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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2013Ben BrustRyan EvansTraevon JacksonBo RyanCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Wisconsin – 68 THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and have an opening statement from coach. BO RYAN: I'll just keep it short and sweet. We got to get these guys down and get them some rest for tomorrow. But just a great team effort. Guys picked each other up. They didn't get frustrated when the shots weren't going down in the first half and they took care of that in the second half. They continued their hustle on defense. So they're the ones you need to talk to. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. For Traevon and Ryan, how do you guys do this? You're playing teams that have five star guys, NBA guys and yet you continue to win these games. How does this team do it without the quote unquote talent that some of the other teams have around this league? TRAEVON JACKSON: I think that it's collective. When we play together as a team, we can beat anybody. And you say the five stars, yeah these guys are NBA guys, but we believe in ourselves as well. We got a really talented group of guys and when we come together, we can beat anybody. BEN BRUST: The old cliche, defense wins championships. We understand that here and anything we can do to slow those guys down and get our shots is what's going to move us forward. Q. Ryan, in the second half you kept getting it dumped into the post and then you would back in a little bit then dump out to someone on the wing. That's been working so well. Was that part of the plan of attack coming out of the locker room after the first half? RYAN EVANS: Yeah, Tre called a couple plays in the post for me and Jared and we wanted to go inside out and that's how we started off the half. I started off with the bucket and they had to collapse and we were hitting our 3‑point shooters, Mike and Ben. Q. For Ben and Traevon. You guys have gone through stretches where you haven't shot the ball that well this year as a team, but how do you explain going from 17 in the first half to 60 percent in the second half? BEN BRUST: When we got together at halftime Tre did a good job of figuring out what we needed to do in the second half. He called some good plays to get established down low. We got some early buckets down low and it opened up some stuff from the outside. We knew the ball was going to go down. We talked about it. We made shots before, so just hit them when the time came. TRAEVON JACKSON: I think in the first half we had a little too many threes, like off the dribble, like contested threes. I told the guys like, hey, the threes will be there. They'll always be there. Let's get the ball in the post first and see what happens from there. We got to get our big men going. Because our offense runs through them. Defensively it runs through them too as well. So better looks through kickouts and collapsing and luckily it went in. Q. For Traevon, Trey Burke had 19 points. It took him 22 shots to get it. What did you do to make life difficult for him today? TRAEVON JACKSON: Some of his shots looked good, his floaters and runners. They just didn't go in. But just tried to just contest everything. Because he's that good of a player to where you really can't stop him, because he can make tough shots. You just got to hope that he misses and make him take tough shots every single time. But he still carried their team. He hit big shots. But it was collectively a team effort. Big men helped me out a lot on the screens. Q. Being the Big‑10 tournament, for all three you guys, what's it been like playing in this conference, how good it is, how great is this conference? RYAN EVANS: Best conference in America. I think it's been the best conference for the last three years. But this year it's even better. So it's been just amazing. Every night's been a memory in this conference. How many buzzer beaters have you guys seen? You got to come ready to play every day. You got to come focused, whether it's practice or the game. And that's going to get you the win at the end of the day and that's why we have been able to be consistent until this point. BEN BRUST: If you just look even from the games here it's just a replication of what you have seen all year in the regular season. It's fun. Obviously, now it's you win or lose or you stay or you go home, so it's a little bit more added pressure, but that's why I think a lot of us chose to play here because you knew you were going to get a challenge every night. And that's fun for us. TRAEVON JACKSON: It's just a lot of fun playing against the top guys around the country. You look forward to that. It's really a blessing to be able to play on these big stages and it are just feels good to win the right way and to win as a team. That's the best part about it. I think that throughout the conference you got talented players, but we got a really, really good teams as well. Q. For Traevon or any of you, how much do you guys believe in building momentum here and what does the buzzer beater last week do to not only secure the bye, but to build something forward into this tournament? TRAEVON JACKSON: I don't think it really did anything for us, really, because I think that we got to bounce back regardless of what happens. This is the second season, we were looking forward to going right into the second season for us. It didn't hurt us. It definitely didn't hurt us. We take advantage of it and take that bye day off and get ready for the next couple games.  