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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: ST. LOUISMarch 20, 2014Glenn CoseyJeff NeubauerEric StutzCorey WaldenST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: As advertised, Eastern Kentucky No. 15 seed in the South is here. And we are ready for questions. Q. Glenn and Corey and Eric, all of you, talk about embracing the role of an underdog, is that something you are coming in with, that kind of mentality? GLENN COSEY: Being the underdog is always fun, especially if you can pull off an upset. And a lot of people seems to get with the underdog and cheer for them, so it should be fun. COREY WALDEN: Like Glenn said, I agree with him. And I mean, we're embracing that role, but still going out and playing some basketball. ERIC STUTZ: We've got a lot of people behind us and wanting us to succeed. A lot of people like to see the lower seed win. It is nice to have people that don't really cheer for you rooting you on. We have more support than we usually have. Q. Glenn and Corey, how do you guys turn Kansas over? What do you need to do? COREY WALDEN: We have to play our defense. We have to steal the ball from them and just cause them to turn it over, and just be everywhere on the court and give efforts everywhere. GLENN COSEY: Yeah, ball pressure is going to be key for us, especially denying on the wings and making them go backdoor, making them do something that they are not used to doing. So going backdoor. Q. Eric, how do you guys combat their lane? What is the key to sort of fight them to a stalemate on the glass? ERIC STUTZ: We have never been the biggest team on the court, so it is something we are used to. We just have to play hard and we have to out‑effort them to try to be tougher than them. It is just something we got used to over the course of the years. It is going to be like another game for us. Q. To any of you, can you speak about you played three tournament teams, VCU to three points at the end. Does that kind of help prepare you for a tournament‑type atmosphere against this level of competition? THE MODERATOR: Glenn, please. GLENN COSEY: Playing those three big schools, VCU, Wisconsin, it prepared us, especially VCU, a tough team, athletic, fast, aggressive. Just like Kansas, they are athletic and long. So I think we will be all right. Q. Glenn and Corey, you guys are both junior college transfers. You have quite a few. How has that translated to success for you guys? COREY WALDEN: I don't really‑‑that's a good question. I don't know how that's really helped us. I mean, it has helped a lot. We have some experience, we are experienced guards and I mean that's the edge we have on them if that answers your question. Q. I am wondering since Edwardsville is now part of the Ohio Valley, if any of the travel or any of kind of the newness of coming to St. Louis is at all not a factor for you guys. THE MODERATOR: Eric. ERIC STUTZ: I mean, we've never actually been to St. Louis, so it is a little different. And going to Edwardsville, we took the bus and we flew here, so it is a new experience for us. But it is something we like to embrace. Q. To Glenn, when you see a team like Florida Gulf Coast, Lehigh, some of the teams that have had that success, the 2 over the 15 in the past, does that give you inspiration when you look at a team like that? GLENN COSEY: Yes. Looking at those teams it gives you hope knowing you can possibly upset a No. 2 seed or No. 1 seed, whatever, it gives you hope and just gives you confidence. Q. Corey, what is the key to guarding Andrew Wiggins? COREY WALDEN: To not let him get the ball. You have to deny him and shut him out. If he does get the ball, just crowd him, don't let him get an easy shot. Just contest everything. Q. For all three, can you just describe how awesome this opportunity is to be here and to have made it? THE MODERATOR: We will start with Glenn, go to Corey, and back Eric. GLENN COSEY: It is a great experience. This feeling right now is unreal, especially last year playing in the CIT to come here and have a lot of cameras in your face. It is an unreal feeling right now. COREY WALDEN: Like he said, it is a great feeling. We have been working this hard to get to this point. And now that we're actually here, it is just a great feeling. And all the hard work we put in is like paying off now and this is what we've always wanted. ERIC STUTZ: Yeah, for me growing up I watched this tournament every year. So being a part of it is just something special because it shows the hard work that we've all put in to make it. It is just an unbelievable feeling. It means a lot to us. Q. Eric, what has to go right for you guys to compete with Kansas? ERIC STUTZ: I mean, it's obviously a lot of things that have to go right for us. We have to shoot the ball well, just play our defense, and do what we have been doing all year. I mean, we are a good defensive and shooting team. So if we can do that, and limit our weaknesses, we'll be all right. Q. To that end, has your focus in practice been on what you guys do well or has it been specifically stopping a particular aspect of the Kansas game? THE MODERATOR: Corey? COREY WALDEN: I think it's more of what we do. We just practice our defense. I mean, we work on some of the stuff that they did, too, but it has mainly been about us and working on our game and our team and our defense. THE MODERATOR: Glenn, why don't you answer that as well. GLENN COSEY: Practice has been mainly about us, what we are going to do. Mainly deny, ball pressure, jumping, ball screens, how we are going to play that, help side. It is going to come down