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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Devaughn Akoon-PurcellDeontae HawkinsDan MullerST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Illinois State – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're going to questions for the student‑athletes. COACH MULLER: Very proud of the team. That's a really good team we beat in a very close game. We fouled too much. Our defense in the first half was really bad. But we had a lot of guys that put pressure on them. Like I said, that's a good team. It's a really good team. Excited to move on. Just looking to advance this time of year. That's all that matters. THE MODERATOR: Questions for DeVaughn and Deontae. Q. You hit your first couple threes in the game and got back into that rhythm. Did you feel like in a rhythm from the start of the game? DEONTAE HAWKINS: I was feeling it in the layup line. I felt that my shot was good, and I just kept shooting. Q. DeVaughn, you guys got up by eight points, and they had that run where they kept going to the free‑throw line, it seemed, on every possession. They finally went ahead. Did it ever feel like it was getting away from you guys there? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: Not necessarily. We just knew as a team we had to stop falling, which we couldn't do. We felt like we did a good job towards the end, and they executed. Q. Deontae, can you talk about‑‑ the regular season is a long grind, but can you talk about the drilling you had as a freshman coming into this tournament with the intensity today? DEONTAE HAWKINS: I knew I had to make some big plays for my teammates. They're counting on me, just like I'm counting on them. One goal is to take care of business and get some wins so we can advance to the next round. That's what we did tonight. Q. Deontae, two‑part question. First of all, those last two three‑point looks that you got, especially the last one, have you ever been so open on a three‑pointer? And the second part of the question, when you have that much time, what do you think about before you shoot? Because you took a long time to get them off. DEONTAE HAWKINS: Get the ball right. Make sure the ball is perfect in my hands and be confident in shooting it. Look at it going in. And I missed some that open. Q. DeVaughn, to follow up, when you guys were committing all those fouls, what was going on that made you say‑‑ why were you committing all those fouls? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: That's a good question. We just‑‑ we weren't playing good defense, I guess. Everybody was fouling. I think me and MiKyle fouled out. Q. DeVaughn, I think you just had 2 points in the first half. Were you thinking at halftime you kind of needed to find your gear offensively? Is that something you kind of‑‑ Coached maybe talked to you about at halftime? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: Most definitely. I shot a couple shots in the first half. I was just a step behind, I feel like, and I wasn't playing as hard as I normally do, and I felt like I had no choice but to pick it up in the second half if we wanted a chance to win. Q. Congratulations. You now play Wichita State. What do you have to do to beat them? DEONTAE HAWKINS: Just got to execute. We got to come in the game with a great mindset. Like I said, execute and just play hard. Just play our game and play our role. Q. DeVaughn, you played them twice. Two pretty close games the first two times. Does that give you guys a little bit of confidence going into tomorrow with Wichita that you guys are just right there with them except for a couple plays? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: It gives us confidence. Wichita State is a very good team, and I feel like we match up with them pretty well talent‑wise, and tomorrow should be a pretty good game. Q. Justin McCloud hit a couple big three‑pointers in the first half. What has he done to evolve as a role player throughout the season? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: One thing I like about Justin, no matter what's going on, if he's playing or not playing, he's a great team player. Any time he comes in, he makes shots, of course. That's what he is, a shooter. He just knows his role on a team. He does a great job at it. Q. DeVaughn, this is the second game in a row, with them too, that you guys were kind of able to make some plays down the stretch. How much more confidence now do you have today than you did even on Saturday that you guys can really kind of make the plays down the stretch when you need it? DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: On Saturday we had to grind it out too. It was close going down to the end, and we made a couple big plays towards the end. We did the same thing pretty much tonight. Some guys made big plays. THE MODERATOR: Deontae, same thing. DEONTAE HAWKINS: I didn't hear you. Q. Some guys made some big plays at the end of the game. Does it give you confidence? DEONTAE HAWKINS: Does it give us confidence? Yes, it does give us confidence. Evansville is a pretty good team. They battle. We just execute it, play hard until the horn blows. Q. What were you able to do on defense to kind of contain D.J. Balentine, who finished 6 of 17 from the field? DEONTAE HAWKINS: I feel like we did a good job with our help defense. Whoever was on him personally did a good job, I feel like the help defenders getting in the gaps when he would drive. I think we did a good job helping. We did a good job. We won. DEVAUGHN AKOON‑PURCELL: Making them feel uncomfortable. That's what we did. