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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2013Manny AropGreg LansingJake OdumST. LOUIS, MISSOURI CREIGHTON – 64 THE MODERATOR: We welcome Indiana State to the podium. A quick note about the Sycamores. Manny Arop led ISU with 13 points, his 22nd double‑digit scoring game this season. Head Coach Greg Lansing with Jake Odum and Manny Arop. We'll start with Coach Lansing's assessment and then move to questions for the student‑athletes. Coach? COACH LANSING: The assessment is it was a domination by I think one of the nation's best teams, a team that is determined to win another championship, and make a good tournament run. Obviously, they're very well coached, and they're the best team we've played all year, and I'm not just saying that because of what they did tonight. Seeing them all year and all the good teams we've played, they're outstanding. They have no weaknesses on the offensive end and Mack's really got them going on the defensive end, obviously. They guarded us very well tonight. Just disappointed that we didn't get a better game and a little more resilient to them. But they were a buzz saw tonight and you have to give them all the credit. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jake Odum and Manny Arop. Front on the left, please. Q. This question is for both of you. Creighton was outstanding. Was it a little disappointing that McDermott got a little bit too open for a couple threes and it kind of got them really rolling? Was it disappointing from a team defensive perspective that it was‑‑ he was able to get rolling relatively easily in the early going? JAKE ODUM: Yeah, obviously at this point, scored 41 points in the first half. McDermott had quite a bit of threes. You got to do a team effort on him like we did with Colt Ryan. Yeah, disappointing. THE MODERATOR: Manny, your thoughts? MANNY AROP: He dominated us in a lot of areas. Inside, outside. Got to the line. So he just, he just dominated us today. Great play, did a great job for his team. Q. Again, this question is for both of you guys. This isn't the last game of the season. You'll continue to play. It is the last game of the Valley season. What do you think, with all of you coming back next year, what do you think you guys need‑‑ what attribute do you guys need to have to get to the next level in this tournament next year and get to the championship game? MANNY AROP: Got to keep getting better every day. Coach preach that all the time. We came a long way in terms of getting better and playing better basketball. Obviously, it wasn't one of our best games. But a lot of credit go to Creighton. They put us out of a lot of our things and they did a lot of good things to win. We just got to keep getting better. Like you said, we have everybody back next year. So, you know, this next game or whatever tournament we get invited to, just continue to get better. When the off‑season comes, continue to get better. Just keep building. THE MODERATOR: Jake, your thoughts? JAKE ODUM: We definitely need to get a little tougher. We've got to be able to handle criticism better from the coaching staff, be a little more coachable, follow the game plans. We followed the game plan this year, we beat a lot of teams. Then when we kind of strayed off and did our own thing and didn't follow what the coaches had for us, we got whooped. So just got to get tougher and be more coachable, along with putting in the work like Manny said. Q. What was the biggest difference between today's game and the game in Terre Haute? THE MODERATOR: Jake, why don't you start. JAKE ODUM: They hit shots. THE MODERATOR: Manny. MANNY AROP: Like Jake said, they hit shots and I don't think we disrupted their offense. They were able to get the ball wherever they wanted to get it compared to the other time we played them. It was like some of the passes made it difficult for them to enter the ball in the post or get a clean catch. Just messed up their timing a little bit. But today, they just did whatever they want. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you for your time and attention. Questions for Coach Lansing. Q. Greg, obviously, it was a little rough from the beginning. Defensively, what do you think Creighton was able to do to break you down today? COACH LANSING: I think one thing in particular is Doug was slipping his ball screens. We're always switching those. Obviously, they're well coached and well prepared and Doug is awfully talented. They were slipping him a lot and he was getting‑‑ we were almost running into each other. One guy was trying to switch and the other guy wasn't. So a large part goes to their game plan and their prep coming into it. And then a little bit of‑‑ well, maybe not a little bit, but a lot on us for a lack of communication. I thought we had the deer‑in‑the‑headlights look from the start. If you don't communicate on defense, this is the most efficient offensive team in the country, and we guarded them better in both games we played though we lost at their place. They were hitting on all cylinders from the start tonight. We didn't offer too much resistance. Q. Were they hitting on all cylinders to the point for a while, even good teams rarely hit that level. I imagine it's frustrating to sit through that. COACH LANSING: We have a computer system a lot of schools use called Synergy. You plug everything in, all their offensive numbers, and every category, they're considered excellent, except for one and that's miscellaneous, where they're considered good. Inside, outside, three‑point shooting, penetration, offensive boards. It's kind of crazy. They were that tonight, that's for sure. But you have to fight a little harder. You have to be a little more resilient, and the crazy thing is we fought a really good team yesterday in an absolute slug fest where we really had to work on the defensive end. Tonight, we just didn't offer much resistance. Q. Coach, is it Creighton's ability to make shots or their ability to get open to make shots that made them so efficient? COACH LANSING: Mac is as good as it gets with that. Everybody knows Doug will get shots. He still gets them and gets open. Everybody knows Echenique will roll the ball screen at the front of the rim. Everybody knows Gibbs doesn't have to take a shot to have a huge impact on the game. Mac was dynamite tonight. They were ready to go and they followed the game plan to a tee. And it had a little bit to do with us and a little bit to do with them. What hurt us too is them making shots just got us standing on the offensive end, and not doing anything, not fouling. I think Manny or Jake said, which one of them said it, we just strayed from it. We got a little out of character on the other end because everything was going in for them. You just have to have some patience and work the ball better. Our plan was going into it, after a make, was get at least two ball reversals. As you saw in the first half, that didn't happen very much. Q. Coach, now might not be the easiest time, but how hopeful are you and how important is it for an entire group that comes back next year to find a way to have a good tournament, whichever way you go? COACH LANSING: I still love the guy, love them all, love our team. They're good people. They represent us well, although we got it handed to us today, on and off the court. But we got exposed. During the last week, when Manny was suspended, we had some deficiencies that really have been exposed in times that we've lost. Now, having those seniors and everybody back, that's a great thing when you got a bunch of good guys like this. But if you want to contend for a championship, we're not ready for that yet. I mean, we certainly are not ready. We can talk about having everybody back and being very joyous with that. But we're not ready to win a championship in the regular season or in the tournament. So each guy has to get better. We might have to just do some different things in the post‑season to find out who really wants to compete and who really wants to win a championship. We're going to be picked in the upper half for sure in the conference next year, but that doesn't do anything for you. We had a sniff at it when we were tied for the lead at 9‑5. We didn't handle it very well. It's a big difference between knowing what you're doing and getting some things done. We know we just haven't been getting things done as much as we need to. So I think it's a good thing because they're good people. But we have to get a lot tougher and a lot better. Q. Along those lines, you talked about handling success with the team. Is one of the things that the team has to do, to do that, is to realize that the effort that they say they put in yesterday isn't automatic. It isn't going to come every game. Is that the square they have to circle to get to the next level, to kind of deal with that success better? COACH LANSING: We had success early in the year against some good teams. In Honolulu, we got off to a good start in the conference season. I don't know that we didn't handle success as well as we needed to or that we just weren't tough enough and resilient enough and got so fatigued at the end of the year. These two guys right here, you know, are a prime example. They've working hard every day. It's hard to practice as hard as we do all the time for about ten months and still have fresh legs at the end of the year. I've talked to Mac a lot about it. He used to be a two‑and‑a‑half‑hour, two‑hour practice guy late in the year. He's backed off a ton. They looked pretty fresh tonight. We've tried to do that. But they're a championship caliber team. We're not yet. THE MODERATOR: One last question for Coach Lansing. Thank you, Coach. Congratulations on your season.  FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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