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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DAYTONMarch 23, 2013Chris BabbMelvin EjimFred HoibergDAYTON, OHIO THE MODERATOR: We're now being joined by Iowa State student‑athletes Melvin Ejim and Chris Babb. Open the floor for questions for our student‑athletes. Q. For Melvin, you are, I think, the only starter who was an Iowa State original recruit. What made you choose Iowa State out of Canada, and what was it like mixing in with a bunch of people who came from all these different places, different schools? MELVIN EJIM: Coming from Brewster Academy, another prep school where a lot of people who come from different places and have to gel together. So going to Iowa State and doing that in my sophomore year and my junior year was not a problem because I'd done it a couple of times. But I chose to go to Iowa State because of the relationship that I built with some of the coaches and some of the players there at the time, and I really just felt like it was the best place for me to go. Once I got here, it turned out that I had an opportunity to play right away, and we started seeing instant success with a lot of our transfers and a lot of our guys coming in. So the whole gelling process was not something new to me because I'd done it previously for the past two years in high school. Q. After watching Ohio State, what stands out to you about the pressure that they're applying to their opponents on defense? Does anybody in the Big 12 defend like that that you've had experience with this season? CHRIS BABB: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of teams in the Big 12 who play with that pressure. I say Kansas State is one of the teams that really got pressure full court with their point guard and try and deny the wings, and Ohio State kind of poses that same defense. If we just stay calm, stay collected, and continue to run our motion offense, be patient, I think we'll be fine. Q. Looking at the stats‑‑ I've seen you guys play a few times on TV, but looking at the stats, the thing that jumps off the paper is the 3‑point shot, the amount of 3s you guys take per game. Is that the biggest part of the game plan? Is that the first look always on offense, whether it's half court or transition? CHRIS BABB: I mean, we just have shooters. Any team on the court‑‑ normally 1 through 5 is somebody who can knock down a 3‑point shot. When we go out in transition, Coach Hoiberg gives us that opportunity, if you have that open shot and you're confident that you're going to make it, go ahead and take it, whether it's a three‑on‑one or even when we settle down into our half court and we get an open shot, we're able to take that. But at the same time, we do have bigs. We have Melvin and Georges and Booker who's able to make plays inside. They play very unselfish when they get it inside, and they make plays that way as well. Q. Defensively, what's your guys' strength defensively? What do you think you do best on defense? CHRIS BABB: I think last game was probably our best game defensively. I think we did a good job having a lot of ball pressure, getting deflections, and I think what's going to be most important this upcoming game against Ohio State is limiting them to one shot, really boxing out defensively and getting rebounds that allow us to get out in transition. Q. Coach Hoiberg seems like a pretty calm guy on the sideline. He isn't one of those guys who is up and down the sideline the entire time screaming and shouting. Is he like that in practice? What's the angriest you guys can ever remember him being? CHRIS BABB: Yeah, he's a pretty calm guy. I think that it might come from his NBA background of playing for coaches who aren't really up in your face, yelling and screaming. But I think that makes it a little easier, kind of keeps us more calm during the game. He's had a couple times where during practice we'll get under his skin, and he'll have to raise his voice a little bit. Other than that, he's not that animated. Really what you see on the court during games is how he is all the time. Q. What do you guys sense about his popularity just around town? His nickname's the Mayor. Do you sense that? What do you know about that? CHRIS BABB: Yeah, that's very evident coming in there. The funny thing is I‑‑ when I was first getting recruited my first year, I had no idea who he was. When I stepped on the campus, everyone's first question was? Are you excited to play for the Mayor? Are you excited to play for Coach Hoiberg? And doing a little research and looking at some old things and talking to people who watched him play, it's obvious just the effect he had on that community throughout his years playing at Iowa State and before that, and the way he gives back to the community now. And his opportunity to come coach this team, I think he's done a great job. I think his popularity is growing. Q. Both teams, Melvin and Chris, have played Kansas this year. Kansas is 4‑0 against both of you guys. How do you think that game, having played Kansas, will help you not only tomorrow going against Ohio State, but it has helped you in this tournament? MELVIN EJIM: I don't know if you can definitely say that our games against Kansas will really help us against Ohio State because Ohio State is a different team, but playing