|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2014Anthony BeaneBarry HinsonDesmar JacksonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: Salukis of Southern Illinois are up next. They are the sixth seed. They will play Northern Iowa on Friday. We have Des Jackson, Anthony Beane representing the student body of SIU. The head coach is Barry Hinson. Going to ask Barry to open up with a statement, and then we'll have questions for all three gentlemen. COACH HINSON: We're glad to be here. Shoot, this is my 11th one, and it's always exciting. This area has always done a great job of representing itself in support of the Missouri Valley tournament. It's certainly the highlight of the year for me as a basketball coach, and Arch Madness means a lot to me and has gone back and provided the lot of great memories. I know our players will enjoy this, but I know the fans will enjoy it even much more so. Q. Anthony, talk a little bit. You've played really well the last three weeks. Do you have a reason for it, or what has got you going and how much fun are you having with it? ANTHONY BEANE: I think it's mainly just the whole team staying positive every practice we have. It comes with high energy, and we're excited to be there. I think it carries over to everybody on the team, and everybody is just playing like they're supposed to. Q. You guys made it so known throughout the season that your goal was to be here playing on a Friday. Now that you're finally here, has it sunk in yet? DESMAR JACKSON: I don't think it sunk in to the younger guys, but for me, it sunk in because my whole college career, I played the first game in the morning, the first day, and so this is the first time I actually get to play in the Friday game. I'm anxious about it. I'm excited. I just can't wait for the game. ANTHONY BEANE: I think for us, like me and Des, since we played here last year, I think it sunk in a little bit, but I feel once we got here, the new guys, that's when it's going to sink in when they see the fans and the crowd and things like that. From how it is now, I think everybody's prepared and focused. Q. You're an old hand at this, so we want to ask some of the guys who have been here. Is this as young a league as you can remember on the whole, Wichita notwithstanding, in terms of guys back, your own team included? I saw some list of like the 80 youngest teams, and there were like four Valley teams there. How does that bode for the league moving forward the next couple years as that cycles through? COACH HINSON: I think that, when you look at next year and the youth of this league, this is a unique situation for the league. Mid‑major conferences are very cyclical. Mid‑major teams are very cyclical. This conference, for the most part, has been a four or five strong league every year since I've been in it. This is a unique situation, but I think you're getting a glimpse of what's getting ready to happen over the next two, three years. I think we're getting ready, we're moving back to where this league has two, three, four multiple bids to the NCAA Tournament. As you look around, it's a young league, and I know everybody talks about how we've got some experience, but for the most part, it's a youthful Renaissance going on right now. I talked to Lindell about this a couple of weeks ago. This is a glimpse of what's getting ready to happen. It's going to be pretty nice. Q. It's been seven years since you guys reached the semifinals. What would it mean to you to win tomorrow and be playing on Saturday? COACH HINSON: It hasn't been seven years for me so‑‑ and these guys are new. So this is his second year here. This is his second year here. And I've told these guys, I've tried to relate it, if you're fortunate enough to get to that round, when you run out of that tunnel and there's 23,000 people, the hair just stands up on the back of your neck. And it's one of college basketball's greatest moments, and I mean that with all sincerity. I've been in the Big 12 tournament. I know what it's like. There's 18,000 in the Sprint Center. But when you put 23,000 out here and you've got four teams with this rabid Missouri Valley following and fans, it's pretty special. I hope our guys have the opportunity to see that and feel that. Q. For Barry and Anthony, leadership is so important with your club. Can you guys just talk about how you kind of got Anthony to open up a little bit as the point guard and improved his communication and how Anthony's kind of taken that role. It's taken a little bit to get there. COACH HINSON: We had no choice, Todd. When Marcus went down‑‑ I'm an old school guy in the sense that your quarterback has got to be your point guard, and your point guard has got to be your talker. Regardless of who that person is, they've got to talk. We had no choice. Now, it was a struggle for us at first when Marcus went down because Anthony's personality is naturally to be quiet. I brought him in yesterday. We had a one‑on‑one meeting, and I wanted to tell him how proud I was of him, not because of all the points that he's scoring, but what he's done off the floor and on the floor as far as leading and talking to our guys. Both of these guys right here are naturally quiet. When Marcus went down, I challenged Des and I challenged Anthony. And now coming out of a huddle, you'll see Anthony talking and Des talking. Now, when we go to practice, both these guys will be talking. You get ready to watch us do a shootaround, both these guys will be out there talking, whereas, when Marcus was on the floor, he was kind of the general, and now that's not the case. These guys have opened up, and I'm proud of both of them. It's been a forced issue. Anthony will answer the question. We had a day where we practiced with Anthony yelling, and Des yelling. We made them. And if they didn't yell, we ran them. We practiced yelling and made