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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2014Anthony BeaneBarry HinsonDesmar JacksonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Southern Illinois – 63 THE MODERATOR: As advertised, the victorious Salukis are with us. They have a date with Indiana State in tomorrow's semifinal. Desmar Jackson and Anthony Beane represent the student body. We're going to ask Coach Barry Hinson to start off with a statement. COACH HINSON: Missouri Valley Conference basketball, I mean, that's it. I had no visions of grandeur at halftime. I just knew it would come down to the wire. I'm not going to tell our players that, but I've just been in this tournament, I've been in here a long time. This is my 11th. I knew the guy on the other bench, I knew they would do something spectacular. They went to the triangle and two, what a great move by Ben, and they got back into the game. But one thing they never did is they never took the lead. We felt it was important for us to get off to a good start. Guys, I've been in this tournament a lot.  That's the best first half of basketball that I've ever coached a group of young men, and I told them that. We've just got to find a way to not make it so interesting. But Des kept coming in the time‑out and saying they need ratings for the Missouri Valley tourney, let's turn it over some more. Isn't that what you said? DESMAR JACKSON: Yeah. COACH HINSON: And then Anthony said, "No, Des, I'll turn it over." All right. I'll let you guys ask questions. Q. Desmar, how much were you feeling it there right from the opening tip? DESMAR JACKSON: I was feeling pretty good in the first half. I hit my first shot. That's always good. That got me going right there. Q. Desmar, can you just talk about the save, the ball that was going out of bounds? You never quit on it and got it back into bounds and just happened to see Anthony. Did you see Anthony, or were you just trying to keep the ball in bounds? DESMAR JACKSON: I really didn't see Anthony. I was trying to knock the ball off the guy who was guarding me. It barely missed him, and it was right there, luckily. COACH HINSON: I would agree with that, luckily. Q. If both of you guys could just talk about‑‑ you both had great games, but Bola had some great plays for you and Tyler had some great plays for you to help seal the win. How happy were you to see them come through in their first tournament game? ANTHONY BEANE: I thought it was good because last time we played Northern Iowa, Bola didn't have one of his best games. You could tell right before the game he was focused. He came out, and it was a lot different than at their place. He was the Bola we were used to. He was getting rebounds, putbacks, and things like that. That was just Bola being Bola. And, of course, I knew Tyler would be good. He's a super freshman, and he makes plays like that. Q. Question regarding Bola? DESMAR JACKSON: He's a big factor for us because he hit the glass real hard. If he can get offensive rebounds and putbacks, you know, we definitely need him to play a good game for us to win, I feel like. Tyler, you know, he's got a big heart, man. If he's open, he's not going to think twice about shooting a three‑pointer, or he's not going to think twice at all about driving or anything. He's a big‑time player. Q. Coach says every week he's always asking, "Is this the turning point?" What do you do players think? Do you think it's the turning point in your season? DESMAR JACKSON: Is this a turning point? Yeah, I definitely feel like we turned a corner. Last year we played on Thursday. We played on Friday this year. This year we won a Friday game. So that's big. I don't think that's been done in like a few years. So this definitely could be the turning point. We've just got to keep it up. ANTHONY BEANE: Just like Des said, I think it's a turning point with all the things we've done this year. Of course, being able to play on Friday, that's a big deal and winning the game. But I still think we could play a little better, just like come out in the second half and play a little better and just take it one game at a time. Q. Anthony, this is for you. Des had a really good first half, and then started struggling in the second half as they kind of tightened up the defense. Did you kind of go into the second half trying to be like the second guy to Des scoring? ANTHONY BEANE: No, not really. It was still the same because Des was hot. My plan was to just keep giving him the ball because he was knocking down shots. After that, when they went to the triangle and two, I thought they got to us a little bit, but we were able to fight through it. And like Coach said, Tyler and Bola stepped up and got big shots and kept us in the game. Q. Anthony, talk a little bit‑‑ it looked defensively like you guys attacked more on the perimeter than maybe you did a couple weeks ago when you played Northern Iowa, cutting off the passes, not giving good looks. Is that correct? ANTHONY BEANE: That was part of our game plan. And coming in and guarding Tuttle. Tuttle is a great player. We wanted to make sure we're clogging up the lane for Tuttle because he's so good around the basket. I thought we did a great job on the perimeter and on the post. Q. Both players, UNI made ten threes, I think, in their last three games. They're 4 of 22 tonight. How much of that was them? How much of that was you? Des, you first, please. DESMAR JACKSON: We know that they're known for shooting threes. We definitely talked about them. But we knew they're a big three‑point team. We definitely had a big focus on that, and we had a big focus on Tuttle to just dig on him just to make it tough on him because he played great the first two times we played him. He actually played good today. He had 17 rebounds and 15 points. Q. Des, can you just talk about your 11 rebounds. It seemed like for most of the first half, you were trying to go for every rebound, it appeared. DESMAR JACKSON: I was right by the ball. I just wanted to put the effort in to go up and get it. We need every rebound, so I was just trying to go get the rebounds. Q. Anthony, what was the feeling like for you guys when UNI was eating back away at that lead you had and finally got it back to a tie game? ANTHONY BEANE: I thought that what was great about our team, we just stayed together when they started going on their runs. When we went into the time‑out, all the guys‑‑ nobody was down. Everybody was together. We were all together talking to each other, telling them to keep their heads up and most importantly just keep getting stops. We felt we got the stops in the game that kept us in the game, and we came down and delivered on offense. Q. Des, what was that exchange with you and Davante in the first half when Tuttle got two or three offensive rebounds and then scored? DESMAR JACKSON: That was just teammate talk. Me and Te bump heads a bit, but it's all love on the court. I just want Te to grab every rebound, so I just tell him, "Te, I think you should have got that rebound." THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we thank you for your time. We'll stay with Coach Hinson for a while longer. Q. Coach, these two guys went, I think, 15, maybe 16 minutes in the second half without scoring. Just how difficult is it for you guys when they're not getting anything? What's your confidence level in the rest of your guys? COACH HINSON: Well, I go back what I said earlier, Ben and his staff, we knew they would make some adjustment. We didn't know it would be the triangle and two.  