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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: SAN JOSEMarch 20, 2013Markel BrownTravis FordMarcus SmartSAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by student‑athletes Markel Brown and Marcus Smart for Oklahoma State. Q. Markel, you've shown serious improvement every year, 6 points a game, 10 points a game, 15 points a game, your shot has gotten a lot better. What do you attribute your improvement to on a yearly basis? MARKEL BROWN: Just hard work, staying in the gym, and most of all confidence. Going out there and knowing that I can do the things that I'm capable of doing and putting it on to the court and putting it in on the offseason and working hard has just all built up. I'm having a great season so far. Q. Marcus, a lot was made about Oregon's seeding, and being a 12 seed despite winning the Pac 12 tournament. What did you guys think when you guys saw the first round you'd be playing the team that won the PAC 12, were you surprised to see them that low? MARCUS SMART: We weren't really worried about the seeding. Definitely I think they were upset about it. But whoever we play, we're going to go out and play. It doesn't matter what seed we've got or what seed our opponent has. This time of the year every game and every team is great. You've got to bring your A‑game every game. Q. Marcus, a lot of attention obviously coming your way. As a freshman, how do you handle that and prepare to be under the bright lights? MARCUS SMART: I have a lot of great teammates, Markel and Le'Bryan, they're very experienced. They've been here before, they have a lot of experience under their belt. They help me through when things get a little overwhelming, they're there for me. This is a brotherhood and they stick with me through the thick and thin. Q. Marcus, sounds like you ran into Dominic Artis back in your high school days. Talk about that a little bit and the familiarity you each may have with each other. MARCUS SMART: Definitely, he played for Findlay Prep, one of the greatest high school teams out there in the country. I don't remember him playing as much when we played them at that time, but I've seen him play before. He's a great player. And much respect goes out to him. And he knows the game and he has a very great IQ of basketball. He does what it takes to win for his team. Q. How did that match‑up go? MARCUS SMART: We ended up losing to Findlay Prep, not by much, I think by six. It was a close game down to the wire. But it was a fun game. And it was a good game to watch. Q. You have a big size advantage against guys like Artis and especially Johnathan Loyd. How do you exploit that in this match‑up? MARCUS SMART: I definitely have a size advantage against a lot of players, guards that I play. You've just got to use that to our advantage. Defensively for them it's going to be hard to match‑up against me because of my size. My teammates recognize and I recognize it and it's just a matter of how I'm going to exploit that in the game when it comes and get me in the right spot, the right position to exploit that. Q. How gratifying is it what you've gone through the first two years, being in the tournament? MARKEL BROWN: It's a blessing. This team worked hard all year long, and even starting the summer to be where we are at now. It's good to see all the hard work pay off for this team. And going back to my first two years here it didn't look so good. But now we're here and it feels good to be here. Q. Markel, besides straight offense, just scoring and producing, how has your game changed over the last couple of years? MARKEL BROWN: It changed a lot. Now on this team I'm looked at as a defensive stopper. I go out and guard the best off guards every night. And Marcus goes out and guards the best point guards. It's been looking pretty good. Just going out there and staying focused and doing whatever it takes to help my team. Q. For both of you, when you look at Oregon, I don't know how much you've been able to watch them on tape, but what has stood out about the Ducks? MARCUS SMART: They're a very aggressive team. They run with ‑‑ they do what they do, and they do it well. That's kind of hard to find with a lot of teams. They execute very well. They love to crash the boards. They're a great offense and defensive rebounding team. Like I said, they do the things they're supposed to do and they do it well. MARKEL BROWN: It's a very good team that has experience with each other. They do a great job at what they're supposed to do, like Marcus say. And I see a very quick team out there that knows the game well and knows how to play with each other. Q. Seems like you guys like to go a little smaller than they do, they have a big front court. You talked about the size advantage being in the back‑court, but how about the flip side in the front court and what maybe Oregon's size advantage is, and how you guys will handle that? MARCUS SMART: You know, definitely, they have a bigger back‑court than us. But we have a lot of agile and versatile guys in that position, the five and the four, you know. To be honest, I think we match up pretty well in that position. But it all comes to who is ready to play on any given night. And we've just got to go out and play like we've