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STATE FARM MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2019

St. Louis, Missouri - Arch Madness

Valparaiso - 77, Indiana State - 55

THE MODERATOR: The victorious Crusaders are here. They have a date tomorrow now with Loyola. They'll play at noon against the No. 1 seed Ramblers. Coach Matt Lottich, Javon Freeman, and Markus Golder represent the university. We'll start off with a statement from the head coach.

MATT LOTTICH: First I just want to say how nice and special this event is. This is a first-class tournament. It's unbelievable coming in here. Feels like an NCAA Tournament game. I feel like they do a good job. Maybe that's why the Valley has had a lot of success playing in NCAA Tournaments. It really has that feel. Really proud to be in the league.

Really proud to have won a game in this tournament. As we look at kind of the way that we performed towards the end of the year, it was just -- it seemed like we were always having something, some adversity, some turned ankle, something. The guys continued to just show up and practice and practice hard.

So for them to have a moment like this in a game like this is special. The thing that I point to is kind of -- we had six turnovers at halftime and finished the game at seven. We've been working really hard at ball security. Our guys did a great job of that. We shot the ball well from the field. Offense has been a little bit of a struggle for us. Shot the ball well from the free-throw line. That's been a little bit of a struggle for us. They've gotten better, and they've gotten better because they showed up and worked really hard.

It's good to see Markus Golder flying around out there even though he's been handicapped with an ankle. So good to see him flying around. And obviously, Javon was special and hit some big shots for us.

Q. Javon, my question for you is tell me what was explained to you on the Indiana State scouting report. I know you're a good defender. You got a lot of your steals strafing them from behind. Tell me what you saw in that and also what sense you get as a player how deflating that is for the team you're playing against.
JAVON FREEMAN: I mean, on the scouting report, all it said was to stay in front. As long as I stayed in front, I would be fine. But, of course, it don't always work out as planned, so I just tried to like -- when I saw the ball switch to the other end, just backtrack and make sure my team got it.

MATT LOTTICH: We call it sticky fingers.

Q. Markus, you hit your first shot. You turned to the stands, I think you nodded. Your mom was here. I know last time she came to see a game, you lasted five minutes with that ankle. How big was it for her to be here? And you looked like you had a little bit something extra today.
MARKUS GOLDER: The relationship between me and my mom is just unbreakable. There's always a little something extra when my family's in the stands. So everything I do is for them. The way I portray myself is just a reflection of her. Tonight it was just a blessing for her to be able to come out here and support me.

Q. Coach, how is Deion Lavender doing, and what impact has he made on your program this year?
MATT LOTTICH: Deion's been -- he's fine. I think you might be referring to why he didn't start in the second half. He's fine. The impact is we went into the off-season, we didn't have a senior on our roster, and we wanted to, and obviously with the new rules and college basketball, there's just going to be a lot of graduate transfers and things of that nature. So we did a lot of research on a lot of guys, and we thought Deion could bring a valuable leadership, lead guard to us, and he did that. He finished the league second in assists, has been -- gotten a lot better. Huge shots down the stretch for us tonight.

Really there's no substitute for experience, and Deion has a ton of it, and he's the only senior on our roster.

Q. Markus, this one's for you: Indiana State's up nine in the first half. It's not looking good from Valparaiso's perspective. What pulled the team together, and what got you guys back on track to end up finishing with a seven-point halftime lead?
MARKUS GOLDER: We just held our head high. We knew we were going to stick to our game plan, and it was eventually going to pan out.

My teammates played great tonight. Like I said, we stuck to the game plan pretty well. We worked as hard as we could. Obviously, that's the big thing. We just competed, and that's something we haven't done in a while.

Q. Matt, you knew the run was coming, and they got it to six a couple times. In the last month, you've given the game away at that point. What was the difference tonight?
MATT LOTTICH: You know, Paul, a lot of coaching this team has been in the face of adversity, how do you respond? And I think for a lot of this year, there's been certain instances where we haven't had that. We haven't folded. But we put our head down, we think about the previous play, and a lot of the coaching has been move on. Move on to the next play. Dwelling on that doesn't help us execute down the stretch. And the guys have really bought into it.

We call them culture meetings. We had a lot of culture meetings talking about this. We actually watched a really good video, Kobe Bryant talking about it today, and kind of his mindset. It's nice when these guys can hear it from someone like him, and you know they're attentive.

They did a good job tonight. They had moments where they probably could have hung their head, and they didn't. They responded.

Q. Coach, what does a 20-point win do for your confidence going in to face No. 1 seed Loyola?
MATT LOTTICH: Is that the same team that played in the Final Four last year? No, it's just good for us to get a win. We know that Loyola's good. They're well coached. They're talented. We're just going to go, get a rest, prep, and come to play.

Q. Javon, your first experience in the Valley Arch Madness stage. What was this whole experience like for you?
JAVON FREEMAN: I mean, it's a very good and fun experience, but I know we came down here to win games. So just have to brush it off and play my game.

THE MODERATOR: Gentleman, they very much. Good luck tomorrow. Noon tomorrow, Ramblers and Crusaders.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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