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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DAYTONMarch 22, 2013Melvin EjimFred HoibergGeorges NiangDAYTON, OHIO Iowa State – 76 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Hoiberg. After that, we'll open the floor for questions for our student‑athletes. COACH HOIBERG: I thought we played with tremendous aggressiveness on the defensive end, especially early in that game. I really thought we set the tone with the ball pressure, active hands, deflections. We had 14 deflections in the first half that led to 14 turnovers, and that allowed us to get some great opportunities in transition. If you play against that team in the half‑court, it's going to be a long night. They do such a good job of banging you and really making it a physical basketball game. So we wanted to control the tempo of that game. And I thought early on with our defense being able to get some run‑outs after causing some turnovers, it was definitely key, and that set the tempo in our favor pretty much for the night, and I thought that was the key to the game. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student‑athletes. Q. Melvin, can you talk about how your teammate played in his first NCAA Tournament game. MELVIN EJIM: Georges is fantastic. He was really able to‑‑ all year he's been a mismatch problem, and it was clear that today the bigs were just not able to defend him. We were able to make good interior passes and really get him and put him in position to be successful, and he really showed a lot of what he's been doing all season, was just able to really exploit them on offense. Q. You hit nine 3‑pointers. I know the 3‑point shot has been big for you guys this year. Seemed like even with the nine, you weren't reliant on perimeter shooting tonight. You were able to get things done a lot of different ways. Was that a big key for you? GEORGES NIANG: I felt like‑‑ Coach coming in the game told us we'd have a mismatch against the bigs, and they were really closing in on us hard. So that gave us a lane to go by them. Their guards weren't really helping much. They were staying to our shooters. So that gave me and Melvin lay‑ins to the hoop. Melvin got a couple of dunks, and I got some easy lay‑ins, and that got us going, and we just kind of fed off of that. Q. Question for Melvin. You guys only had like six turnovers tonight. Next up is Ohio State, one of the best on‑ball defender teams in the country. Do you think you guys can make tonight carry over for the next game? MELVIN EJIM: I'm sure that we're just going to have to wait and see. I know we always prepare well, and like you said, we've been doing a great job with our turnovers. I would expect that coming out to those games we'd try to do the same things that we did today, which is take care of the ball and really get after the teams defensively. I definitely think our defensive effort is something that can carry over to the next game, and it would be a tremendous help in that game. Q. Melvin, if you could talk very quickly about what it's like to go to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year, particularly knowing where the program was at three, four years ago, five years ago, and sort of the fans‑‑ the reaction you guys get, and how things are like on campus this time of year. MELVIN EJIM: It's great. I came in here my first year, and we came in after a struggling year, and we were able to do some things. But it's really a development thing. Our past two years, we've really had great strides in the right direction, and I credit that to Coach Fred and the coaching staff and the guys they've been able to bring in and just come together and buy into our program. It just shows how much work we've put in, how much talent we have on our team, and the future ability I would say we'll have in the Big 12 and on the national stage. I think we're doing a great job. To be back here again and to know that although we had a great year last year and lost a lot of key players, we still have a lot of good players that contributed to that team and a lot of good players that are coming into their own now and doing great things to help us win games. It's just a great feeling, and I couldn't be more proud of our organization and of the way that we've been playing. Q. Melvin, do you think people look at you guys as maybe one‑dimensional? Is your post‑up game pretty much underrated? MELVIN EJIM: Yeah, definitely. This guy has every post move you could ever think of. I don't have as many, but I have some. I think it's definitely something that gets overlooked because teams see that we're so‑‑ we shoot the ball so well, it almost seems that we rely on it, but like today, it's not necessarily the facts. We're able to exploit different areas on the court and really able to go out and do different things offensively. So I definitely think it's something that gets underrated. But as long as we keep winning, they can continue to think that way. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you. Questions for Coach Hoiberg. Q. Fred, were you guys trying to pick them up and get them to play a little faster in the first half defensively? COACH HOIBERG: We did want to pick them up. That team is so efficient if you let them get into a rhythm, where they can swing the ball around without any type of pressure. So that was one of the biggest keys we thought was to come out there and really make it difficult, try to get into some passing lanes, pick them up full court, because their guards play so many minutes. We felt we had some depth and we could wear them down if we did pick them up full court and stay in for 40 minutes. Q. Coach, can you talk about the job your guys did in really attacking the paint especially in the second half rather than just settling for jumpers. COACH HOIBERG: We saw some things on film where we thought we could get some things accomplished in the paint. We went to Georges early in there, and he made some great moves. I thought he really took his time. For a freshman to do that. I remember my first game as a freshman in the NCAA Tournament in Worcester, Massachusetts, I could hardly run up and down the floor I was so nervous. Georges, he has a calm about himself. He's a kid that goes into Allen Fieldhouse and he puts up eight points in his first game over Jeff Worthy, the best defensive player in the country. So he's got that confidence and swagger in himself that you just can't teach. So we wanted to get the paint established. Then we wanted to get some zone, and I thought we did a great job of getting behind that first line of the defense and getting the ball in. Our bigs, they had nine assists between the two of them, and that's tremendous. I thought the key to that was getting in between the two lines of defense and making either the high‑low pass or kicking it out to the outside, where Tyrus knocked down a couple of 3s. Q. Coach, kind of the same question I asked Melvin. When you arrived, the program had a.500 record in a few years, and it just seemed like no one was really paying that much attention in general to Iowa State basketball anymore. Could you talk about the progression where you were, where you are now, and sort of how you gauge that reaction in people. COACH HOIBERG: I know how important basketball is to the community, to the state, and I‑‑ when I took the job, the biggest thing I wanted to do was to get the talent where we could compete at the Big 12 level and we could compete at the national level, and a lot of that came through transfers these first two years. Now we're starting to build it with four‑year guys like Georges and a couple of other guys that I really like that have bright futures that didn't play a lot this year, and the two freshmen we've got coming in next year. I really like what we've got going. We're going to continue to build it this way and try to continue to do big things because, again, as a kid that used to walk to Hilton Coliseum, how fun that was for me to see Johnny Orr running up and down the floor and playing an exciting brand of basketball. We're trying to bring that back. To get to the NCAA Tournament two times in a row for the first time since 2000/2001, it's certainly a step in the right direction. THE MODERATOR: Fred, thank you. COACH HOIBERG: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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