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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN DIEGO

March 16, 2018

San Diego, California

Marshall - 81, Wichita State - 75

THE MODERATOR: We will start with an opening statement from Coach Dan D'Antoni.

DAN D'ANTONI: Long time! We've never done it before. That was the first time in school history that we've won a tournament game, except for my NIT team where we won two. So we've got a little bit to do. I like these guys, I like the chance riding with them, fun to be on a trip with and they're fun to watch to play and it's real fun when we win. So we're going to try to do that one more time. I told them the beginning the goal is to win the NCAA Tournament. Wherever we get in the car driving down the road to that championship, when it stops we'll all get off we'll be happy because we like who is in the car. We like the journey we're on. We're looking forward to the next leg, and I have confidence in these guys that they'll give you a real good ball game and got a great chance to win.

THE MODERATOR: Our student-athletes are C.J. Burks, Jon Elmore and Jarrod West. We will take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. C.J., you're credited with the steal there at the end. Did you knock the ball away first?
C.J. BURKS: Yes, sir, just timed the dribble, really came up with the steal. He was playing a little loose with the ball. So timing is everything.

Q. What do you think about Rondale calling that timeout?
C.J. BURKS: That was a smart play. Him and the coaching staff letting us know that there was timeouts left and how many we have good IQ of him to remember how many timeouts we had.

Q. Jon, y'all went up 6 with about two minutes left coming out of that timeout you huddled everybody up. What did you say to them?
JON ELMORE: I told them don't get caught up in the atmosphere. The bench was celebrating. Everybody was hyped. The crowd was hyped, but there is still time left on the clock. They could get a 3. We can turn the ball over. So we came together, settled everybody down and told them we had to keep making plays and we did a great job of that, closed out the game and credit to the watch at that. They're a heck of a team and you see what they do year-in, year-out and we came together from the jump and it was a great team win. So hopefully we can keep rolling.

Q. One of the possible match-ups is West Virginia. What would it mean for all you guys to have that in the second round?
DAN D'ANTONI: Hell, I am still celebrating this one. You're off on the other one? I have no idea. First of all, they haven't won. Second of all, they're going to have to do what we just did. We're not ready for that. Let's enjoy this a little bit and we'll get ready for West Virginia and I really don't have to worry. These are all gym rats. They're going to be ready to go when it's time to go. You want to say something there Jarrod? That's Virginia, so you can ask Jarrod there.

JARROD WEST: We're excited for the opportunity. I thought it was fun to beat Wichita State. We're really excited and then like Coach said we will watch this within, see who wins, study film and we will know our personnel before our next game.

Q. Obviously, strategy was to put a 6'6, 6-8 guy on you and try to muscle you and try to be physical with you. How did you deal with that?
JON ELMORE: I'm getting big! I've been in the weight room. Just kidding! This is another day in the park. Basketball is what I love to do and whoever that guy is in front of me I'm trying to crush him. Every play I want to play him out, get around him, get him in foul trouble, get the assist. I don't care who you put on me I'm going to attack you 40 minutes, and that's what we it did tonight.

I want to credit my teammates. They put me in a lot of advantageous situations, a lot of stuff we ran, puts me in good spots. C.J. made big plays. Jarrod made big plays. Everybody on the team made huge plays for us tonight. So I scored a little bit and made a couple plays, but I couldn't do that without these team mates.

Q. Any adjustments?
JON ELMORE: Not really. Played my game, man. Been playing ball now for a while, getting old, going to be sore, but I go out there every game and try to do my best. That's what we did.

Q. Coach, yesterday you said one of the downfalls or pitfalls of making the tournament is you become so famous that I think your exact quote was, "You walked in your house and your wife recognized you"?
DAN D'ANTONI: Right.

Q. I wanted to know if you are ready for what's going to happen?
DAN D'ANTONI: Wait until they get out of here. I can't tell those stories in front of them.

Q. Jon, I heard an analyst on ESPN yesterday saying that Wichita was vulnerable to being broken down off the dribble. Was that kind of your scouting report for them? You're going to the hole an awful lot.
JON ELMORE: Like you said, we didn't want to settle tonight. We wanted to attack them all forty minutes. We got some of their bigs in foul trouble early. We got some hand shakes where we were getting by them and our guys did a great job of getting their shoulders around them. We had some good driving lanes. Threw a couple of alley-oops that set the roof on fire, but that's Marshall basketball. I want to credit teammates. They made huge plays down the stretch and without that we wouldn't have won. Just a great win.

