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NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOURApril 1, 2013Gregg MarshallATLANTA, GEORGIA DAVE WORLOCK: Coach Marshall of Wichita State is joining us. We'll have you make an opening statement then go to questions. COACH MARSHALL: Well, this has been quite an enjoyable ride with this group going back to October when we had nine new faces, had graduated five seniors and our five leading scorers. We didn't really know what we had. This group all season long has had a great spirit about them. They developed a toughness and now a swagger that they believe they can play with anyone, believe they belong in this tournament, which I think is what has allowed us to win the first four games and take it now to Atlanta. DAVE WORLOCK: Thank you, coach. We're now ready for questions from the media. Q. I've spoken to a couple of people about Cleanthony over the last couple days and the word 'competitiveness' keeps coming up. Have you ever been around a player as competitive as he is? Did you see that when you went to Sullivan the first couple times and scouted him? COACH MARSHALL: Cleanthony is just a tremendous talent. He's got great athleticism, really bouncy. He's starting to develop his skills. The thing that I love about him is how much better he can become. I mean, he's really, really good for us. I think he has a ceiling that is very high. I'm talking the highest level of professional basketball. We'll continue to try to develop his skills, his competitiveness, just his ability to bounce it. He can already shoot the three. Continue to develop his body. I really am excited about his future. Q. When he came out for your visit, you actually got an extended visit with him because of some undue circumstance. Did you have a pretty good feel when he left that you were going to get him? COACH MARSHALL: We felt good about it, but we didn't know. He had a lot of good schools recruiting him. I know SanDiego State was one. He had some BCS schools, as well, many BCS schools. But it was the only time in my career that's happened. There was some type of storm, it wasn't a snowstorm, because I think it was in October or November, right before the fall signing period, so it was a rainstorm that really shut down the northeast. For one day he couldn't get back. Then the second day he was supposed to try to get back, now all the flights were backed up and everyone was on a waiting list, standby. So we took him to the airport and couldn't get him on then either. It was a very, very long visit, but it worked out for us. So it was great. Q. Coach, what has the last 48 hours of your life been like. Have you gotten any rest? Where did you watch the Louisville game last night? COACH MARSHALL: We got back at 5 a.m. to my house on Sunday morning. Why that was necessary, I'm not sure. But it was a long, long night. We really enjoyed the plane ride back, though. There were hundreds of people meeting us there at the airport and also here at the arena, I'm talking 3:30, 4:00 in the morning. That was pretty cool. Went back, got some sleep. Hard to sleep. Probably woke up 8:00 or 9:00. Yesterday was a leisurely day other than the interview with Malcolm and Eye on CBS. They came over to the house because I knew I was going to be tired and just wanting to recharge. They set up basically a studio in my basement and did the interview there, then watched the game here at the house with my family. Malcolm was over. It was a beautiful day here yesterday. There were a lot of folks going by the house playing golf, enjoying it. So it was a beautiful spring day for us here in Wichita yesterday. Got some rest last night, much needed, and here in the office taking care of business today. Q. I was running some numbers on first‑time coaches in the Final Four. It's kind of amazing that it's twice as likely that a first‑time coach never gets back, as that they do. John Kresse was your mentor, a great coach. Being where he was, he never really probably had an opportunity to make a Final Four. When you were at Winthrop or Belmont Abbey, did you have a burning desire to do this thing or is it something that as you worked up? COACH MARSHALL: Coach Kresse spent most of his career as an NAIA coach and he did make a Final Four. It was just at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, and he won it all. I think that's a misnomer. And the answer is no, I don't feel like you have to make a Final Four in Division I to validate yourself as a great coach.  There are so many coaches that I've encountered throughout my coaching career at the NAI level, Division II, Division III. I've coached at all of those levels. I haven't coached at the junior college level, but there's great junior college coaches and high school coaches. Some of the best coaches are high school coaches. Every time it's been offered, I haven't chased the 'bigger, better' job. I just think there's a lot of good coaches that don't ever get this opportunity. In fact, one of the things that I'm most proud of is how many folks texted, emailed, called me prior to the Elite 8 game for the right to go to the Final Four against Ohio State and said, Look, we will never get this opportunity. Please do this for us, for the little guys that never get this opportunity. That's what makes it so cool that we were successful. Those people should feel part of that run to the Final Four just for me personally, to validate all of the great coaches out there that will never get a chance because of the level in which they coach. Q. At least on paper from my point of view, you had a three‑game losing streak like Louisville did earlier in the year. I was wondering from that, they all seemed like winnable games that just got away. Was there any particular lesson that the team took from those games that helped out in making this run? COACH MARSHALL: You know, they're all winnable games. When you look at the run that we've had now, every game all season long was winnable. But when we didn't win 'em, it's interesting now that we're facing Louisville, because I pointed to Louisville. I pointed to Kansas. Great teams with great coaches that also suffered that type of blip, if you will, in their run to a marvelous season. College basketball, there's a lot of parity. The thing that you have to impress upon your players, especially at non‑BCS levels where you generally don't get more than a handful of teams, or even less, into the tournament. You don't get eight, ten teams in like some of these leagues. Your margin for error is so small. When we lost that third game on a controversial call at Southern Illinois, I'm