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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2013Markel BrownTravis FordLe'Bryan NashMarcus SmartKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Kansas State – 68 THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with Oklahoma State Coach Travis Ford and student‑athletes Le'Bryan Nash, Markel Brown, and Marcus Smart. Coach? COACH FORD: Congratulations to Kansas State. From the time the ball was thrown up, they brought their hard hats. We didn't come out of the gates the way we were wanting. I thought for about the first five minutes we didn't play the way we wanted. Then the next 35minutes I thought we really competed. Didn't play great, but I thought we played hard. That was evident by 17 offensive rebounds. And really played hard. We just never got rhythm, never got rhythm at all offensively, and a lot of that had to do with we were fighting adversity a lot throughout the night, with foul trouble, obviously at halftime Le'Bryan hadn't scored, Markel hadn't scored, Michael Cobbins hadn't scored. Two of them were in foul trouble, and Michael had a little bit of an injury. And we were just out of rhythm, couldn't get any offensive flow. That offense kind of hurt our defense a little bit. I thought our half‑court defense was really good. It's just they kept scoring in transition and rebounding the ball early. They really, really were hurting us offensive rebounding‑wise after us playing really good defense. And that's draining, very draining, because we were really getting after it defensively. And that was keeping us in there. But give Kansas State credit. They had a nice night. Wasn't our night. They had a lot to do with it. And we move on. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. What did the foul trouble do with you in your rhythm in the first half? LE'BRYAN NASH: It felt really bad, because now I can't help my team contribute because I got stupid fouls. And it really got me out of sync. But I stayed true to my team. That wasn't the trouble that we lost because we still were down by 5. So still credit my teammates for keeping us in the game because it could have got ugly. MARKEL BROWN: Did a lot for us. You're looking at three of the top leading scorers on the team right now, and two of them were on the bench. We left Marcus hanging out there. That's something we can't do. We gotta be on the court to keep our offense going, offense and defense. We just gotta shake back from that one and move on to the next game. Q. How much of a factor, if any, was fatigue tonight, especially the second half? MARCUS SMART: I don't think it was much of a factor. We still came out and we played hard. It wasn't much fatigue, it was just going out there and trying to stop, getting stops. And we weren't doing that on the defensive end. And that's what was hurting our momentum, trying to come back on the offensive end and turning the ball over and things like that. I doubt fatigue was much of a factor. MARKEL BROWN: I don't think it was a factor either. Kansas State is a great team. They came out and they played really well. And like Coach said, we didn't get in the rhythm offensively, and it slowed us down a little bit. It might look like we were tired, but we played hard out there. LE'BRYAN NASH: Fatigue wasn't a problem with us, we just didn't make shots. And that's not Oklahoma State basketball. We stopped them a lot on defense, and we just couldn't come up with the rebound. That's just us. Q. Why was Kansas State's running game and their fastbreak so effective tonight? MARKEL BROWN: Turnovers. We had a lot of turnovers. We had a lot of careless turnovers and we took bad shots, and that led to Kansas State's transition. That's something that we gotta go back and watch film on and correct going into this next postseason. MARCUS SMART: Definitely what Markel said, exactly, bad shots and turnovers. With a team like Kansas State who thrives off of that, you can't give them that because that's what they thrive off of. And their momentum gets going and we just gave them what they want and fed right into their hand. And like Markel said, it's something we can go back and fix and watch film of. Q. Marcus, you guys, Coach Ford talked about the lethargic start. He called timeout pretty early and really upset. Why do you think you had the lethargic start even before Le'Bryan and Markel went to the bench with fouls? The offense wasn't in any kind of rhythm. Why do you think you had the rough start? MARCUS SMART: Like you said, we just weren't in rhythm to start the game and it just carried over as the game went on. And we just couldn't find the rhythm, and it just hurt us. So we just came out and we were searching for it, but it just wasn't there for us. And with Le'Bryan and Markel getting into foul trouble, it