against Kansas and playing against that team really showed us a lot of things about our team, showed us a lot of flaws that we had and showed us a lot of strengths that we had. I think that by looking at those games and seeing the way we played against those guys and the way they played against Ohio State, we feel we have a great opportunity and a great shot to go out and play well against them. I don't think you can definitely say there's something from the Kansas game that you can compare both teams, but we're confident that we've been playing some pretty good basketball, and we're excited to go out there and play and see what happens when the ball drops. THE MODERATOR: Melvin and Chris, thank you. We're now being joined by the head coach of Iowa State Cyclones, Fred Hoiberg. We'll start with an opening statement. COACH HOIBERG: Thank you. We're certainly excited about this opportunity that's in front of us tomorrow against what I think is as hot a team as anybody in the nation right now, coming off a nine‑game win streak, winning the Big Ten Tournament, the best conference in the country. It's going to be a very difficult task, especially with one day to prepare for a team that runs a lot of great actions. Any time you have that against a very quality team, you just have to try to put in the best game plan possible to give yourself a chance in the end. It starts with taking care of the basketball. I think Aaron Craft is as dominant a defensive player at the guard spot maybe than I've ever seen. He just poses so many problems as far as creating turnovers which lead to run‑outs, which lead to baskets. We've got to take great care of the basketball. The other thing we have to do is take care of the glass. If we can get some rebounds, hopefully, that will create some transition opportunities for our team. Q. Coach, as you build your program, is there a school out there in college basketball that you would like to mirror your program after as it relates to the type of players you want and the level of success? COACH HOIBERG: Kentucky. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. We're just going to try to build it the best we can. When I got the job a couple of years ago, the biggest thing I wanted to do is to get as much talent as possible in the program where we can compete at the Big 12 level, which is, I think, the most athletic conference in the country, and it happened to be with a lot of transfers my first two years. Now we're starting to build it with four‑year players. You see a kid like Georges Niang and the type of impact he can have. We have a kid coming in next year that I absolutely love in the back court. We've got a couple of other freshmen that haven't played a lot this year just because we have a lot of seniors on this team. So to start with getting transfers in to kind of jump start the program and now to build it with the four‑year players, I think everybody in Iowa, specifically in Ames, are very excited about our future. Q. Coach, you mentioned Aaron Craft defensively. Is he the main reason their defense is as lethal as it is? COACH HOIBERG: Well, when you have a guy like that that can get out and pressure and you can't get around him, you can get out and play passing lanes. Then they've got great length and athleticism behind him. If you do get by him, you're going to be contested at the rim. So, again, I think the biggest thing for our guards in this game are making simple, easy plays. You can't go out there and try to get by him making a bunch of different dribble‑type moves. He's too good. He'll just flat out take the ball from you. So it does start with him, but, again, I think Thad does a great job of getting those guys to play terrific pressure defense, and it's a five‑man effort out there, but it certainly starts with Craft. Q. Fred, Iona said last night there was quite a bit of difference between playing against that defense and watching it on tape. Chris said that K‑State is probably a similar approach. Do you feel your guys have played against that type of defense enough in the Big 12 that they won't get unsettled by it? COACH HOIBERG: And I'd put Kansas in that same category as a team that can really get out and pressure you. Obviously, they've got Withey, who's arguably the best big defender in the nation with his ability to protect the rim. We are prepared for it a little bit, but, again, you can't duplicate that. We couldn't duplicate the size and strength of Notre Dame's bigs from tape either. And we're tough to prepare for as well. We do a lot of things that are very difficult to simulate, especially with one day to have to prepare for the game. So it's going to be, I think, a fun matchup. Again, we're certainly looking forward to it, and hopefully we're competitive. Q. Fred, I was just talking to T.J., and he's talking about you being recognized, the homegrown hero thing. I wonder how big that is. How often you get recognized. He was saying he jokes around and calls you the Mayor, but I'm sure people use it on a daily basis, weekly basis. What that's like? COACH HOIBERG: I've been hearing that nickname ever since Dick Vitale kind of got it out to the world, or to at least the college basketball world. When I was playing in the NBA, there would always be somebody with a sign that either went to Iowa State or had Iowa