thinking, Oh, boy, we may have just shot our chances to get in the NCAA tournament right in the foot, we might have just blown it. I'm thinking that to myself, obviously not relaying that to the team. That's what you learn. You have to tell your players and impress upon them, you can't have a lot of mistakes. You can't have a lot of errors. Thank goodness our non‑conference run where we only lost one game and beat some very good teams helped us, enabled us, to get into the NCAA tournament, and then we proved that we belonged once we got there. Q. Louisville's streak came after they were No.1 in the polls. COACH MARSHALL: We were No.15. We got to 15. It's interesting, our team, the coaching staff, we've talked, we're better all year long when we're the underdog, when nothing is expected. We got to 9‑0 and lost. We got to 15‑1, then we lose. Then the streak comes right when we're on the precipice of being back in the top 25. This team has done better when nothing has been expected, when they're the underdogs, which we'll clearly be on Saturday, when they're picked fourth in the pre‑season after losing the five seniors. So I just think that's when we're at our best. Q. When you were at Winthrop, you used to talk about the journey of the season, seeing the development of the team. Not so much necessarily about one game, winning or losing, but looking at the bigger picture. Is that something right now that you can really savor and enjoy or that will come somewhere down the road where you appreciate this accomplishment? COACH MARSHALL: You'll appreciate it more after the fact. When you're in the middle of it, in the midst of it, there's just so many hours that you spend with these young men, your staff, your managers, trainers, you travel together five months. It's incredible, the journey. That's what has value, being able to see young people grow on and off the court, mature, develop as young men, as players. A guy like Cleanthony Early, who we talked about, the first practice this year, we knew he was extremely talented, but we looked at our coaching staff in our post‑practice meeting and said, He may be the worst player we brought in. This guy takes terrible shots. He has no idea. He's come so far. I mean, literally when he touched the ball, he was shooting it in our practice. I don't care how guarded he was, how deep the shot was, he was pinned against the baseline under the backboard, he was going to find a way to get a shot up. I'm going, Oh, boy, a lot of work to do with him. Didn't want to defend or rebound. Fred Van Vleet, good we didn't have to play him early because he was 18 years old, fresh out of high school, and we would not have won against VCU at VCU if he were playing 32 minutes. But now I think we could comfortably say he could handle that so much better, because as a freshman, he's averaged, what, 18 minutes a game all season long. Now he's hitting big buckets this week to get us to the Sweet 16 and the Final Four. Q. What would Coach Nunnally say about your team getting to the Final Four? What did playing for and coaching with Coach Nunnally do to shape your coaching career and philosophy? COACH MARSHALL: It's interesting. Coach Nunnally, I was texting or emailing with somebody this morning, it was actually my freshman year, my assistant coach for Coach Nunnally, Rick Banta, who played at UC Irvine, an assistant coach my freshman year, he was talking about Coach Nunnally holding court in heaven with all the former coaches and lighting a big cigar and just kicking back breaking down the game, the fact that one of his guys is going to the Final Four and we got a big chuckle out of that. He was a disciplinarian. He developed discipline and toughness in a young skinny kid from Roanoke, Virginia. That was the only way I could contribute as a college basketball player, was to play extremely hard and be tough and defend. He was able to use those talents. He went to the Final Four, as well, in Springfield, Mass, as I recall, a Division II coach, played UT Chattanooga and lost in the Final Four also. Q. Back in November you did a great job against VCU. What were you able to do so effectively against their press and does it compare with Louisville's a little bit? COACH MARSHALL: Well, we were able to take care of the basketball. If you take care of the basketball against VCU, that keeps them out of transition where they get their layups, dunks. And it fuels their fire for the next defensive possession, or it frees up a guy like Troy Daniels to take a wide‑open three, which you definitely don't want to have happen. You've got to take care of the ball. The Louisville pressure is different but equally effective. At halftime Duke had 10 turnovers against them. That's going to be a big focal point for us, is dealing with the pressure. Obviously we have to guard 'em as well on the other end. Coach Pitino, his system, when that ball goes through the basket, those guys get fired up and do a lot of trapping and running and jumping. It's going to be a great challenge for our guards, Malcolm Armstead, the senior, and Fred Van Vleet, the freshman. There's other guys that are going to have to handle the ball effectively that aren't your primary ball handler. Q. In what ways is it different? Do they have more length, more of a full‑court press? COACH MARSHALL: It's not more of a full‑court press, it's just a different press. They do have bigger and probably more athletic players, even though no one's faster than Briante Weber. That guy is very fast. But Russ is pretty fast. Peyton Siva is pretty fast. We'll wait and see. Q. You were talking a little bit about parity. From your perspective, what you know about your team, do you think you're a 'Cinderella' this year? COACH MARSHALL: I answered this on the podium in one of the last games, either the Elite 8 game or Sweet 16 game, Cinderella found one glasses skipper. We won four games. I don't think she found four glass slippers. Cinderella usually wins a game or two, much like Butler a couple seasons ago. When you get to this point, you're good enough to win it all. Whether we were Cinderella at the beginning of the season maybe, to dream about being this far along in the season, playing in April, March Madness is over, now we're playing in April, perhaps. But after winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament, and when you get to the regionals, there's no longer a Cinderella factor, I don't believe. DAVE WORLOCK: Thanks, coach, for your time. We'll see you in a couple days. COACH MARSHALL: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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