didn't help it any, it just made it worse for us. Q. Markel, question about Angel Rodriguez. You've gone against him three times now in the last three months. He's done different things to you guys. Can you talk about his game, what you've seen in him over the course of the season? MARKEL BROWN: Angel is one of the better point guards in this league. He's a defensive pest. He plays really good defense. And he controls his team. He's a great point guard. He does a lot for his team. McGruder gets all the credit, but no one really focuses on what Angel does for his team. He can shoot the 3 really well and he also creates for others. Q. Markel, does an offensive game like this worry you at all going into the NCAA Tournament? In the NCAA you can't afford an offensive game like this. Is this something you can put past you pretty easy, or is it a cause for alarm? MARKEL BROWN: Just learn from it, I guess. We can learn from it. Go back, correct the things that we did wrong. We got time to practice. We got time to put in new offense and work on other things. Just learn from it and correct it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. With about 15minutes left, Bruce goes into a‑‑ it almost looked like a stall with about 15minutes left there, running the clock down to inside two, three seconds on every possession. And there's still 15minutes left in the game. He described you guys as obviously visibly being tired probably from last night's game. The players, Angel Rodriguez said we could tell they were tired. Is that tough right there to combat when you look out on the floor and you guys are shooting 28percent at the time and you know it's not working, you know there's fouls, there's no rhythm? COACH FORD: Yeah, it's a bad feeling as a coach when you've got no offensive rhythm. We could feel it. We were trying everything. But we had guys out there‑‑ we were just fighting adversity foul trouble‑wise, but we just couldn't get anything to work. It's amazing we hung in the game. It felt like the Iowa State game. At Iowa State we played horribly bad, found ourselves down 2 with three minutes to go somehow. Somehow we cut it back to 6 in the second half and they come down and make a 3. It's just one of those nights. You go through‑‑ there was a lot of teams that got beat today. Duke‑‑ it happens. They played well. I told our teamKansas State won. Kansas State played better than we did. That happens. Now, there's a lot of things we could go back and we wish we could do better. I felt we were‑‑ I wouldn't say that we were‑‑ because we got 17 offensive rebounds. We got 17 offensive rebounds. We were fighting out there. I thought we were. We may have been a step slow fighting and moving, but I thought our guys were trying to make things happen. It was just‑‑ a prime example, Kansas State, one of the most physical teams in our league and we don't get in the bonus in the first half. I don't know if that's happened to them all year long. Don't get the bonus first half. That was difficult. It shows where our offense was at. We just never got in a rhythm, but we kept fighting. I felt like we were fighting. I wouldn't say we were tired. Maybe we were. But I thought we were fighting, we just couldn't get anything to go our way for very long. If that makes sense. I don't know. I felt like we were out there fighting. I was very positive for every timeout except maybe one or two because I thought we were here, you're fighting‑‑ couple times we got to the offensive glass and just smashed. And, I mean, I told our team‑‑ and I'm thinking, oh, yeah, you're going to lay it in, and then it just gets slapped out. It was one of those nights. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. But one of those crazy deals. But Kansas State is a good basketball team. I told our team there's a reason; they're good. Q. Going back to what you were saying about moving on, Coach. There was an article in U.S.A. Today today that was saying that there isn't a clear favorite this season the way Kentucky was last season or North Carolina was four years ago. And I can see by the way that you're nodding your head you agree with that. MARKEL BROWN: Yes, we say this a lot. But I think everybody can genuinely say it this year. This year's like no other year. And for I don't know how long. There's not a clear‑cut team that you would say like Kentucky. I agree with you 100percent like last year, everybody knew who they were shooting for. Everybody knew who‑‑ you hoped Kentucky plays bad. But anybody's got a shot. Anybody. There's a lot of mid majors, low majors, StephenF. Aus‑ ‑‑ you go through, there are really good basketball teams. You got a lot of good basketball teams out there. So I'm not as concerned about seeding and all that. I don't think it's going to matter. I really don't. You're going to play