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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 16, 2012Chris AllenScott ChristophersonFred HoibergRoyce WhiteLOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with questions for the Iowa State student‑athletes. Q. Royce, it's pretty well‑known you almost went to Kentucky before going to Iowa State. What was it that kept you from getting on that plane to Lexington? ROYCE WHITE: Just kind of a certain deal. It was pretty much a call one night, and I was going to need to get on the plane the next day. That was kind of uncomfortable for me much. I had met with Coach before via phone, and there were some things going on, such as my son being born, and we needed to be in close proximity to Minnesota anyway. So it's a number of things didn't work out the way that I would have liked. Q. Following up on that, it's one of the stories of the last couple days is you. So it's sort of been portrayed as you didn't want to get on the plane because you could be uncomfortable flying. But there's more to it, then? You're talking now about the birth of your son. That's a pretty dramatic event in anyone's life. Not to blow a good story. ROYCE WHITE: The mother of my firstborn son, we had just found out that she was going to have a son right around February, January. And as you know, pregnancy gets really tough in those main months right there, right where I was going to be starting the season off. And I didn't know whether I was going to be able to play that season off. It was important for my mother to be there and her mother to be around. I've got two sets of grandparents. They were all very supportive, and it helped that we were only three hours away. Q. But you did have a chance to meet Coach Cal, is that correct? ROYCE WHITE: Yeah. Q. How did that meeting go with you and your mom and Coach? What did you think about him? ROYCE WHITE: He's a good guy. I grew up watching Calipari and his teams, and his rep speaks for itself. It was kind of amazing for me even to be there just meeting him in person. You see somebody on TV, and he's kind of like an icon for college basketball. To meet him in person was fascinating in itself. We had a good talks about a lot of things. It was good enough where I wanted to go to Lexington, and it just didn't work out the way we planned it, and Iowa State was a better fit. Q. Chris, Coach Calipari talked about what a great team you all are and how you know each other, so forth and so on. How does a collection of players who so many of you started out different places merge into a unit that plays so well right now? CHRIS ALLEN: I feel like, when you're on a team full of good guys, it plays out itself. If you're around‑‑ if you surround yourself with good people and you're a good guy itself, that means everything works out. Just sitting out all last year with these guys and being able to practice with Scotty and Royce and Babb and everyone, it helped us build last year for this year. Q. That was sort of along the lines I was going to ask, but, Scott, I know you guys have been asked this a hundred times. How has all this worked with all you guys coming from all these different schools into one melting pot? SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I think we did have a lot of guys that came in from other schools, and everybody kind of had their separate set of circumstances or reasons for coming in. I think any time you've got five, six guys coming from different schools, coming together, I think we all kind of felt that a lot of people maybe had doubts about us, and I think we were able to kind of bond, use that to bond together. We wanted to show everybody that we weren't just like a collection of‑‑ one word I heard was misfit toys. That wasn't‑‑ that's not who we are as people or anything like that. Everybody had their own set of circumstances, but I think we really bonded over that and kind of used that to come together and play the way we have. Q. Scott and Chris, what can you guys do as guards to slow down, stop, prevent, whatever, Kentucky's lobbing the ball inside because they're going to lob it in there and get some dunks. They're going to try to. Can you guys do anything, or is that all on Royce? SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: It's definitely five guys guarding the ball. We've got to do a great job of trying to keep their guards in front of us and try to make them shoot contested jump shots over us because, if you do give up guard penetration to the middle, they have incredible athleticism and length, and they can just kind of flip it up there on the rim. They've got guys that can go get it. So it's going to be really important that we shrink the floor and keep the ball in front of us. CHRIS ALLEN: Definitely, it's going to be a team effort. All five guys got to buckle down and play defense. If one person gets beat, you've got to know your team is going to be there to have your back and vice versa. That's really all it's going to take is just team defense. Q. Royce, what can you guys do to kind of neutralize the impact Anthony Davis is going to have on the game? ROYCE WHITE: Just stay solid. Whatever Coach throws down as a game plan, he's watched the film. He's great at finding good players' weaknesses and strengths. Whatever he puts down in the game plan is what we need to follow. He proved last night that he's a superior coach when it comes to planning for good players. Q. Sort of along those same lines, you had two of your best games this season against Kansas and Thomas Robinson. You're going to be playing the other Player of the Year candidate, major Player of the Year candidate. Just what sort of