well as he can get to the basket and pass the ball. He's such a willing passer that it is really hard to scout him. ROYCE WHITE: I don't know. Who knows, man. I guess. From what the other coaches in our league say, I'm a tough matchup, but there's a lot of times where I didn't play as well as I could either. Just coming in, I've got to just try and do the better things that I can do and try to stay away from some of the mistakes. Q. Chris and Scott, can you talk about your confidence level shooting the three and your philosophy in shooting the three? Do you ever hesitate going to stretches where you hesitate to put it up? CHRIS ALLEN: It's definitely those times where you get gun shy. It happens. You miss a couple. You get a good look, and you question yourself. You might shoot it, you might not. It's really just about confidence and knowing how much work you put in. You're in the gym three, four hours a day, and you miss five straight shots in the game. I say you shoot it again because you're in the gym working. I have faith in you every time. So that's my philosophy behind it. If you're working and you do what you got to do, shoot whatever shot you want. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: Kind of go off of what Chris said. I think just shooting can be really streaky. Sometimes you're hot. Sometimes it doesn't seem that you can throw a layup in even. But just throughout the work you put in through the course of the year, you kind of feel like you earned the right to take shots and you kind of have some freedom to pick your spots to be aggressive. There's definitely been some games where I haven't shot it as well as I wanted to, but you just come back the next game, and you just keep firing away, having faith in the work you've put in. Q. Chris, March madness is all about which team has the most momentum. Do you think you guys have more momentum than UConn? CHRIS ALLEN: I haven't really been watching the last couple of games. I watched some film on them, but I wouldn't say it's all about momentum during this time because really, it's really the tougher team. If you play defense and rebound and do all the little things, then you're almost guaranteed to win at this time of year because it don't matter how many mistakes you make if you're playing defense, rebounding and getting all the 50‑50 balls in. Just playing harder than the other team. If you play harder, most likely you're going to win. Q. Your coach is in his second year there. Can you talk about how big a legend he already is in Ames? CHRIS ALLEN: Yeah. Coach has been in Ames, Iowa, since he was born‑‑ elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Now he's back. So he's known for so much. He's done so much for the State of Iowa. It's crazy. He walk out on the court before the game, you'd think the game is over because everybody is just standing up clapping like we just won a game because Coach is walking out. I'm looking around. First time it happened, I'm looking around like, man, what's going on? I see Coach coming out, and everybody give him a standing ovation. Hey, he did what he had to do here. He deserves that. But definitely from a coaching standpoint, I feel like he's a young coach, and he's learning. He's got‑‑ he's been lucky to get good players for his first two years. Most college coaches don't get that. So I feel like he's definitely took advantage of his opportunity. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: Yeah, they call him the mayor. He probably could run for office in Iowa if he really wanted to. I think the people in the community just really respect a lot of the things that he's done and the way he's done them. Coach is a really humble guy. Cares about‑‑ he's a family man. He's just got a lot of likable qualities, and he's been very loyal to Ames, and Ames has been very loyal to him. ROYCE WHITE: He's the mayor, man. That's all you have to say. He's the mayor. Q. Royce and Chris, when you guys were looking to transfer, what stood out to you about Iowa State? Why do you think it's become such an ideal destination for people to transfer? CHRIS ALLEN: Well, my situation transferring here, Diante Garrett, the guy that was there last year, he knew Korie Lucious, and me and Korie's pretty cool, so they kind of linked up, and he told me Donte said they got some stuff at Iowa State, they got a new coach, they're looking pretty good. So I just took it upon myself to go on a visit, liked what I seen, talked with Coach. I liked where his head was at the time. His an ambitious guy, and I'm an ambitious guy too. So I felt like get that connection together. Only the sky's the limit. So it was just more of a connection really. That's what made me decide to go to Iowa State. ROYCE WHITE: Like you said, all our reasons for transferring were a little bit different. The biggest one for me was probably Coach as well, and the fact that he was rebuilding and he had a chance to do something special in his hometown, and I wanted to be a part of that. I was also at the time having my first son, so it was important that I was in close proximity to my support system back in Minnesota. The community is just amazing. When I came on my visit, you can feel it. If you've ever been to Ames, it's just a great community to be in. THE MODERATOR: We're good. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, please welcome Coach Fred Hoiberg. We're going to go ahead and open it up for questions for the Iowa State coach. Q. Just talk about Royce a little bit and just the way‑‑ what kind of advantage he gives you guys in terms of just leading the team in all those major categories into this. COACH HOIBERG: I think the best thing about Royce is just how difficult a player he is to prepare for. He's such a unique kid as far as how he plays. I get asked all the time by people, former people I worked with in the NBA about who do you compare him to? I don't know. He's such a unique player and plays such a different style that it's difficult to answer that question. So you try to do all you can. We try to simulate Andre Drummond in practice. Can't do it. We don't have anybody that size. I'm sure they're trying to simulate Royce White in practice, and they can't do it. Nobody that we play can simulate what he does. The best thing about him is how unselfish he is. I looked at the Oklahoma game, for example, where we played down there, and he took one shot and was probably the most valuable offensive player that we had because double‑teams came and he moved that ball around and got that thing flying around the horn. There's just so many things that he does. I'm not sure I've ever seen a player like him. Q. Coach, if you can draw a comparison to your NBA experience a little bit and kind of size up Drummond and Lamb as future NBA prospects. COACH HOIBERG: Big time. I think the sky's the limit for those two. Drummond, his size, you don't see many people that can run the floor like him and get off the ground. He's going to be a big‑time pro just because of the size that he has. As far as Lamb, just a complete guard. He's got the size, he's got the length. He's got the athleticism, and he's a tough kid to stop. We have to mix up coverages on him, I think, to try to keep him off balance a little bit. He's going to pose a lot of trouble for us, and those other guards are tough as well. But as far as NBA prospects, I think both of those kids are future lottery picks. Q. Could you comment on going up against Coach Calhoun? And also, he's been there 26 years but they don't call him the mayor of Storrs. COACH HOIBERG: He should. It's 60 games for him and one for me. Look, I'm honored to coach against him. We actually recruit that area out east quite a bit, and I've seen him at a lot of events, and I've gotten to know him. He's a great guy. He's always a guy that you can ask questions to, and he'll answer them for you. Kevin Ollie is someone on that staff that I played with in the NBA on the Chicago Bulls and brought him into Minnesota when I was working with the front office just because of the type of leader, the type of person he is. I got to know that staff pretty well because of the areas that we recruit. But he's a legend. All the National Championships he's won, the Big East Championships that he's won. Look, they've got six players that played in the National Championship game. They've got a coach that's coaching his 60th NCAA game. We've got one guy with our entire staff that has been a part of this, and he's played in two Final Fours, which is important, in Chris Allen, but the experience advantage definitely goes to UConn. We're going to go out there and play hard. We're going to go out there and put a game plan together and hopefully go out and execute it and have a chance to win in the end. Q. Fred, as a followup to that, how much then does it help as a confidence booster going into this game knowing that you've beaten teams like Kansas and Baylor? COACH HOIBERG: I think one great thing about playing in the Big 12. It prepares you for this setting to play Kansas on ESPN and to win that game. Last part of the season, to go down to Kansas State and beat an extremely tough, physical team, shows you how mentally prepared you have to be for a game like that. We were right in it till the end against Missouri, who you could argue is playing as well as anybody in the country right now. Beat Baylor our last regular season game. Did not play well against Texas in the tournament. But all those experiences prepare you for what we're about to go through. We've been trying to talk about that a lot the last few days and get our guys motivated to go out and play a great game. Our guys have responded pretty well. When we go out and have a poor performance, we normally bounce back and play well the next game. So it is something that you try to do the best job you can. And the schedule that we played, especially this year, it's a full round robin. You play every team twice, home and away, and you don't get a bye week, and it's such a tough, gruelling schedule. But at the same time, you understand how well prepared you'll be once