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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2014Bobby HunterDan MullerNick ZeisloftST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. On behalf of Commissioner Doug Elgin, the media coordinator Mike Kern, and the entire Missouri Valley Conference staff, welcome to Scottrade Center and the 2014 MVC men's basketball tournament. These proceedings tip off events in this building as the top six seeds are presented here prior to games one and two tonight. Illinois State is up, followed by the Wichita State Shockers, and then Missouri State will be third. As advertised, the Illinois State Redbirds are here. They are the fifth seed. We'll open up with opening statement from Coach Dan Muller and go to questions for all three gentlemen. COACH MULLER: It's great to be here. We're excited about our game tomorrow. Two close competitive games for Missouri State during the season, and I certainly expect that to be the case tomorrow. Go out there and try to play our best and see what happens. Q. Coach, with one dominant team in your league this year, how does this tournament square as something other than the Wichita State invitational, so to speak? How do you frame the event when so much attention is being given to one dominant team? COACH MULLER: They've gotten the attention they deserve, first of all. They've had a truly dominant team. Someone has to play extremely well to beat them. Everyone knows everybody can get beat, so they'll be prepared. Right now we have to focus on Missouri State. If we get a chance to play Wichita State, we'll have to play very well. It's a very balanced field other than that. And like I said, somebody's going to have to play really well to beat them. Q. Nick, you and Kaz are the only two guys on this team that have played here before. Anything you can say to your teammates to get them more comfortable before the game? NICK ZEISLOFT: I don't think so. I just told the guys it's a great event this weekend. I'm excited to be back, and I told them they're going to have a great time down here. At tip‑off tomorrow, we're all going to be ready to go and very excited. Q. What did you learn maybe from last year, especially in the first game, that would maybe get you guys in a good frame of mind? NICK ZEISLOFT: Every possession matters at this time of year, especially down here in St. Louis for this tournament. That's probably the biggest thing that I learned, that anything can go one way or another. One possession in the first half will affect the last possession of the game. COACH MULLER: Good answer. Q. Dan, I know Nick's sitting right next to you. Could you just brag a little bit on him. Obviously, he was voted to first‑team All Scholar team, and you were an All Scholar guy. What does that really kind of mean? COACH MULLER: Nick is a captain for us. Obviously, he's had a terrific year, especially shooting the ball and fighting on the defensive boards. But the most important thing for any student‑athlete is, of course, the education, and we take that very seriously. Nick is a guy who's low maintenance. He strives for excellence in the classroom and on the court. He's extremely coachable. He wants to learn. He's had a great upbringing with his family. He's what's good about college basketball. And other guys too. Bobby's had a terrific semester last semester. So excited for Nick, happy for him to be on the All‑Scholar team, Scholar‑Athlete team, well deserved. That's something that, as you go forward in life, it's very valuable once you get finished with your basketball playing career. It's very valuable. So I'm happy and proud of Nick. Q. Can you talk about his leadership and what that meant to this team this year. It seems he's the unquestioned leader of the team. COACH MULLER: Bobby shows great leadership in practice. Nick does as well. Bobby is a little more‑‑ I wouldn't even say vocal, but during the games, his passion and energy leads us, in addition to his vocal leadership. He's great in practice. He's consistent. He's tough. As I said before, he's not scared in the moment. That helps leadership. Both these guys, leadership is the biggest reason why we've had the success we've had, and, of course, we want to have more success, but we won the number of games because of the leadership and holding our team accountable, and both these guys have done a terrific job. You know what, it's a responsibility too. Bobby knows it's his responsibility on game night to bring that energy, and that's a burden, but that's a very important thing for our team. Q. Dan, I saw a chart of like youngest 80 teams in college basketball, and I think you guys were eighth or seventh or something, somewhere in the top ten, as far as minutes for underclassmen. But that's been a theme with this league this year. Can you talk about how you as a coach, you had the experience last year and dealt with the turnover, how the league has dealt with the turnover, and if that bodes well both for you guys and for the MVC in a couple of years. COACH MULLER: I think it does. This is a transition year for our league because of Creighton's leaving and Loyola coming in. Also, we had so many seniors last year if you look around the league. There's some very, very good young teams‑‑ us, Evansville, Northern Iowa has one senior who doesn't start. A lot of teams in this league have very young teams. As a league, we've got to continue to improve our programs, bottom line. Wichita State is doing their part. We've got to continue to get better. I think we're heading in the right direction. My group, not just young, but you look at youth, and experience is another measurement. We're number one as far as least experience with that category because we have two guys as one year Division I experience. Very proud of how they've come together. It bodes well for us next year, going forward. Just continue to gain experience and get older. Q. Bobby, can you just talk about maybe the last two days of practice and how you guys have come into this game, especially off the loss from Southern Illinois. BOBBY HUNTER: We talked about it. It's a new season. Coaches did a great job of preparing us. We're working on our game plan to be successful against Missouri State. Last few practices have been great for us and made us closer. We all know why we're here. Just want to go out and play and win this and have fun tomorrow. Q. Could you review your season just in terms of you came in with so many new guys, and then you have so much adversity with injuries and with an over.500 season. Just how it's all played out for you. COACH MULLER: We started the year with a very tough schedule. We were 1‑4 to start. We didn't play great basketball during that stretch, but we did play very good teams. We had changes in our roster during that period with one of our starters leaving us, but we continued to improve. After that start, we were terrific in the nonconference. We haven't lost at home since then, other than to Wichita State. We've continued to grow as a team. You know, the ceiling for this team throughout the year, I don't think we reached it, but I think we got close to. Now, in the postseason, of course, we're trying to play our best basketball, and I think we're prepared for that. But I like the progression the team made because of the leadership, the coachability, and we had to change how we played. We had to change a lot of things midseason. And for those guys to stay coachable and come to practice ready to go is why we've had the success we've had. Again, we're not satisfied with that, but we had some really good wins. Now we've just got to play our best basketball of the season. If you look at the last three games, won at home, lost at Evansville, did not play good in Northern Iowa. We played some of our best basketball the last six games, and our key is to play the best basketball of our season this weekend. Q. What did you learn from your previous two games against Missouri State that you can apply to the preparation for this game? COACH MULLER:  Well, the first one is we've got to figure out how to guard Jarmar Gulley a lot better. He averaged 20 points against us the last two game. I think it was 24 and 22. He's great around the rim. He attacks our zone very well. Other than that, I'll be surprised if it's not a close game. You have to make plays at the end of the game to win. They're well coached. We're obviously evenly matched with our two games. They have their certain strengths. We have our strengths. But we've got to do a much better job, as I said, on Gulley. He's had a terrific year. It's not like he's the only guy that can hurt us. He's just the one that hurt us the most the last two games. I have to do a better job as a coach to get my guys in places to help them be successful. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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