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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Michael CobbinsTravis FordLe'Bryan NashMarcus SmartKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Oklahoma State – 74 THE MODERATOR: Coach Ford will catch up. We'll go to questions for our three student‑athletes. Q. Le'Bryan, can you talk about your difficult first half but then you came on in the second half? What got you going in the second half? LE'BRYAN NASH: My teammates, my point guard and Marcus telling me just keep playing. I think I had a real bad first half, and I was worried about my ankle because I twist it. The second half I just told my teammates, if you give me the ball, I'm just coming through clutch. I tell these guys every time that I like playing in the clutch, and it worked out for me today. Q. Do you feel like you dodged a bullet when Pierre's last second shot didn't go down? MARCUS SMART: Definitely. Knowing‑‑ we knew Pierre, he was going to make a play for his team. He was one of those guys that can do it for his team. He came out, and he started hurting us a little bit. He went through one of those spurts where he just was just scoring, attributing to the team with assists and just affecting the game. We definitely dodged a bullet with that last second shot. Q. (Off Microphone)? MICHAEL COBBINS: You know, Phil Forte, he came through and made him adjust his shot like that and made him miss. But we gotta be better than that for the next game. Q. Marcus, what's going through your mind as you see Pierre racing down the court like that knowing what a hot hand he's had and what a great player he is? What were you thinking? MARCUS SMART: At that time we were‑‑ to be honest, it was: Oh, crap, he's coming full speed. Like you said, he had the hot hand and he's a very great player. When players have the hot hand at this caliber, it's hard to stop them. And that definitely was what was going through my mind, and it gave us a scare. Q. After he missed, he's lying on the floor. Several of you guys went over to kind of help him up. Was that just respect for a great player? MARCUS SMART: Definitely. You know, he's had a great four years at Baylor. He's done things that most players would dream and only imagine of doing. And he's had a great season. And so there was no need for him to do that. But I can understand, because I know the feeling of frustration, of missing that last second shot, giving your team a chance. And much respect goes out to him and that Baylor team. Q. For any of the three of you, what do you have left for Kansas State tomorrow? LE'BRYAN NASH: We have everything. We know they're a good team. We're a good team. It's going to be a good battle. And we're going to come out stronger than we did today. We've gotta keep focusing on the task at hand and keep playing. Q. Marcus, your offense, very solid in the first half. Not much offense in the second half. What happened to stagnate your offense? MARCUS SMART: We lost a little bit of focus. We came out in the second half, we're up 18, and we didn't really match their intensity like we should have in the first ten minutes. They came out ready and more energized than we expected them to. At this level, this time of the season, you've got to expect it at all times. You can't have any slipups or "oh, shoot" moments. You've go to be ready at all times, and that's just kind of what happened tonight. Q. Marcus, one more for you. I know when Forte was at the line there you turned away and you weren't looking when he hit that first one. Was that‑‑ why were you doing that? You couldn't bear to watch? MARCUS SMART: It's a little thing I do. I was playing with Phil my whole life. In close games like that he's been at the free‑throw line. It's just a tradition I do to turn away and I guess relieve some of the pressure off of him looking for his teammates' eyes and having to make a big shot a big time moment. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, 18‑point lead at halftime with the prospect of another game the next day and the hopes for another on Saturday. Are you taking your foot off the pedal? Is that the mindset going into the second half at all? COACH FORD: No, not at all. Not at all. Second half was more about Baylor than it was about us. What happened to our offense is what happened to our defense. We were scoring so many points off our defense in the first half, we couldn't get any stops in the second half to get out on the break and create some things. Again, and Baylor really played great defense. I just got through obviously in the last couple of days watching them play Kansas on Saturday. That's the team they‑‑ we played really, really well the first time. They played really well the second half. That's what happened, period.  They played really well. And we came up a couple of points more. They're a very good basketball team. We did nothing different offensively. We ran all the same stuff. But we just didn't get out on the fastbreak as much as we would have liked. And we pressed a little bit in the first half. We weren't scoring at a big enough clip. And to get into our press as much as we had, we had a point in mind that we were going to press at some point, but we never got to that point where we wanted to score‑wise. Q. Did you say a little bit something stronger than "oh, shoot" like Marcus said after‑‑ when Pierre had that last attempt? COACH FORD: I wasn't overly excited about seeing him run down the court wide open. But I'll tell you, we made a lot of defensive mistakes. We know we made defensive mistakes because of our game plan. A lot. We made another one there at the end that I was supposed to switch and didn't switch. We made a lot of mistakes defensively in the second half. More than we've made in a long time. And that caused us a few problems and allowed Baylor to get in the rhythm that we didn't allow in the first half. We didn't make many mistakes in the first half defensively. I think we just played not to lose rather than playing to win.  It's a popular statement by coaches, but I think that was a pretty true statement. But Baylor came out very good, like they looked like Saturday. Saturday it was never a game. That's what they looked like. So they're more than capable of playing that way. Q. That last play with Phil, the foul, it went to your side of the floor. What did you see develop there and was the ball supposed to be in his hand to finish the half? COACH FORD: I was blocked from the foul. But it's something we work on as far as trying to get penetration. And try to let Marcus‑‑ something happen, and guys on the perimeter are supposed to do certain things. So that is a possibility for that to happen, definitely. Q. Are you concerned with how much your team has left for tomorrow? COACH FORD: Well, you can't worry about that, not at this point. Can't worry about that at all. I was shocked we were up as much as we were at halftime. Then the final score is not a surprise. I knew how hard Baylor‑‑ what they had on the line and what this game was about. I had a lot of respect for their team. So I was expecting a hard‑fought game. So that's what it ended up to be, to say the least. Q. You got Le'Bryan going there in the second half. Some of the mismatches, but early he seemed to be the only guy actually sort of in the flow of an offense. What was working well with him in the second half? COACH FORD: Well, he didn't play too well the first half. We weren't getting him in position where he likes to get the ball a lot. In the second half he got the ball in some areas, with some mismatch. They went four guards last five minutes of the game, I guess. And it's tough for guards to guard him down there. That's difficult at times for him. And I know when LB's (Nash) rolling, and you can get a feel. And we ran a lot of stuff for him to get the ball. Q. You mentioned you knew what Baylor had on the line. Would you argue for them as an NCAA Tournament team? COACH FORD: I think it's easy, yes. Easy. They won a lot of big games, a lot of big games in this league. They've beaten Kansas. They've beaten us. They've beaten Kentucky in Rupp Arena which is not an easy thing to do. I think they've done a lot, absolutely. Absolutely. They're a‑‑ I don't get it. I don't know about the numbers things, but if you know basketball and you look at that team, that's a team that can win a lot of games in the NCAA Tournament, a lot could win. And I think they called that the eye test, if I'm not mistaken. So if there's an eye test, it's an easy one. I don't get the numbers. I would have guessed their numbers should be good enough to get in. But they're a really good basketball team. They've proven it a lot. They've proven it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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