you play on the stage we're about to play on, how much that prepares you. Q. What type of teams have given you problems this year? COACH HOIBERG: Oh, they've all given us problems. You just try to limit the problems that they give you and try to make adjustments. The thing about UConn that I'm so impressed with is there's certain teams that are small and fast like Missouri. There's certain teams that are huge, that they're maybe a little bit more methodical. UConn can play so many different styles because they've got three extremely quick, athletic guards. They've got two huge players on the inside that create problems for you there. So they can play fast, and they can also play in the half‑court, and you don't see a lot of teams like that. Q. Coach, could you elaborate a little on the size UConn has inside and the challenge that presents? COACH HOIBERG: Drummond is the biggest player that we'll see, maybe the biggest guy any of our players ever see. I remember seeing him last year on the AAU circuit, and first time I saw him, your jaw hits the floor. Not only is he big, but he's one of those bigs that gets up and down the floor. You don't see that a lot with the guys that size. They throw him alley‑oops, he beats his man to the rim. It doesn't look like he ever gets tired either. He poses a big problem. And Oriakhi has been around a long time. And they've got some versatility. They play Roscoe Smith at some four. Olander can come in there, and they've got a bunch of different guys that can play different styles. They can play huge. They can play small. It's a very versatile team. Q. Coach, looking at your roster, you guys have like seven guys who have transferred in. What is it about‑‑ why do you like taking in players that have already played in big time college basketball? COACH HOIBERG: When I got the job at Iowa State, one of the biggest things I wanted to do was try to get the talent to the point where you can go out there and compete in a conference like the Big 12. If I would have rebuilt it with freshmen alone, it would have taken a long, long time. Unless you get a class like Kentucky gets pretty much every year, your freshmen, it's tough to go out and win games. Did I plan on bringing six of them in my first year? No. It just happened to be a year where a lot of guys were leaving their schools. We brought them in for interviews and brought them in to visit the campus, and we did extensive research on those guys. We didn't just say we're taking you, you, you, and you.  Let's go. Let's try to do this. We brought them in. Not only did they talk to the staff, not only the athletic director, but people on the administrative side. Everybody felt the same way. Let's do it. Let's give these guys a chance, and they've been awesome. Not only on the floor but off the floor. They've been great in the community, and they've built great chemistry. That's the reason I feel we've had our success this season. Q. Coach, would you like to see Louisville join the Big 12 or no? COACH HOIBERG: That's a great question. We'll answer that a little bit later. It's a great arena. Q. Can you talk about your philosophy in shooting the threes as much as you do and what that does to a defense from the other side? COACH HOIBERG:  My philosophy on the game is I'm going to base my system on the type of personnel that I have. Just happen to be a team where we can create a lot of shots from behind the line, A, because the shooters we have; and B, because the playmakers we have. Again, Royce does such a good job of finding the open man when the defense collapses on him, and our shooters do a good job of finding the open spot. We've got four guys really that you could consider knockdown shooters. If you put the right plays in, put the right action, if you get out in transition and run and get the shots up before the defense gets set, which is another thing I really like to do, then you're going to create some looks. Our guys have done a good job, I think, of playing unselfish basketball and knocking shots down. Especially in timely situations when you have to make them. Q. I'm sure you've noticed that UConn doesn't defend the three too well over the course of the season. Do you have to caution your guys against becoming too reliant on it, or do you let them chuck away and go from there? COACH HOIBERG: We're not going to chuck away. If it's a good shot, if it's a good look, I tell my guys, the only time I'll take you out is if you pass up an open look. We have to be very careful that we don't come down and jack up quick contested shots. That's when we've struggled this year is when we've done that. We want to create good open shots. If we do that, we'll live with them. But you do have to be a little bit careful with that. They're so tough to score on in the paint. Those two big guys make it very difficult, especially for our guys. We're not the biggest team. But when we have an open shot, yeah, we're going to take it. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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