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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2014Ron BakerCleanthony EarlyGregg MarshallFred VanVleetST. LOUIS, MISSOURI COACH MARSHALL: It's great to be here. Looking forward to practice today. Let's see what we can do in this tournament. Q. This question is for Ron. Ron, how exactly do you separate the 31‑0 from what's going on now? Coach said that's something you guys are trying to do. You're not going for 32‑0. It's more looking for it as a brand new season. How do you separate that from get motivation for that? RON BAKER: We've just got to get it in our minds. It's kind of a new season. We're happy with what we accomplished as far as the 31 games prior to the tournament here in St. Louis. We learned from those games, and we're going to take our game to this weekend. Q. Coach, this time of year, it's been said it's all about preparation, not hyperventilation. Do you want your team to be on edge going into these games or calm, cool, and collected? COACH MARSHALL: I want them to be prepared. I don't want them to be nervous. I want them to just go do what they've done since the beginning of the year: Play to their games. Play to their strengths. Play both ends. Play as hard as they can for as long as they can and give a fist and let somebody else come in and spell them for a while. Q. Coach, with all the recognition, deserved recognition you all received this year for what you've accomplished, in the big picture, what does this tournament represent for you? I know the Number 1 seed is in play for the NCAA, but how do you frame this tournament given what you all have already done this year and what's ahead of you? COACH MARSHALL: The fact that we haven't cut down nets here, and we want to do that. These guys have responded all well‑‑ all year very well to the next challenge, the next game, the next opportunity, and they‑‑ they're so steadfast in their belief that they want to be special. They want to be really, really great and achieve things that other Shocker teams haven't been able to achieve or the previous group wasn't able to achieve. So I feel good about the challenge here, three games, but you can't even get to the semifinals unless you take care of the winner from tonight. Q. Greg, how strange was it coming to St. Louis, knowing that Creighton is not here this year? COACH MARSHALL: That didn't cross my mind, to be honest. Coming to St. Louis for the third time in a couple of months, and I've been successful the last two. We beat the Billikens in a great game and watched my Red Sox win game four. That's what I was thinking of. Q. Ron, this is for you and Fred. How hard is it to get prepared for these teams that you've already‑‑ I mean, you've already beaten them by so much. They're now preparing for the third time this year. How hard is it to not let this get repetitive when you're preparing for these teams? RON BAKER: As a player, it can be tough at times just depending on your opponent. The good thing about this is this is the third time playing them.  So we know our opponent pretty well. We're playing for something that we want to accomplish as far as cutting nets down Saturday. So that's good enough motivation to get us going. FRED VANVLEET: As far as beating them before, that's out the window now. Everybody is 0‑0. It's just going to be about who plays the best for 40 minutes. We understand that, if we don't play well, we could be beat, and we understand, if we play well, we like our chances. So that's our mindset going forward. We don't focus on the games previous. Obviously, we'll use the same scouting and adjust the game plans accordingly, but the margins we won by in beating those teams don't matter right now. Q. Fred had a great line. Your locker room has no room for agendas. I was just wondering, Coach, if you could talk about what it's like to coach a room that believes that and acts that. COACH MARSHALL: I believe that wholeheartedly. The latest example was the last photoshoot for Sports Illustrated, which was three days ago, I think. I brought these three gentlemen together, and Cleanthony, Tekele Cotton. I was asked to choose one player, and I couldn't do that. That's not something I wanted any part of, and I'm not going to play favorites. I'm not going to do that. So I brought the four that started every single game, these three and the defensive player of the year, Tekele Cotton. I had four straws, and the shorter straw would get to do the photoshoot. Before I did that, they all kind of chuckled. Sports Illustrated wants to do another cover because they'd all been on the cover two weeks ago as the starting five. They said, "Coach, I don't really want to do it. Tekele can do it. We get so much coverage, so much hype, I think he deserves more." They're an unselfish group. They play team basketball. They play both ends. I don't know why I'm blessed with this type of group. To be honest with you, most of my teams, if not all of my teams, have been like that. I'm not sure to this degree. That's really quite a statement. We're talking about Sports Illustrated, and he just said, "I think Tekele should be on it." And that's who was on it. Q. Cleanthony, Coach Marshall won his third straight Valley Coach of the Year award today. What's he like to play for? CLEANTHONY EARLY: He's definitely a great coach. That shows with him winning three years straight Coach of the Year. Like he gives a lot of credit to us as players and saying how he got lucky to get in this situation and get us. We say the same thing right back coming into this situation and this program. Q. Coach, when a mid‑major has a team that has been as dominant as you all have this season, do you think that's necessarily a good or a bad thing for a conference in terms of, A, representation in the NCAA Tournament and just national profile? COACH MARSHALL: First of all, Joe, you've got to read more because someone said that MM term that you used has been buried. I'm not sure you saw that, but they had the funeral and everything, last rights, it's over. So we are a non‑BCS basketball team that happens to be 31‑0. We just don't have a football team. We do have cheerleaders. We have a lot of fans. So repeat your question. Q. Do you think being as dominant as you all have been is a good or bad thing for a conference? COACH MARSHALL: For a conference? You know, I can't‑‑ I don't know about that. My contract states that my job is to make sure that Wichita State basketball program, men's side, is taken care of. We win as much as we can. We graduate people. We do it in a first class way with integrity. So that's what I'm going to try to do.  So if the conference benefits from that, great. If not, I'm not going to apologize for that either. Q. Coach, do you guys think that you have done enough at this point to secure a one‑seeder, or do you think winning this tournament is a necessity to do that? COACH MARSHALL: Your guess is as good as mine. I feel pretty good about it. I'm not worried. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. Best of luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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