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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2014Ron BakerCleanthony EarlyGregg MarshallFred VanVleetST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Wichita State – 80 THE MODERATOR: Fred Van Vleet, Ron Baker and Cleanthony Early represent the Shockers on the floor. Head Coach Gregg Marshall is here. Number 1 seeded Shockers will play in the semifinals tomorrow. Going to ask Coach Marshall to give a statement on the game. Then we'll go to questions for just the three student‑athletes. COACH MARSHALL: I thought, once we got Balentine to miss a couple shots, we were in much better shape. He was incredible. We started getting some loose balls and some steals about midway through the first half, which helped us get the ten‑point lead at halftime and then great lock‑down defense in the second half. Just proud to be moving on. Q. Fred, can you talk about the back side defense at the rim and how much that helps you guys out front when you've got those shot blockers behind you, 11 of them today, new tournament record.  How much easier does it make your job defensively with those guys back there? FRED VAN VLEET: It makes it very easy. For the defense, we want to play against them. They're a rhythm team. So we want to extend our pressure and disrupt their rhythm a little bit. The counter to that for them is just to drop the ball and attack us right at the point of attack. Having Kadeem back there and C.J. really helped tonight especially, and it's been that way all season when we want to extend pressure. Got to have some erasers back there. Q. Are you born to be an unselfish basketball player, or is that something that's instilled in you as you‑‑ over time coached into you? RON BAKER: For me, that's kind of just how I was raised, unselfish individual. When I got here, that's what we're all about. I don't know if it was luck or destiny or whatever you want to call it. This team is very unselfish. If we continue to play like that, I like our chances. FRED VAN VLEET: I think it has to be in your nature a little bit. Like I said, he was raised that way. Then when you get a group of guys together that are all unselfish, it's contagious. Maybe if not all 15 are, maybe if you have 10, it will carry over to the rest of the 5. I'm not saying that's how it is for us, but everybody's that way, and it's contagious, and it just breeds more unselfishness. CLEANTHONY EARLY: I think both my teammates hit the pin on the head when they said it has to be in your nature a little bit. I think I'm a scorer, but I love to see my teammates do good. We all feel the same way. We want to watch each other prosper and do good for the team. So we go out there and make it happen. Q. For any of the players, I know that this is the first time I've had a chance to see you guys and talk to you, the whole streak, the record, is the focus at all being taken away by all that stuff, or is it still just one game at a time when you guys go out to play? How's the focus been as each game has progressed? RON BAKER: As far as like our streak, as far as being 32‑0, when we got to St. Louis, that 31‑0 is out the door. We wanted to focus on this weekend one game at a time, just like we have all season. Our objective, just like any other team here, is to win on Sunday. But we've got to go one day at a time. FRED VAN VLEET: I think Ron said it perfectly. Our new streak is 1‑0. One and done. Now we got one. Can't get to three without getting two, so that's what our focus is, and we'll try to get that one tomorrow. Q. Fred, looks like you got banged up, a little bit slow getting up at one point in time. What transpired there, and how are you feeling? FRED VAN VLEET: I think I just tried to get a rebound or a loose ball and just fell straight on my back, but I'm fine. Q. For any three of you guys, you guys get so many and‑ones. Do you guys practice that in practice or‑‑ I mean, that's a huge key to the game today, just how many and‑ones you got, Fred, with your three there when you fell back. CLEANTHONY EARLY: We don't get any foul calls in practice. It's like I'm trying to make the basket regardless because I feel like I might not get the foul call. Sometimes you get lucky and you get the foul call and the ball goes in the basket, and we're just happy for that. COACH MARSHALL: There's not a line item for referees in our practice in our budget. THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen. Thank you very much. We'll dismiss you. We'll stay here with Coach Marshall. Q. Coach, starting in the last couple of games of the regular season and now, do you‑‑ have you felt a more intense sort of national media glare? And if you have, has it mattered at all to your players, or are you able to sort of not think about that? COACH MARSHALL: You know, it's been like that for a month or six weeks. It hasn't just been the last couple of weeks. I think you can tell by these guys that just left. I mean, they're very stoic. They're very matter of fact. They're very steadfast in what they want to accomplish. Just I don't think it's affected them that much at all. I really don't. Q. With all the success you've had, never a player who's averaged 15 points. The last guy to shoot 20 shots in a game, that was three years ago. Is that‑‑ as I asked the players, is that instilled in them by you, or are they just naturally unselfish like that? COACH MARSHALL: I think they're unselfish. I don't tell good players to pass on good shots. We share the basketball. When it's your turn to shoot and you're open, I want you to shoot it. In fact, I get upset with them when they don't. I don't‑‑ but I think they've got character for sure, and we've talked about this before, but maybe they sacrifice a little bit individually for the overall good, but at this point, who's to argue when everybody's not getting their just rewards. Q. Coach, how huge have your fans been backing your team up? COACH MARSHALL: We have an unbelievable fan base. You see how many Shocker fans are out there. Shocker Nation has always traveled well. We went to Maui a couple years ago. Other than Kentucky, which undoubtedly travels the best, and perhaps Michigan State‑‑ getting