confidence do you take from those performances against the Jayhawks? ROYCE WHITE: Not really anything special. I just try to go out and play as hard as I can every game, no matter who it is. Two different types of players, Thomas Robinson and Anthony Davis, two different builds, two different strengths. So it's not really much I could take from those performances other than the effort. Q. Chris, what‑‑ several Kentucky opponents have tried to be physical with them. Coach Calipari mentioned you coming from Michigan State, which is noted for physical toughness. How much toughness and physicality have you brought or learned from Michigan State? CHRIS ALLEN: Playing at State, if any of you guys have seen a practice, you see how it is. We might be doing rebounding drills for 30 minutes depending on how good we do it. Just that alone gets you in that mindset. When you're in a game, you don't really think when you're going to the basket to rebound. You're just going in there and bouncing off of people really. As far as toughness goes, with our team, I feel like‑‑ I just try to play as hard as I can. And we all, for the most part, we're pretty much on the same page as far as the defensive level. We're all over the place, I feel like. Q. Scott, obviously, Kentucky is known for having Davis and Terrence Jones inside. How much will you guys attempt to try to make him force you guys to beat you from the outside or try to make sure they can prove themselves that they can hit threes and things like that. SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: I think we're going to go over our game plan here out on the floor. So we haven't totally talked about stuff like that. Obviously, we know that their front line is incredibly athletic and skilled and things like that. That's not just with Kentucky, that's any team. You don't really want to let them beat you at the basket. You prefer to try to let them take contested jump shots on the perimeter. So regardless of what the actual game plan is, I'm sure that will entail trying to make not just those two, but the rest of their team as well, try to beat us by taking contested jump shots. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. Good luck. I'd like to welcome now Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg to the dais. We're going to begin with questions from the media. Q. Coach, Royce is such an unusual kind of player with size and guard skills. What was the evolution like in determining the best way to use him was as a point forward? COACH HOIBERG: Well, we had a great opportunity this summer to go play on a European trip, and we spent ten days in Italy. We were able to practice for ten days leading into that trip, and we were able to experiment with a lot of different lineups. That's when we found that he was going to be as good an option as anybody. We had a heck of a point guard last year in Diante Garrett. He was a second team all‑Big 12 performer. We were struggling how we were going to replace him. We didn't have that pure point guard. We put the ball in Royce's hands, and immediately he showed how unselfish he was, how he got people involved and how fast he was at getting the ball to our shooters. We've got a team that really can utilize those strengths, with him getting into the paint and being able to space the floor with our shooters. We talk in practice about spacing every single day, and we try to create opportunities for Royce to take advantage of that. Q. Fred, how big of an impact does Anthony Davis have, especially on the defensive end? COACH HOIBERG: He's the best defensive player in the country. He's as good as I've seen of a kid that age to be able to protect the rim. You just don't score going to the paint, especially if you try to avoid contact. Just he's going to swat it right back at you, and that's going to lead to a fast break, and that's where they thrive. They take advantage of turnovers. Any time you make a mistake, they capitalize probably better than anybody in the country. He's the anchor back there. He's the guy that protects us. So we'll try to do some different things to see if we can get him away from the basket. But you've got to be really careful. You've got to be very selective when you go into the paint with that kid at the rim. Q. On the other end, defending them, they seem to have so much height and such great leaping ability that they're able to play over the top of teams almost. What kind of challenge does that pose, and what are the other challenges defending them? COACH HOIBERG: You're right. It does pose a lot of problems. They start with an extremely big front line, and when Marquis Teague gets the ball and he's able to break down the defense, they just kill new there. Stopping the dribble is very important. Same thing last night against UConn. We had to do a good job of containing the dribble so, one, they couldn't get in there and kick it out to their shooters. And two, you have to force up the line, and they just throw lobs on you all day. That's what Kentucky is looking for you to do. You've got to do the best you can. They're athletic. They're long. They're going to get some dunks tomorrow. It's just the way they play. You just have to try to limit their runs. You saw what they did to Western Kentucky yesterday. Once they started going on that run, they're going downhill, and Western Kentucky is going uphill, and it makes for a long night. Q. Coach, can you talk about your memories of playing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament? COACH HOIBERG: It was a heck of a game, I remember that. I remember Johnny Orr yelling at Rick Pitino to get back in the coaches box the entire game. It was one