But we just got to keep moving forward, taking one game at a time from here on out and good things will happen. Q. For Ben and Ryan, Bo mentioned picking people up. I think Jarrod picked up his third foul, but when he went out you actually extended the lead. Is that an example of one of your better players goes out and it doesn't affect you guys, at least today? BEN BRUST: Yeah, Frank did a great job coming in and producing, got a couple big shots. Couple at the end of the shot clock. And he was big for us. He knows that if his name's called he's got to contribute. He's done that at times for us. And when he contributes, when Jarrod is on the bench, it helps this team. RYAN EVANS: We know Frank's a talented kid and he comes in tune every practice, so he understands what we're trying to accomplish defensively and also offensively. He has a great offensive game. So this was a great game for Frank and he really lifted us up. So it was a good feeling for all of us. THE MODERATOR: Fellows, thank you very much. You may return to the locker room. Take questions for coach. Q. On paper you're matched up against these teams that have four and five star kids that your roster lacks, but you've been able to sustain success over the years. How have you been able to do that in this league and nationally? BO RYAN: When the guys come in, I take those little stars you lick, and I take and I put four or five stars on each locker. "Hey, you're a five star guy. You're a four star guy." (Laughter.) You know, it's what that star shines like when you're finished with your career. So I'm always looking for guys who are willing to come in, work hard, have talent, and it's about us, not individuals. But individuals can thrive. If you're good, you can get to do a lot of things. So I don't want to sell my players short, I've got good players who are much better as a result of playing together. Q. Simple question: What happened, what was the difference on offense in the second half compared to the first half? BO RYAN: We had post feeds and I know that these guys aren't always used to breaking games down, but we had post feeds in the first half. We came away with almost nothing. 13 shots in the paint or whatever it was and we weren't finishing. Okay. Guys had a little better feel. Michigan had 40 minutes under their belt on this court, in this setting, in this environment. Okay. Let's just try again going through the post. It isn't like, all of a sudden, it was a revelation at halftime, "Oh, let's go inside." When the players see it work it's a revelation. Then, "Oh, yeah, look, this works." So maybe we can do some more of that tomorrow and the next game and whenever, wherever and whenever we play. So, but when the ball went down a few times and we either drew a foul or got an easy bucket, it's like anything else. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but my grandfather, when I fished with him, always took me to the hole where we caught fish before. So I don't think it changes. And I'm a city kid. I don't know much about fishing, but I do know and he knew that I'm a very impatient guy, and if in five minute I hadn't caught a fish, I was leaving. And we would get one. Within five minutes. Q. You mentioned about going into the post, but it seemed as though the team really got he energized when Mike hit those two threes back to back. JOHN BEILEIN: You do get energized on defense. It's not like we played lights out defensively. Michigan really attacked harder and made some shots too. But, yeah, when you score, it does change your frame of mind. We're human. Anybody that's ever played the game or any kind of game where success doesn't get you going a little bit more, get your thought process a little more acute and intense and much deeper focus. But when you are scoring, you can't forget about the other end, because you know the other team's going to be shooting it a little quicker, making a few more, running a few more specials, trying to take advantage of a guy being out of position. So I felt both teams offensively did some really good things in the second half. We just happened to do a few more. Q. Jarrod was in foul trouble at the end, you stuck with Frank. Was that just a matter of sticking with what was working? BO RYAN: Frank was loose. Frank was into it. He had that look in his eye. So keep going. I never want a guy with four, Jarrod's not used to playing with four, so Frank was doing just fine. We believe in our guys. Our guys believe in us. They believe in each other, which is even more important. Q. Talk about the last minute of the first half. Really turned the tide of the game. You guys were down eight. Able to get it down to three at halftime and that kept you in that game. Kept you close. BO RYAN: I was waiting for somebody to recognize that. How about seven of our points, right? Wasn't it, we had a three with‑‑ yeah. You're probably thinking, why didn't I call that stuff in the other 19 minutes or 18 minutes. They didn't get down on themselves. Did you see a look on our guys eyes like we can't score or we're frustrated or we're this or that? Our three seniors, it was mentioned at halftime, just mentioned, that they were 2‑13. I'm not saying by who or whom, but we needed a little help from the seniors. And I think they did that. We needed help from everybody, but sometimes when it is your last go around, Big‑10 tournament, NCAA tournament, in the conference, whatever, are you squeezing yourself a little too tight? Are you just ‑‑ you know, just play. So I thought our guys did a much better job of that and it happened to be the younger guys who got that spark going. Q. What's it like being a coach in this conference and especially this season the way the conference has played? BO RYAN: Ryan made a great point, there's great players on great teams and their systems, every school has a system that they rely on pretty much. Now, sometimes that system I know people will say, how many points did we score in the second half? Hey, coach, you don't score 51 in a half normally. Well, with the clock stopped, how many points did we score with the clock stopped? So people can say whatever they say, but if you're playing with a little bit of a lead and you're getting fouled and there's more possessions, it's still points per possession that really end up telling the story. So I thought we ‑‑ I'm not sure where we ended up, we were too rushed for me to ask. Was anybody keeping points per possession? Mike, were you keeping it? We were 1.65. What for the game? 1.1? 1.04. Yeah, I figured it was close to 1.1. Michigan was .96 probably. .9 even. Okay. Q. Looking ahead until tomorrow, how have you been able to dominate Indiana over the years since you've been at Wisconsin? BO RYAN: I never, I don't know about anything that you're talking about. We just ‑‑ what would I know about that? I don't listen to anything, I don't go to anything, on my cell phone, you know, you're looking at a guy that just is looking at film with the sound down, I never listen. And I'm not saying that the announcers should be cut in pay because I don't listen, I just don't listen. When they do tapes for me, DVD's, there's no sound. So when you say anything about records or anything like that, Patrick's the guy that has numbers. I don't. I don't even think about those kind of things. Never have. And people that know me will tell you that. You know me. THE MODERATOR: Coach. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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