them practice talking. You know, normally you don't have to do that with the little ones, but when you get to be older and cool daddies like these guys, you got to sometimes force them to talk. But they both talk now, and it's been great for us. I'll let Anthony answer. ANTHONY BEANE: I feel that it's helped a lot, not just offensively but defensively. Coach talks about on the defensive end, communicating and things like that. With me talking and Des talking, it just spreads out to the other guys. We have guys like Sean and now Bola's talking, and the defense is just there and we're communicating well. Then for the leadership role, I felt that Marcus and Des both helped me. Des is quiet, but on the sideline Des will tell me things like, if I'm doing something wrong or I need to correct something, he'll tell me on the sideline how to fix it, things like that. Marcus, moving on to the point guard position, he's able to help me with things like where people are supposed to go, like certain situations in the game, different scenarios and things like that. But both of them have helped a lot. Q. So much publicity, rightfully so, Wichita State in this tournament. They're obviously a dominant team. As you said, the conference is in a different place this year than it will be going forward. What do you think are the pluses and minuses of having one team as dominant as Wichita State? It gives the conference visibility, but at the same time, it kind of dwarfs everybody else here. COACH HINSON: I don't see any minuses. I guess, if you have any type of negative part, I go back, I think this is a cyclical year for the conference. Golly, we couldn't be any happier. They're playing in our conference in our league every night. Somebody is talking about Wichita State for the Missouri Valley Conference. I can't answer what the other coaches think, but I know me, I've got my chest poked out there. I couldn't be any happier. I went on Outside the Lines and talked about those guys and fought for them, and I will continue to do that. I think what Gregg and that basketball team have done, regardless of the wins and losses, what they have done by continuing to play and play loose and play hard and share the ball and all that, I just think there's a reason why he's Coach of the Year. It's just remarkable what they've achieved. You know, we‑‑ this doesn't happen a lot, and I mean, you can go back‑‑ everybody wants to talk about George Mason, Butler, VCU, they want to talk about the mids. These guys, they didn't go undefeated. This is something that's spectacular. This doesn't happen. For me, I just grasp onto it. I'm fired up about it. Q. Des, you won't be here in two years, but where do you think Anthony's game will be in two years? DESMAR JACKSON: I mean, he's young, so he can't do nothing but get better, I feel like. He just wants to get better year by year. He definitely got better from last year. His points like doubled or tripled. He's going to be a great player. He might be the face of this league. I really don't see nobody that can really just guard him one‑on‑one. Q. This is for all three of you. Going back to December and the Murray State game and Coach being all over the place with his post‑game press conference, and there was a lot of speculation out among the rest of the world that was not in your locker room that, oh, Coach has lost the team. This team is going nowhere. It will fall apart now. How are they going to put the pieces back together? Inside, what happened? What was it like? How big of an impact did that have on this team starting to grow and come together? ANTHONY BEANE: I felt that it brought us together because we all know Coach has a different way of communicating with us that a lot of people aren't used to, but we're used to it. We hear it all the time in practice. For us, I thought it brought us together because after that, I felt our team‑‑ we lost a couple more games, but it brought us together. We were all focused and just learned from it and continued to stay positive. DESMAR JACKSON: Well, when that happened, like‑‑ I mean, I'm pretty sure like some of the guys felt some type of way, but Coach is right. We wasn't playing good. We wasn't playing as hard as we could, and it was like games we could have won, but it's just like we wasn't focused, and we wasn't being tough enough and things like that. I really didn't take it too personal. I really didn't take it too personal because, in a way, Coach is right. We needed to play harder. We was playing soft and things like that. I feel like it brought us together. We just had to come together and just talk about the situation and how we can move forward. COACH HINSON: I think they answered the question. I don't think‑‑ you know, I think they need to answer the question because that question goes to those guys. It doesn't go to me. I know what I thought. I pretty much shared it that night at Murray State. But I've always been that way. I've always been that way. I'm a volcano. I erupt. I say what's on my heart. I'm passionate. I'm not a thermostat. I apologize. I don't regulate. What you see is what you get. You watch me during the game, we miss a basket, I'm crushed. We make a basket, I'm happy. I couldn't sing alto, there's no way. I'm probably close to a tenor. Couldn't be a bass, not with this raspy voice. Maybe close to Stevie Nicks, but that's about it. Q. You and Coach have certainly had your ups and downs over the years, but Coach finished runner‑up for Coach of the Year in the Valley. What has he meant to you? And just your reaction to the voting. DESMAR JACKSON: For me, playing for Coach Hinson, he made me like just grow up and mature more, like a lot faster than I was going to, I guess. Like he's on me every day, just making sure I'm doing the right thing. That helped out a lot for me. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|