to rebounding and defend at the end of the day. Q. After the Morehead loss and loss at Tennessee Tech you guys picked play up. Anything change enabling you to go on the run? THE MODERATOR: Eric. ERIC STUTZ: Yeah, those two games we didn't play very hard and our effort just wasn't there. So the next day that's all we focused on, was just trying to play hard. And playing hard the other team, and using that to our advantage. Q. Glenn, last week we were in Richmond. On Monday you said: Wednesday the devil comes out, in reference to Coach Neubauer. How was practice this past week? GLENN COSEY: Coach was pretty tough on us. He's always tough on us‑‑I was joking when I said that, because he made a joke about saying that it was going to be tough practices. But Coach is always tough on us. He got us better and I think we're prepared. Q. I am wondering if the fact that the major conferences, they were all in tournaments the week after you guys, does the fact that you had that extra week to practice and to either get healthy or just keep on practicing, does that give you an added edge do you think going into something like this? THE MODERATOR: Corey and Eric take this one. COREY WALDEN: I think it gives us a slight advantage. We should go into the game, we should be fresh. That was the main focus, to be the freshest team out there. And that week that we had off, that we practiced, we definitely got better still, but we were able to still get fresh, too. ERIC STUTZ: Yeah, the major conferences were competing against each other while we were also doing the same. So I think both of us still playing basketball, so at the end of the day it will just come down to tomorrow and just playing. Q. When you look at the turnover stats, turnover margin, you guys towards the top than closer to the bottom. What do you think of that? GLENN COSEY: Our defense, the way we play defense, our style of play is just it forces teams to turn the ball over because you are doing something that you are not normally doing. It is not easy. You can't run the offense. I think it will come down to us turning them over. Q. For the players, obviously with you guys being a 15 seed and Kansas being a 2, if you guys win this game a lot of people will consider this to be a big upset. And I just wonder if you guys growing up, I am sure you watched the NCAA Tournament, do you have a favorite memory of a big upset from March Madness that you have kind of being thinking about in preparation for the game? THE MODERATOR: Eric, Corey and Glenn, in that order, please. ERIC STUTZ: Well, growing up in Indiana I watched Butler play and those two Final Four or Championship game they made it to, it kind of gave me something to look at and model myself after. So I think that's really what I looked at. COREY WALDEN: I don't really have a favorite upset, just one that I remember is Lehigh over Duke and how big that upset was. That's the one I remember. GLENN COSEY: I don't have a favorite upset memory, but I'm hoping that we can pull off one and that would be my favorite memory. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the student‑athletes of Eastern Kentucky? All right gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. We will dismiss you and wish you good luck. As advertised, head coach of Eastern Kentucky, Jeff Neubauer is here. We will ask him to make a statement about his club being here in St. Louis and then we'll go to questions. Jeff, please. COACH NEUBAUER: First of all, our team is incredibly happy to be here. It is so hard in a league like the Ohio Valley to actually get to this point. There are so many good basketball teams, well‑coached teams, talented young men. And everyone goes into a season with this goal and this dream, and for us to be here right now, that's the first part of our story. We're very pleased with that. Obviously we have a very big challenge tomorrow and our team really does like challenges. Q. Coach, talk about just being the underdog and embracing that role. Is that something that you told your team to kind of embrace and take on? COACH NEUBAUER: We certainly haven't used the word "underdog," but everyone knows we are the 15 seed and not the 2. I think the phrase we used over the last four or five weeks is we want challenges, we love challenges. Instead of "underdog" we embraced "challenges," and this is certainly another one. Q. Coach, a lot has been made about how Kansas has had to put their pieces together because they have freshmen. You have a lot of guys that have come from other spots, five top scorers are all transfers. How have you gelled those players together? COACH NEUBAUER: This is our second year together. We have one freshman, Isaac McGlone, that plays, he is one of the 10 guys in the rotation. But everyone else was with us last year. We were picked to win the Ohio Valley Conference this year because of our returners. Our guys did a great job last year, just like Kansas has done this year, of coming together, gelling together, becoming a basketball team, and we have just taken it to another level this year. I do think our team is better this year because of the experience, including the post‑season experience last year. Q. Coach, you mentioned last week in Richmond the regrets you had the last time you were in the tournament you didn't practice your team hard enough. How were practices this week? COACH NEUBAUER: Yeah. So first of all, in 2007 I was incredibly happy as a head coach to be in the NCAA Tournament. It's an acceptable feeling. It did not help us get ready for North Carolina. Our team did not do a good job coming out of the gate against Carolina. We really