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow in the semifinals. Congratulations on your victory. We will hold here with Coach Muller for a while longer. Q. Coach, congratulations. Seeing Deontae play for the first time in person, it seems like you have a lot of confidence in him. I know one time he taps you out, and you gave him a break. But then he came back and hit a long three from the corner, then he had a three‑point play for you. What type of player is he? And are you really impressed with his play today in this situation? COACH MULLER: Yeah, he played extremely well. Not only his shooting ability, he got some big rebounds down the stretch. Teddy is a talented player. He's got a confidence about him. He may play good. He may play bad, but it's never because of where you're playing, whether it's on the road. That stuff doesn't bother him. For his first time around, that's unique. When we need his shooting ability, he can stretch the defense. He hasn't shot it well recently. He missed shots the last three games, but he's been shooting well in practice. So big shots. Those last two threes he hit were both huge, and then the and-one. He's not scared. He's not scared at the moment. Q. And you talked about the defense in the first half, but did you think the team was just kind of a step slow the whole time? COACH MULLER: Absolutely. First of all, Evansville was executing at a high rate. I've said a lot of times their offense is so hard to guard because there are a lot of long possessions, and you have to withstand their screening. One breakdown leads to a basket. That's what motion screening does. We didn't execute. Our ball pressure wasn't very good. We were getting beat baseline. I thought, honestly, two of our first year guys were really a step slow. And it showed. Daishon Knight did an unbelievable job on D.J. Balentine the entire game, when he was on him. But our first half defense was abysmal. Q. Coach, looking ahead to Wichita State here, 2012, do you remember that semifinal, 65‑64? What do you remember about it if you do? COACH MULLER: I wasn't here yet. I remember watching it. So I can't speak to the actual game. That was the year before I got here. I probably can't talk about that too much. Q. Dan, a couple of turnovers there in the backcourt. Just the thing about this team is that you guys had to make it exciting to the end. COACH MULLER: Want to keep you in your seat. That first one was completely uncharacteristic to throw the ball on the end line, and we had the game in hand at that time. The travel was‑‑ we had a great crew, great. I'm talking about high level. This is not a‑‑ I don't know. If he didn't travel for sure, I don't have anything to say about it. He got off balance and didn't handle the pressure. We have to handle the situation better. We had the ball in the best free‑throw shooter's hands, but clearly bad times for turnovers. Q. You had that run in the middle of the second half where they were going to the free‑throw line every time. What finally got them out of that? Or did they get out of it? COACH MULLER: We went zone. We fouled 5 out of 6 possessions. We talked about it a lot because Evansville goes to the foul line a lot. We talked about playing with discipline, playing without fouling. Again, what they do is such long possessions, they get you, they drive you at the last second, and you put your hands out or you get in the wrong position, and you end up committing a foul. So it's disappointing, but honestly what we did at that point, which we actually did last game also, which worked very well, is we went to our zone. Once we went zone, we guarded without fouling. Q. Coach, congratulations on the win, first of all. Looking ahead to tomorrow, this is your third shot at Wichita State now. How do you plan to attack them maybe differently than you did the first two times? COACH MULLER: I got to break the film down again. Wichita State is great. We all know that. They're one of the best teams in the country. Their personnel is high level. But their toughness and experience is what makes them great. Specifically with their guards. So I'm not sure what we'll do differently yet. We did have a couple of close games, which we'll be able to look at. But we got out‑‑ if you're going beat Wichita State, you've got to out‑tough them, and that's going to be hard to do because they're going to show up to every game and play with incredible toughness and incredible composure. So that's going to be a big challenge for us tomorrow. Q. Dan, for this specific team, what does this victory mean tonight? COACH MULLER: Well, I'm proud of them. We've had a couple of close games recently. To get to 20 minutes and to beat some quality teams and to have an opportunity to play in the semifinals against one of the best teams in the country and to hopefully put us in good position for postseason play of some sort, we're in a good place. We're not satisfied, obviously. No team is as they continue to win. But I'm proud of what a lot of new guys and a lot of second‑year guys have done this year. Q. Coach, you just kind of mentioned‑‑ he stole my thunder, what I was going to ask you. 20 wins, you think you deserve‑‑ I know you plan on playing Sunday afternoon. If you're in a good spot, do you think you deserve to be in postseason? COACH MULLER: Yeah, I do. I'll talk more about it when we officially know where we're at, if we happen to lose a game. But I do think we're in good position with our nonconference schedule, some quality wins, and what we've done in a great league. So I hope so. Obviously, that's not on my mind right now, but if you look at our resume, we've got a pretty good resume in a lot of ways. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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