of the most exciting games I've ever been a part of. It was 106‑98. I had 2 of those 98. I fouled out, which was the only game in my college career that I fouled out of a game. But it was exciting. We won our first round matchup against a very good UNC Charlotte team, which gave us a chance to play against Kentucky. And then to be a part of that whole process of what happened in the next two games where you see that shot Laettner hits at the beginning of almost every broadcast in the NCAA, and we were part of that whole process. So it was exciting. Wish we could have pulled out the win. I remember Mashburn was unstoppable that game. Q. Coach, you pointed out earlier what Western was able to do. They were able to back Davis up to the goal quite a bit. He was not standing his ground. He does seem to avoid conflict or contact. Doesn't make smash‑mouth basketball. Any game plan to simply throw some guys at him, waste some fouls, and either frustrate him or go smash‑mouth on him? COACH HOIBERG: We'll try some different things. Again, I think you have to change it up. You can't stick with one thing offensively or defensively with this team. You have to try to make it difficult on them. And, again, if you go in there and try to challenge them at the rim‑‑ we did some of that last night where Drummond and Oriakhi were blocking our shots. You just have to be careful because it leads to fast break opportunities for them. You have to have shot opportunities as well and get back in transition so they don't get the lob dunks. They get so much momentum when that happens. This is a home game for them. 12,000 people at their shootaround the other day. This is such an unbelievable following that they have. I see scout games at Rupp Arena, and just the passion that their fans have for Kentucky basketball, it's going to be fun. Our guys are going to go out there. Everybody is picking them. Everybody was picking UConn last night. We'll go out there and play hard and hopefully play well. Q. Coach, you've talked about last night that you're probably going to be‑‑ everybody is going to pick Kentucky for this game. You talk about these guys playing the underdog role throughout the season and how they responded to that. COACH HOIBERG: From the very beginning of the season, we were picked eighth out of the ten schools in the Big 12 conference. Right there, you could see they were taking that as a challenge. They went out and played with a chip on their shoulder every single time we took the floor, and this continued to happen all the way through Big 12 tournament game. We're a 3 seed, Texas is a 6. We're underdogs. You look at‑‑ I think I read something where we were only on the pick in 32 percent of the brackets on the ESPN Challenge. We have played that underdog role, and we've played it well. Our guys have gone out there, taken it personally. And hopefully, we'll do that again tomorrow night. Q. Sort of along that line, maybe it's not the ideal way to do it, but how difficult is it to take a team of so many transfers and mold them into a successful unit, and is that the way you want your program to develop? Do you see it changing in the future? COACH HOIBERG: I'll tell you what my philosophy was when I got the job. We tried to get as much talent into the program as possible. If you don't have talent, if you don't have experience, it's going to be tough to win. It's going to be tough to build it exclusively with freshmen. We didn't just have the philosophy, okay, we're going to take every transfer in the country. We had a very extensive background. We did extensive background work on each of the guys that we ended up taking, and it just happened to be one of those years where we got lucky on a few of them. So those guys have done a great job. Even you saw last year when those four guys played in the scout team together that they were building very valuable chemistry that was going to go into this season. They couldn't travel per NCAA rule, and they stayed back and worked out together when the team was on the road. They watched games together. That's very important. I've played basketball for a lot of years. Every good team I played for had great chemistry. We talk about that all the time, and these guys certainly have that. Q. Coach, earlier Coach Calipari talked about the process of trying to recruit Royce and how close he came. What was it like for you guys in terms of getting him? COACH HOIBERG: Well, the previous staff at Iowa State had recruited Royce. In fact, I think Royce was ‑‑ the first visit that he took was to Iowa State. So there's a little bit of a history there. I think the proximity to his home in Minneapolis was very important. We're three hours down the road on Interstate 35. And we just talked‑‑ he knew about me as a player when I played with the Minnesota Timberwolves and worked in the front office up there. And immediately, we hit it off. He's a kid that came in. He's a very talkative kid, if you haven't noticed. And just he's a guy that's a lot of fun to be around. I'm really proud of him for what he's accomplished this season not only on the floor but off the floor as well, for going public with his anxiety disorder and helping people. I've had calls from parents of kids that have that disorder, just making sure that I thank him for helping those kids cope. It's a real thing, and he's gone public with that and has really, I think, done a great job of helping, especially kids, try to help them live normal lives even though they have anxiety. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for your time. Good luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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