struggled early. We had a segment of the game, meaning the last five or six minutes of the first half and the beginning of the second half, where we outscored Carolina by 23 points. But we had dug such a deep hole that it turned out it didn't matter. So to answer your question, I do think we practiced harder. I have done a better job as a head coach of practicing our team. I think our guys have had a very good focus about them and obviously it's a big challenge, big obstacle tomorrow. Q. Jeff, if you guys can pull this off, what would the game look like? What do you guys have to do to be in this thing and take it to the wire? COACH NEUBAUER: And I was back there when you guys were questioning Glenn and Corey and Eric, and, you know, a lot of the talk was about what we do. And really, what we do is the right equation, it's the right formula for beating someone or competing with someone at the level of Kansas. And what am I talking about? We have to shoot the ball well. So we are one of the ten best three‑point shooting teams in the country. However, when you play a team like Kansas, they have great length and athleticism, that at times can affect shooters. You have to take care of the basketball. All right, well, that's one thing we do well also, one of the ten best teams in the country at valuing the ball, but you cannot give them fastbreak lay‑ups or dunks. We can't afford to give them any of those. The final thing, they are a phenomenal rebounding team. They are huge, whether in B plays or not, they are good at rebounding, one of the ten best rebounding teams in the country. The answer there, you can't let them get shots up. If they get shots up on the rim, then they are going to win the battle of the glass. So we have to steal the ball, and that's one of our strengths. Q. Jeff, just wondering what you thought maybe this meant to Austin Newton to play on a Eastern team that went to the NCAA and now to come back as an assistant coach for Eastern in the NCAA? COACH NEUBAUER: Thanks for the question. We have several guys on our staff that have been part of our program. They are Eastern Kentucky Colonels. And Austin Newton is a guy who played on the 2005 NCAA Tournament team and now he gets to do it as a coach as well. Ryan Wiersma not only played on the '05 and '07 tournament teams and is now part of this. And Joshua Jones a manager for us, he played for us for four years. For all of those guys this is so special because they truly love Eastern Kentucky University. It's who they are. And so it's really rewarding for me to watch all of our players enjoy this. But also to watch the coaching staff. It's been really cool as well. Q. Coach, kind of a two‑part question here. You played three teams that are in the NCAA Tournament already this year. Has that helped you out? And also, has it been more focused on you guys or on Kansas as far as your preparations go? COACH NEUBAUER: So to answer the second question, the focus has been on things that we do already. We just have to do those things really, really well. So we're not changing our game plan. We're not playing a different defense. We're not going to come out here and play 2‑3 zone tomorrow, all right. We have to do what we do, but we have to do it incredibly well. As far as playing VCU, Wisconsin, and N.C. State, first of all, it is a credit to N.C. State that they are in the NCAA Tournament because they did go out of their way to schedule teams like Eastern Kentucky. Meaning, we had a 69 R.P.I. last year and had everyone back except one player. Because N.C. State had an aggressive style of scheduling, trying to schedule teams like us, that is why the Committee put them in the tournament. Do I think those three experiences will help us? I hope so. We played really well at N.C. State for 34 minutes. It was a great basketball team for 34 minutes and then they just blow the doors off in the last six. The game at VCU that went to overtime, that is the one hopefully we can draw from. It was an overtime game. We had a possession to win it with a minute left and had a shot at the buzzer that could have won it. And our guys know how good VCU is. They are proud of the effort and know they could have won that game. That's the one we really have to rely on. Q. In speaking with a couple of your players they mentioned that the mix of the players that have been brought in, as you mentioned, in the two‑year period, they almost made it sound tactical that this guy does this thing well and that guy does this thing. Was it that way or did it work out that way? COACH NEUBAUER: In my opinion, when you are at a school like Eastern Kentucky you cannot be tactical in recruiting. If you have an opportunity to get a good player, you have to take him. So you may have three 3‑men already. But if have you a chance to get a guy who is good enough to play and win in the OVC, you have to take him. You can't be tactical. I think when you are at Kansas you can be very tactical. It is a little more pick and choose. We just try to assemble talented guys and it is the coach's job to piece it together, figure out how to make it work. Q. You mentioned having a good start. How important do you think that is? Is a good start the first 5 minutes, 10 minutes? COACH NEUBAUER: As you know, Aaron, what we did well in Nashville in the OVC Tournament we went and got the lead three consecutive nights. Out of 120 minutes in the OVC Tournament we led for 119 minutes. And that absolutely has to be the game plan when you're playing against a school like Kansas. If we are trying to chase Kansas down, if we're playing from behind, that just takes so much energy, especially