Q. Any of the players want to talk about your team mate from Bosnia? The impact he had on this game, particularly his one-on-one dribble drives and how you dealt with him getting his fourth foul?
JON ELMORE: Ajdin Penava is one of those guys who has gotten better every game in my opinion. Starting last year about halfway through he started progressing and you look at him now compared to last year it's a night and day difference. He's a gym rat, like Coach said. He has worked his rear end off to get where he is now. He picks up a couple of stupid fouls every now and then, but you can't put a number on what he means to us.

Like you said, he made one-on-one plays down the stretch, and we've confidence in him and when the game gets tight and we need a big play we can go through him, Jarrod, C.J., anybody on the team is willing to step up, so we do it by committee and we're going to hopefully keep doing that.

Q. All three of you guys had huge steals in the game. Did you come in thinking that scrappy defense would be a key to success?
JARROD WEST: Defensively we like to take pride in our defense. I know people don't think of us that way, they always think of us high octane, high-scoring offense, but we knew defensively we had to lock in this game and they score a lot of points. I think we all took it personal in our match -- up, Landry Shamet, Conner Frankamp, Zach Brown, Shaquille Morris. They are all good players. They got a lot of tradition and have been here and done this before. We knew we had to lock in. C.J. made a big is steal. I made a big steal and Jon got a big steel on the trap. I think all the big plays we made down the stretch helped us win the game.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Questions for Coach?

Q. You said your wife finally recognized you, and I was curious when you expect these next few days to be like after this win?
DAN D'ANTONI: I'm really not worried about the next few days. It doesn't matter. I've kind of lay around the shadows sometimes and enjoy life. I enjoy all of Marshall when I was there as a player. Enjoy it now. It's a great university. I might run into Chuck over there someplace and I get near him it ruins my reputation. Now they're recognizing me beside him, so I'm in trouble. Coaches, your home life gets cut down and my wife is a true warrior. Probably kept us together for the last 20 years. I'm not there as much. Now she recognizes who I am. I hope she still likes me. We'll see. I live a good life. I'm very fortunate.

DAN D'ANTONI: How about that defense? Not Antonio no more. D'antoni, defense!

Q. You're not much for a big halftime speech, but 11-1. They put an 11-1 run on you to finish the first half. Talk about how your players adjusted to that and got past that.
DAN D'ANTONI: You know, we practice every day and we tell them, the way we play you can go up 20 and not be in trouble with losing. You can be down 20 with great opportunity to win. We do that every day. Every day in practice we play one play, one possession and then look up and see the score at the end.

I like our style. I like our kids. Our kids fit the style real well. They're hustlers. They put their heart on the line, and usually I'm pretty good at quotes. But I'm so excited I'm losing my mind! I don't know, Doug. I'm just happy where we are and I'm never at a loss for words. Hell, I'm at a loss for words.

Q. For those of us that haven't seen your team was this a typical performance stylistically for your team and specifically for Jon Elmore.
DAN D'ANTONI: Jon is leading. If you took all four stats together, scoring, assists, rebounds, steals, there is no one in the country that matches him in all five categories. He led conference USA scoring 22 plus I believe, and if I get the numbers off a little bit they're off a little bit, but led conference in assists, I think over 6, 7, maybe up to 8, I don't know. He's top 15 rebounder in our conference, and he's in the top 5 or 6 in steals.

Is it typical? He did it all year long. Jon is a special player, and he's proven that year-round. He was M.V.P. of our tournament. He's a coach on the floor. There's a lot of times I step aside to let him give what he thinks, and he and I a good time together. We've always enjoyed, he's funny. He'll come over and go, that was pretty good, wasn't it, Coach? When he made a good play, and I say, "Shut up, Jon" and he'll say that was pretty good. I know you liked that! "Yeah that was pretty good."

He's a tough, tough competitor. C.J. the same way. This whole team. We have three West Virginia Players of the Year on the team, one probably should have been. We started this journey losing, my journey for four years, losing the first 15 games. They never quit. It started from the very beginning. We never quit that season. We don't quit during the game and we don't quit when it's over.

As soon as this tournament is over at the end of the tournament we get the trophy. They will be back in the gym tomorrow. That's who they are. We try to pick 'em that way. We're proud of Conference USA. I see Judy sitting over there and I hope we made you proud. Conference USA is probably the most underrated conference in the country, 5-0 in tournament games. So you have Western and Middle and San Antonio and Old Dominion. They're 25-7. How do you get left out of a tournament at 25-7? But they prepared us. They hardened our game. Hardened who we are. We've been up against competition. It's not as recognized as some, but it's brutal. It's brutal to come through Conference USA.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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