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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2015Josh HawkinsonIke IroegbuErnie KentLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Cal – 84 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Washington State head coach Ernie Kent and student‑athletes Ike Iroegbu and Josh Hawkinson. Coach, an opening comment. COACH KENT: First of all, I want to talk about Cal because I thought they did a really, really good job in the game executing. They shot the ball extremely well from the 3. I thought Kravish was just spectacular with his play inside, and we didn't have a lot of answers in there for him. And I felt like we had a difficult time defending the perimeter as well, too, which has been some problems we've had off and on obviously all year. And I also want to say when I took over this program 11 months ago, I saw a group of young men that lacked a lot of confidence. I saw a group of young men that had been through so much the last two years. And as a testament to their character, they have just been phenomenal this year in terms of allowing us to coach them, handling themselves both on the floor and off the floor, the travel, how they handled themselves in airport and hotels, just a really, really special group to be around. The record may not reflect it, but they had a lot of victories this year, in my opinion, just in terms of how much growth took place within our program. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Ernie, was any part of your game plan or how much of it was built around David Kravish coming into the game? COACH KENT: He had not hurt us too bad in the last two games. We talked about keeping the ball out of his hands and keeping from touching it so much and just didn't think we did a very good job of that. Once he got rolling and got his confidence, he was very, very difficult to stop. So I wouldn't say he was the No. 1 focal point just because the guards are so good and Mathews shooting so well and Tyrone torched us for 21 in the first half alone when we played them last, but it was certainly a focal point to try and limit his touches, though. Q. They had a lot of second‑chance points or hustle plays early in the game. Were you surprised at your team's energy and focus coming out? COACH KENT: The surprise wasn't so much of the hustle points, it was the hustle points that we gave up to them. I thought there were several opportunities that we could have grabbed rebounds. We were kind of bumbling into each other a little bit. I don't know if that's nerves or whatever. But I didn't think we got off to a great start to the game. Consequently, they had tremendous confidence after the first, eight, nine, minutes of the game. It was a different Cal team that we had to deal with. Q. Can you talk about performance Bird gave defensively chasing Lacy most of the game and how they held down your two top scorers, Josh and DaVonté? COACH KENT: I thought they did a really good job out on the perimeter with using athletic guards to switch and took us out of some things. Again, I think for us, when we defend and we have energy at that end of the floor, usually we can get out and run get some easy buckets. They eliminated a lot of that. We lost the offensive rebounds and gave them easy putbacks. It's hard to run on a team when they're scoring, if they're shooting 67percent from the 3 and Kravish having the game he has. There's not a lot of transition opportunities for us, which doesn't allow DaVonté to get out and run and creates an opportunity for easy buckets. Everything became a half‑court game. They were pretty good defensively in the half court, taking some things away from us. Q. You guys will both be back. Can you talk about this year as a development? IKE IROEGBU: This year was hard coming off what we had last year. And when we first met Coach Kent, he talked about how we're going to play fast. And I felt like we did that for the most part this year. And me and Josh, us being underclassmen, I feel we learned a lot from our three seniors, Jordan, Dexter, and DaVonté. They did a good job for the most part, did a good job telling us how to handle on and off the court. And Coach Kent instilled confidence in us that we haven't seen before. So I really appreciate everyone that was around us for this year and can't wait for next year. JOSH HAWKINSON: Pretty much the same thing what he said. We've been working a lot as a unit and growing over this past year. And we didn't want it to end this way for our seniors, Dex, DaVonté, and Jordan. But I think we have a strong corps of guys coming back to make a strong run next year. Q. Ernie, again, Jordan big first half. Could you speak a little bit to maybe not the reasons for him not carrying that into the second half as much? COACH KENT: A big thing with Jordan, as you know, is confidence. And I thought they started the game with the small lineup. So we instantly went inside. I thought he got off to a great start to the game. Probably had a few more buckets that he could have scored on the floor that really, really would have helped his confidence. The foul trouble really knocked him out of rhythm, I thought, because he was starting to score, get a feel for the game. Picked up the second quick foul and consequently picked up the third foul as well, too, in the second half. I felt they had a big difference on his game and his confidence inside. Q. What's just your message to your three seniors as they just conclude their careers at WSU? COACH KENT: A couple things. I told them every team in the country, when it's all said and done, there's one champion at the end of the year. And everybody else feels like us because when your season ends, it's an abrupt end to everything, the emotion and all that stuff. For those three seniors, however, when their careers are over, they need to really take some time and stop and reflect in terms of how much growth and development that happened with them in their lives. Because if you knew each one of their individual stories, they are already a success in their life for being here and handling themselves like they handled themselves. Because those are some strong character men down there that did a tremendous job of laying an outstanding foundation. So I told them that this program, my staff, in particular, myself, we will forever be indebted to what they did for us this year, because they did a lot for this team behind the scenes, just by being able to allowing themselves to be transparent and show their strength of character, because it's outstanding. Q. Ernie, DaVonté specifically, we saw the emotion there at the end of the game, a guy that gave so much heart to this program. Could you talk about when you see somebody that it means so much to and that career comes to an end, what specifically you think about him? COACH KENT: Specifically, you want him to play again, particularly for the seniors, you want to continue to play and play as much as possible. Because, again, he's a player that in this day and age‑‑ I've said this several times with young people‑‑ I mean, there were 400 transfers in DivisionI college basketball two years ago. 500 last year. On course to be 600 this year. When you have a player that is your best player, one of your better players in the conference, he did not jump schools, like so many kids want to jump school because they can go have success more and get an opportunity to go to the NBA quicker or whatever. But he stayed. He stayed at a school. He was true to his school. If anybody deserves to have some success, it was DaVonté Lacy. To me part of the emotion you saw was a young man who loved his teammates, who loved his college experience, and therefore it was very difficult to see that come to an end, because that to me epitomizes what a college student‑athlete should be about‑‑ staying in, staying loyal, staying true blue, and staying at home and trying to build the basketball program. He had an opportunity to leave, and he did not do it. Q. First year with WSU, takes a while to build a program. Your thoughts on year one and how you feel moving ahead now with this program? COACH KENT: I was elated that the day Bill Moos gave me an opportunity to come back and work for him and get back into coaching. And every day, even through the adversity it's been a good day, because even through your losses, through the adversity of coming back, your basketball program was constantly learning and growing and getting better. With the year that DaVonté Lacy had and Jordan and Dex, their growth, it shows me again that relationships are extremely important at this level. And to see these two guys next to me, how much they've developed this year. I mean, Ike did a fabulous job for us. The game he had the last game of the season was just an incredible game. He's had some wonderful moments. And for Josh to lead this conference in rebounding, have the biggest, second biggest turnaround in college basketball in terms of most improved, I can't tell you how happy and how proud of those two. Because the three seniors led us to this point, and they left this program in tremendous hands with Ike and Josh. Junior Longrus is another. Those will be three very vocal, outstanding seniors that again are on track academically. They're your hardest workers. They'll be the guys we call on to lead us next year, and I think we've got great, great leadership coming down the road. Q. Josh, you made great improvements over this last summer, over this last offseason coming into this season. As you go into next season‑‑ it starts tomorrow, I guess. This offseason, where do you take your game? JOSH HAWKINSON: I definitely feel like I need to improve defensively out on the perimeter guarding quicker players that have to switch out on. And also getting stronger and doing a better‑‑ getting better position on the posts fronting. Not letting them get the ball. I felt Kravish exposed our big guys tonight especially. And continue to get quicker and improve my shot. Extend it out to the 3‑point range as well. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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