when it is one‑and‑done time. If you lose, if we lose tomorrow we go home, that's it. And there's so much mental angst involved this time of year. It is so much different to play with a 3‑point lead or a 6‑point lead compared to being down by 3, 4, 5 or 6. So getting the lead, not only for us, but for all teams this time of year, is very important. Q. I wonder as a side benefit of playing here, whether this is an opportunity, and now that your conference is in the St. Louis market, to grow your program, grow your reach into this area? COACH NEUBAUER: I do think that is a great point. Meaning obviously Edwardsville is basically a suburb of the St. Louis. Cape Girardeau is right down the road. This is basically OVC country and we do have to promote OVC basketball and play well not only for ourselves and Eastern Kentucky, but for the OVC. Q. Jeff, what does being here just do for you, exposure‑wise and recruiting‑wise long term do you think? COACH NEUBAUER: Certainly long‑term it is very helpful, meaning young people want to play in the NCAA Tournament. As Glenn Cosey and Corey and Eric were sitting up here, you heard them talk about this is what they wanted. This is what they worked for all their lives to be in the NCAA Tournament. So it really goes a long way long‑term. Here short‑term, meaning over the last 10 days, we felt an impact. You could hear it in young people's voices, the difference between talking about, Hey, we're going to have a great team this year, Hey, we're going to be picked to win the OVC, that is one thing. Another thing is to say, Hey, we are going to St. Louis and going to play Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. So it has already had an impact. Q. Coach, you may have heard them speak about their favorite underdog type memory with Florida Gulf Coast. And I think Glenn said if we win I think that would be my favorite memory. Wondering if you have a favorite memory, it doesn't have to be underdog, but NCAA‑type tournament? COACH NEUBAUER: I have been very fortunate in coaching to be a part of a couple of great runs. So I think those have to be my favorite, because I was actually sitting there on the bench. But when I was at the University of Richmond in 1998 we were a 14 and South Carolina was a 3. And we beat them and it was‑‑I mean, as a young coach, that was really, really rewarding. And then also I was on the West Virginia staff, we made it to the Elite 8. There may not be one specific game we looked at, we beat Chris Paul at Wake Forest when they were great, but getting to the Elite 8 was a really special run for us. Q. Jeff, the OVC has won a game in this tournament four times in the last five years. Have you mentioned that to your team? Why do you think after a fairly long dry stretch the league has been able to win in the tournament? COACH NEUBAUER: Yeah, first of all, I have not mentioned to our team about the OVC run and I think it is probably something that they are aware of. In this world of Twitter and Facebook and all of those things, they come across a lot of information these days. Why do I think it's been a good run for the OVC? Part of it was the fact that Kenneth Faried showed up in the OVC. I think he made a huge difference. The Murray State team two years ago was a phenomenal basketball team. Maybe it is just the OVC is coming into its own. It really is a league that has improved. I have been in the conference nine years and it has gotten better and better consistently throughout my time. Q. Do you need to get them to play small? Would that be an advantage for you at all? COACH NEUBAUER: It is interesting, because when they play small they are significantly bigger than us. So I don't think that matters at all. You know, if they do play small, then they are trying to match up with our shooters a little bit better. But I don't think that will be a story. Q. When you are watching film on Kansas where do you see their turnovers coming from and how do you generate them? COACH NEUBAUER: First of all, their point guard, No. 10, Tharpe, is really good at taking care of the ball. That is our biggest problem, that he controls the game for their team. I saw some film from last year as well and I think he's gotten a lot better. But he is our biggest issue as a defensive unit because of his value. I have seen them in the post a little bit. They throw it in the post so much that sometimes they travel, and I think that's typical of teams that throw into the post. I don't know if their turnovers, the turnovers that they had to this point this season are necessarily the ones that we want. Meaning, they had a lot of dead‑ball turnovers. They've had a lot of traveling calls. We need live ball turnovers. We need steals that lead to lay‑ups and dunks. Q. At the conclusion of the OVC championship when the awards were being handed out you were one by one hugging players on your team. And there's a lot of attention given to coaches and guy's faces. That's a part of the game, too, isn't it? COACH NEUBAUER: Well, I think as a coach, and I don't know how other coaches feel, but you have to have a certain personality around your players. You have to be demanding. I think there are very few coaches in college basketball that are successful that are not demanding. So that opportunity where you just get to share a moment like that, you know, it doesn't come along every day. So those hugs were for me as much as they were for our guys. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the head coach of Eastern Kentucky? All right, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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