out of Michigan during the winter is somewhat like getting out of Wichita. These folks really travel well. We go to Maui with several hundred, probably 300 or 400. The Cats had a couple of thousand and Michigan State was the same. After that, everyone else was less than a hundred. This crowd out here was incredible. They were loud. They were really loud. They were loud last night. It was the play‑in game or whatever you call that Thursday first‑round game. They were loud then. And I'm sure there are people in their cars right now driving to get here for tomorrow. These fans are unbelievable, and they deserve this type of run that we've had because they've been there. Bob wrote a great article or piece with some of the other Eagle writers about the decades they've gone through at Wichita State, and the '90s weren't great at all. In fact, they were bad. And Mark Turgeon got it going back in 2000. They've stuck with us through thick and thin. They were there my first year when we weren't very good. Q. Gregg, you used the term "lockdown defensive effort" in the second half. Can you expound on that a little bit? It seemed like all five guys were really playing extremely well together, but in particular, those guys in the back were erasing everything. COACH MARSHALL: Yeah, Kadeem Coleby was tremendous at the back line. He didn't even play 20 minutes, and he blocked six shots. He's really getting his timing down. At one point in the year, he was a little awkward with his timing. He was fouling. It was cumbersome. He did not look fluid. Now he looks really good back there as a deterrent. I think Cotton was really good. You've got to give D.J. Balentine credit. He hit some incredible shots. When you can score with the defense he was seeing tonight, you can score. He's a big‑time scorer. He's only going to get better. I'm not looking forward to that. But I thought we defended real well all night. Q. Partly answered the question about the defense against Balentine. Was part of the plan to keep Balentine off the line? Cotton was talking, when he gets in the line, he really gets going. COACH MARSHALL: Big point for us to keep Balentine off the line. He goes 14 times last night. He scored 30. He's averaging 30 1/2 points in the tournament. At least we held him to six free throws, and that's a key, and it should be a key because he gets so much focus, and he scores a lot of points. We didn't want to go for the shot fakes. They're a team that really likes to use head and shot fakes. I just thought we did a good job on him. Again, he gets credit for being a great scorer because he scored through and over that defense. Q. Gregg, I would imagine, just by your job description, you have to nitpick, even though you guys are winning all the time. But what satisfies you from game to game about this team? What is it that they do that you go, "Okay, I'm happy with that"? COACH MARSHALL: It's a great point, Ron. We actually pick our spots to nitpick and get after them. In the last three weeks, there's been at least one video session that was not real pleasant. But I don't do it every game when they're feeling so good about themselves. We certainly talk to them during the game. We coach them during the game. My assistant coaches are getting on them and encourage them when they do well and telling them what they don't do well. You really don't need a whole lot of video study because they get coached in the moment. But we do that from time to time. I love how this team goes about their business and their approach, how it's just‑‑ how resolute they are in just next challenge, let's get the game plan. How do you guys want us to defend this screen, this cut, and they just do it. They're really, really focused and locked in with the next challenge, and that's how you win 32 in a row. I mean, I don't care what league you're in, it's hard to do, especially when you go on the road. Those other teams want to win, they want to party, and they want to get it going. They want to court storm. But they've not allowed that thus far. Q. You mentioned you want to keep D.J. out of the line. Whose task was it to keep him out of the paint? COACH MARSHALL: Mostly Tekele Cotton. Tekele gets the yeoman's majority of that work. But I thought Ron Baker did it well at times. Evan Wessel did it well at times. You can't have one guy guard him. He played 39 minutes a game. And I don't know what happened to him. I asked him after the game if he was okay, and he assured me that he was, because I've got a lot of respect for him. It looked like he was cramping. I hope it wasn't a sprained ankle or a knee. It looked like he was cramping. To play the way he played for that long, you'd be super human not to cramp. So we ran fresh bodies at him, and maybe that had an effect. He could have gone for 40. Q. How is the personality and identity of this team different from last year's Final Four team? COACH MARSHALL: I think just a little more focused, a little more steadfast. Last year's team was a little more tougher physically. This team scores it better. But last year's team, especially‑‑ and this could be part of the problem with the personnel because Ron Baker was out for 21 games. Carl Hall was out for seven games. When you don't have those guys, you're not quite as good a coach. There were some nights, even against Evansville last year, when we didn't play well. This year's team has stayed healthy, and we have a great focus and mindset of the next game, the next challenge. Q. I know you don't know who you're playing yet tomorrow, but if it's Illinois State, what's some of the keys against them just based on the first two times you played them? COACH MARSHALL: Illinois State, if we play them, you've got to beat their pressure, and you've got to play against a zone. You've got to attack the zone well inside out. You've just got to guard them. They've got a lot of guys that can score. They're a little more balanced than Evansville. So just got to guard them. Got to kind of keep them out of rhythm. Hopefully, they don't shoot it quite as well as D.J. did tonight. THE MODERATOR: Gregg, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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