good basketball teams. If you're in the NCAA Tournament this year, you're a good basketball team. You've earned‑‑ there's teams fighting. It just seems you've earned to get there. And everybody's going to be good once they get there. So I just know we better play better than we did tonight, that's for sure. Q. Obviously Rodney gets all the attention being K‑State's best player, but he averaged 25 a game against you guys in all three games. Can you talk about what he gets in the matchup against Oklahoma State that he takes as such an advantage? COACH FORD: Yeah, he's had some success. Tonight we gave him some in transition in the second half, which is‑‑ it's easy to score in transition. But he earned some of them tonight. He made some really tough shots. Yeah, he's a great player. Obviously he's going to get his touches within their offense. Again, we were a step slow. We were just a step slow, couple times. And we were doing things out of character. Did some things out of character. Played hard. Guys were playing hard. Just kind of running into each other a little bit. But he's a good player. I love his pace. I love his attitude. He obviously means a lot to that basketball team. He means a lot to that team. Q. I wonder, the last two games you played two pretty draining kind of games, gritty types. Is this something that you feel like your team can learn from, or is it maybe even a case of concern going into the tournament because of the way‑‑ especially the way tonight played out? COACH FORD: I'm not concerned, no. We've won a lot of games right now and we've won them in different ways this year. We played as well of a half yesterday in the first half as you can play. Baylor came out and played like they did against Kansas. They're a good basketball team. There's things we‑‑ I went and watched the film last night. I got back, watched our game against Baylor and Kansas State. There were some things we would have liked to have done better in the second half against Baylor, but they kept fouling us and putting us to the free‑throw line for one thing, and then it became that type game, and then we‑‑ I don't know if anybody's going to stop Pierre Jackson when that game was being played the way they were playing it last night. We kept‑‑ he just kept running into us for fouls. And there's several times‑‑ I don't know what else we could have done. So I wasn't concerned about that game after watching it. I wasn't concerned about the Baylor game. I thought, man, if can we bottle up that first half, which we've won some games‑‑ and tonight, you know, it doesn't determine what's going to happen in our next game. But I didn't see a group of guys quitting out there. I didn't see a group of guys that weren't playing hard. Guys were trying. It was just like you're trying to get through that wall. We never could get through it. Guys were trying. They were encouraging each other in the timeout. So that gets now‑‑ if I saw bad attitudes or guys not trying or we gave up‑‑ because there's several times we could have packed it in‑‑ that's concerning. But, no, we're a young basketball team. We've lost some games this year and we've responded. So hopefully we can learn from this and bounce back from it. Don't have time to feel sorry for yourself or anything like that. We got beat by a very good basketball team. We're a very good basketball team. They played better than we did tonight. Hopefully next game we play better than our opponent. Q. Kansas State, obviously a very good defensive team. They also got to play you a week ago. Is there sort of a factor of getting to know your opponent so well‑‑ in other words, are you looking forward to fresh meat in this tournament? COACH FORD: Yeah, depending on who it is, but, yeah. No, Kansas State was just really physical to us tonight. We just‑‑ and they have been. It was a battle the first game. First game it was a complete battle. It was a 2‑point game. We had the ball and didn't score, or it's tied with two minutes to go at their place and they made a big 3. We came back, beat them at our place in a big game that at the time we thought was even bigger for them.  And we were able to sustain that effort from them. And tonight it was their turn. I wish we could have played better. I wish we wouldn't have gotten in foul trouble. Even if we hadn't gotten in foul trouble, they were really good tonight. They were really good tonight. They defended us really well. So I don't want to make any excuses about the foul trouble because I don't know if that would have made a difference or not. But sure didn't help us. But Kansas State is a good basketball team. They're going to win more games. We gotta learn from it, which we do every game, and move on. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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