State ties that said the Mayor on it. Even when I was the 12th guy on the bench, somebody would have that sign. So it's been great for me to be home. I grew up five blocks from Hilton Coliseum, used to walk to games. I was a ball boy as a kid. I was a ball boy for the football team, and I've just always had such a great passion for Cyclone athletics. To be back there coaching now, it's a dream come true for me. My parents are there. My wife's parents are in Ames. For my kids to be able to spend that quality time with their grandparents, it's awesome. I love everything about Iowa State, and hopefully we can continue to make them proud. Q. Fred, how much do you use your NBA experience when talking with the recruits? COACH HOIBERG: I use it a lot. The one thing I never do is guarantee that I'm going to put a player in the NBA. It's too hard. I understand how unrealistic it is if you just say I'm going to put you there. But that being said, I think with my connections to that league, I can certainly give them a chance. Maybe those guys are some of my closest friends in life, some of those general managers. That was my job daily was to call other general managers and talk about rosters and talk about different moves and that type of thing. So all these kids have dreams. I certainly had them when I was growing up, that I could someday play in the NBA, and I found a way to grind out a ten‑year career. So it is important when talking about it, just because of some of the players I was able to play with and some of the coaches I was able to play for, and to put that type of system in has been pretty successful for us on the offensive end of the floor. Yeah, all these kids, whether it's realistic or not, they do think they're going to play in that league, and the fact that we have those ties certainly helps with recruiting. Q. Has there been any surprises since you've taken over as head coach? COACH HOIBERG: My experiences in the NBA, I think, really helped prepare me for it, talking to large groups, similar to getting out and trying to excite a fan base. Getting out and looking at free agents scouting, very similar to recruiting. So a lot of the things I went through after my heart surgery and that four‑year span where I was forced into a role‑‑ forced into retirement, into a role in the front office, helped prepare me and mold me into this position I'm in right now. So anything surprising? No, it's come pretty naturally. I've got a great staff that helps me through it. Bobby Lutz was a great help to me, just coming off a 12‑year stint at Charlotte where he was a very successful coach, and I lean on a lot of people in this business, and I'm always trying to get better. Q. Fred, if you will, talk about the 3‑point basket and how important it is to your team both when you try to make that happen and how it works in coming in context just with the offense. COACH HOIBERG: It's obviously a very important part of our offense. We try to have great spacing on the offensive end. We try to draw two. That's what our offense is designed to do is to draw two defenders, and hopefully we'll have numbers and spacing on the back side of the offense where we can get a great look. Obviously, the players that we recruit are very important to our success from behind the arc, and we've got five players in our starting lineup that can all knock down a shot. That makes it tough on the defense. It's a pick your poison type thing. Do you come out? Do you help? Do you stay back and not rotate? If you have proper spacing on the offensive end with the personnel that we have, we should be able to get a good look. Q. Fred, you mentioned a while back in a press conference that at some point soon you'd have to have another procedure. Do you know your timetable on that quite yet? COACH HOIBERG: I'll get checked again in April. The last‑‑ the good news is the last four appointments that I've had, so the last two years I've gotten my checkup have all been stable. I will have to get a valve replacement surgery at some point. I hope it's not for a while. It's a very difficult surgery to bounce back from when they crack you open and have to shut down your system and put you back together. So I will have to at some point, but hopefully it's a ways away. Q. Years? COACH HOIBERG: I hope so. I don't know. Ask me in April, and I might have a better answer for you. Q. In looking at your season, Coach, in the losses, is there one area that stood out in all of those losses that you're concerned with going into tomorrow's game? COACH HOIBERG: Well, different things. In our losses to Kansas, we just didn't finish off the game in Lawrence. At home, obviously, we had a tough thing kind of happen to us down the stretch. At Oklahoma, we just didn't show up. That was the one game I thought all year we just didn't play with great effort. So I like the intensity and the effort we're playing with. We're going to have to approach this game tomorrow like it's a road game, very similar to how we played Kentucky a year ago in Louisville, and we just got to come out with great effort. That's the biggest thing. I think the team that plays the hardest tomorrow is going to come out on top. Q. Fred, back in the day, there weren't near as many transfers, back when you were playing, maybe there weren't any. What's happened? What's