We've seen it. Guys, if you remember right, we missed some really good and easy shots, and then we got tight. Certainly, when you get tight, you don't do very well. Tyler Smithpeters is a phenomenal shooter, and he didn't shoot the ball tonight very well. I anticipate‑‑ we told Tyler all along, "Keep shooting it." I do believe this. I think in tournament play you always have one game that you really don't play as well as what you would like, and you got to get that out of your system. And I think for us in the second half, hopefully, we got that out of our system. But give them the credit, Stu. They did what two guys are out there, but in all honesty, when it came right down to it, Tyler made free throws, Michael made a huge basket, Bola got a huge rebound and a putback and made the free throw. And the best part of that was two of those guys are ninth graders‑‑ I mean, they're freshmen. And that just makes it that much better that those guys got that experience today. Q. What does this win mean for the time right now? Not just for the team right now, but for the season as a whole. You've all had a lot of ups and downs. What does this mean? COACH HINSON: I think the question should be what does it mean to our fans? We've had a big drought. It's 2007 since we've been in the semis. We've had issues off the court. We've had issues socially. We've had major issues academically. We've had issues basketball. We've had issues with travel. We've had issues with a short head coach that ran his mouth at Murray State. The question was asked tonight, have we turned the corner? I think Saluki basketball is trying to turn the corner. I'm not going to get overly optimistic because, to me, you just got to find a way to continue to get better. But we've got a young team, and Des certainly played like a senior today, and I thought Davante played like a senior, and that was big for us. I think the question should be asked of our fans, what does this mean to them? Because they're absolutely, besides our players, they're the most important thing. Q. Coach, Des was basically a nonfactor throughout most of the second half. He only had three points, picked up four fouls. Did you adjust your strategy a little bit when it looked like he wasn't playing to the level he was playing in the first half? COACH HINSON: Well, I'm going to disagree with the nonfactor because those guys got wide open shots because they were face guarding Des. If Des isn't on the floor, we probably don't get the shots we would have gotten. We didn't make. We had good open looks, and we just didn't make them. But did we make an adjustment? You know, we made what we thought were a few adjustments, and we felt like, if we could ever get into the one and ones, which it seemed like an eternity, From Here to Eternity‑‑ it's a great movie, but it's also a lot to deal with when you're a basketball coach waiting to get in the one and ones. My staff, my assistants were just, "Talk to the officials. Talk to the officials. You need to talk to the officials." I said, "I don't need to talk to the officials. I know every one of them. I don't need to introduce myself." I'm trying to have jokes over there with the guys. I've got to get my staff to relax a little bit. Normally, it's me, but it wasn't. It was those guys tonight. Q. Barry, can you talk about the matchup tomorrow with Indiana State and also your team entering a new stage at this point. COACH HINSON: It's a big stage for us. It's not a new stage for Indiana State. Classic game, great coach, good players, the poster boy for Amish basketball, Jake Odum, my favorite player in the league. I love that kid. I love him. I know‑‑ I've watched him play the last five or six games. They played really well today. They played great‑‑ the Indiana State that I know of played today, and it's going to be a heck of a ball game. We're going to really have to play well. And we've got three guys that played 38, 39, 39, and we've got to make sure we get them rest. Q. Rewinding just a little bit, game's close, Panthers are right on you, and then you see a full court heavy going down the court to Anthony Beane. What's on your mind there? COACH HINSON: What's what like? Oh, when that pass was made? Q. Yeah. Scared the heck out of me. I had a camera roll right where the ball was going. COACH HINSON: You remember Bill Cosby, "Don't check my underwear." Hey, guys, I'll tell you what this game was about to us. To me, it summed up real easily. We had to guard, and we made our minds up, we made our minds up that we were going to make Tuttle beat us or that's it. We told our players all along Bohannon and Buss and Morgan cannot beat us from the three, just can't do it. I've watched Ben's teams, Gregg's teams over the year, you can't let those guys‑‑ I knew Tuttle would have a big night coming in, but we harassed him. We made him work for everything he got. He got seven offensive rebounds right there in front of our bench one time on one possession because Davante, he was at the concession stand. But it was a game we made our mind up that they had to beat us inside and not from the arc. Normally, it's the other way around, but that was our whole intent. We had to guard on the perimeter, and we had to guard those guys, specifically Bohannon and Buss and Morgan. That was our big deal. Q. Jeff Early did not have a great game here last season. When did you know that Jackson was tuned in here tonight? COACH HINSON: He made his first shot. The way he made it, it wasn't a great shot. We talked about coming out of the locker room, we said, "Okay, let's get it to the third and fourth side first possession." Because we never win the tip ever. God, we were surprised we won the tip. It's like a lottery bet at Vegas. Gosh, we're never going to win the tip. We won the tip. Let's get and shoot it and Des took two dribbles and he made it. I looked at Thomas, God, I'm glad I worked all week trying to get that ball to the third and fourth side. It really worked well for us. And Tom goes, "Leave him alone." I said, "Okay." That's good coaching. Get out of his way and let him play. Okay, guys. Thanks for coming. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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