been playing all year. We've been mixing it up, playing small and playing big. And we've got to go out there and trust one another on the court. THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford. Q. You were just talking about developing players and taking pride in that. How do you do that? How do you take a Michael Cobbins and make him better or Markel Brown and make him better? COACH FORD: You know, we take pride in it. We do. And we sell our program. I think we've spent more time and take more pride and put more effort in developing an individual player through individual workouts. Spending time with me and the coaching staff in the gym. When we talk recruiting to players, we tell them that is the backbone of our program. We want to develop players. When you leave Oklahoma State, we want you to maximize your ability. I think basketball is the ultimate team sport, beyond any other sport, I think it is the ultimate team sport. But our team can't become great if every individual player doesn't reach his potential. We take a lot of pride in guys. And it's ‑‑ our individual workouts are not like a lot where you go in there and shoot. It's usually 40 minutes of getting better. One thing I schedule all my recruiting around individual instructions, I do all of them. It's something I take a lot of pride in. I've always done that. It's something I enjoy doing. And it helped me become a better player when I was a player, so it's something I've carried over, and I think it's very important. Q. A lot was made about Oregon getting a 12 seed, some people thought they got slighted. Do they look like a 12 seed to you? COACH FORD: No, they don't, not at all. And nothing ‑‑ they don't look like it. The record doesn't look like it. Nothing about them looks like a 12 seed. But we haven't talked about it amongst ‑‑ we have prepared our team before Selection Sunday, on Saturday or Sunday, whoever your first game is it's going to be tough. If you're playing at this time of year, you're going to have a very difficult first game. They're all tough. We thought we would be a 5 seed. That's exactly what I thought we'd be. But, no, tremendous amount of respect for Oregon and the year they've had. They're playing great basketball right now. But, no, they don't look like your kind of typical 12 seed, absolutely, positively not. Q. Those of us here in the Bay Area look at your point guard Marcus Smart and the way he's built and the way he can wreak havoc on the floor, he looks like a young Jason Kidd. Did you see those comparisons early on? COACH FORD: Body‑wise, I can see. Body‑wise. And I think ‑‑ they both play with a reckless abandon. I think Jason Kidd did the same when I was watching him play, especially how physical he was as a point guard. So in those aspects I think that they're very similar. The difference is, and people don't remember, Marcus Smart never played the point guard until this year. Jason Kidd grew up being a point guard, all through junior high, high school. Marcus has done an incredible job of adapting. On the high school team, he's brought the ball up the court at times and done that, but no one had ever said you are the point guard, here's the basketball. And in that way they're a little different. But body‑wise, how they approach the game, I'd say that's a pretty good comparison. Q. Speaking of Marcus and his body size, obviously that presents a lot of match‑up problems. Specifically against Oregon, their guards are smaller, especially Johnathan Loyd. How does he exploit Marcus, against guys much smaller? COACH FORD: You know, he's such a physical player. We have had games this year where it's made a difference, where he's bigger than the other point guard, and other games he's much bigger and it really didn't matter. He's obviously a pretty good rebounding point guard because of his size. He's physical as far as helping off the ball. We do things at times within our offense to try to get him down low, but it's not something we try to exploit. We don't say the other point guard is really small, let's go do this. We try to stay within who we are. But we do realize we have a point guard that's 6‑4, big and strong. We do understand that. But he can really rebound. He can really rebound. He has a physical presence about him when he's on the court, just a physical presence. Q. When you play conference games you obviously know your officials as well as the other team and you know sort of how they're going to call a game. How difficult an adjustment when you don't necessarily know how the guy is going to call the game? COACH FORD: That's a good point, that I don't think is talked about enough. And it's just human nature. Everybody referees a little different. Everybody talks about this conference does this, this conference does that, and there's truth to that if you watch that. It takes a little bit to see how things are going to be called. Usually it's called tighter earlier. But that's something that we don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about for the fact, other than we've got to adjust, but things you can't control. We obviously have no idea who is refereeing our game until right before. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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