changed? COACH HOIBERG: It's just the landscape now of college basketball, the amount of transfers that become available after each season. I think a lot of it is everybody's looking for instant success, and if it doesn't happen in a certain program, maybe they look to see for a better opportunity. I think these kids now are seeing that you sometimes can go to a new program, get a fresh start, and get a better opportunity. It's obviously worked very well for us. Worked very well for Notre Dame, the team we played last night. A lot of programs are doing this. You look at Valpo, I think they had eight transfers on their roster. Missouri's had a lot of success with it. We're going to continue to look at it. We don't have any transfers next year. I don't think I'm going to know how to coach that team without a transfer. But it's something that it is what it is right now. If they can help your program and you think they fit with what you do, then you certainly take a long hard look at them. Q. The defensive surge that Ohio State's had over the past month or so that a lot of people have pointed to, Shannon Scott's increase in minutes and what he's done, as you watch them on tape with that dynamic, with Craft and Scott on the floor at the same time, what makes their defense so good at that point? COACH HOIBERG: I just‑‑ I think the pressure that they apply on the ball is what makes them such an effective defensive team. When you have guys that can stay in front of the ball like that, it makes it very difficult on your offense. We run a lot of random‑type actions out there on the floor, designed to try, again, to knock off a player where somebody has to step up and help, or, again, if you have proper spacing, you can get a good shot up on the glass. Again, Craft is as good as I've seen. He's so good at dominating a game, and then with Scott together in the lineup‑‑ and the two of them are playing a lot together right now‑‑ it's maybe the best defensive tandem in the back court in the country. Q. I'm curious, people seem to be keeping kind of scorecards of leagues and how they're doing in the NCAA Tournament. Do you think that's a fair way to evaluate leagues just because it's one game and matchups matter and stuff? COACH HOIBERG: Matchups are such a big part of it. You look at Oklahoma State, for example, they draw one of the hotter teams in the country as a 12 seed in Oregon. La Salle is playing great basketball right now, and you know that's a matchup with Kansas State where they just dug such a deep hole, and they almost climbed all the way out of it. Oklahoma drew a very difficult team in San Diego State. So I know people love to talk about that. They talk about the conferences and what's the best conference and is this a true measuring stick for what is the best conference. Hard to say. It could be one off night to knock off one of the better teams in the league, and it could be a team that just gets hot at the right time and goes on a run that makes the conference look great. Hard to say if this time of year is a true barometer for what is the best league. Q. Coach, Georges Niang likes to model himself after Kevin Love. You know Kevin Love very well. How do you see the comparisons? COACH HOIBERG: When we were recruiting Georges, I talked to him about Kevin, and I was in the war room when we got Kevin Love in Minnesota, and Kevin, his versatility as a big man is something that's just phenomenal, and he's such a smart basketball player. That's what I saw in Georges. First time I saw Georges, he was playing in a pickup game at Tilton Prep School in New Hampshire, and he was playing against Nerlens Noel, and he just absolutely dominated him. He was scoring over the top of him with the right hand, the left‑hand jump hook, he was up and under, he was stepping out and hitting 3s on him. It was just so fun to watch. I offered him right there on the spot. We were the first high major program to offer him a scholarship, and he remembered that. Just his ability to get the ball off the glass and throw the deep outlet pass, a lot of the same things that we saw out of Kevin coming out of college. So I do see, just because of the similarity, their smarts and their versatility on the offensive end. Q. Have you noticed in some games, Coach, where teams get caught up in a 3‑point shooting contest with you guys? You shoot, I think, 42 percent of your shots with 3s. Have you noticed that that happens, and is it an advantage to you? COACH HOIBERG: Sometimes, yes. We got‑‑ with Kansas, I think we hit 17 of them, and they hit 14 of them. It was a pretty darn exciting college basketball game. Some teams just stick to what they do. For us last night, we only took‑‑ I say only, but took 21 3s, and for us that's not a high number. For some teams, that's a ton. The thing I was most proud of was how we got the ball inside and just took what the defense gave us last night. Some nights, if the defense helps in, we're going to shoot a lot of 3s. That's what's gotten us to this point, and we'll continue to shoot a lot of them. If they're really trying to take it away, like I thought Notre Dame was last night, we do have other ways where I think we can win a basketball game. THE MODERATOR: Fred, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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