March 7, 2011
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Khris Middleton, BJ Holmes, & David Loubeau [mp3] |
College Station, Texas - Head coach Mark Turgeon and members of the 21st-ranked Texas A&M men's basketball team met with the media today to talk about the upcoming games Big 12 Tournament.
Texas A&M (23-7, 10-6 Big 12) earned the No. 3 seed in the 2011 Big 12 Tournament and will face the winner of Missouri/Texas Tech Thursday, March 10 at 8:30 p.m. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2 HD.
Full Big 12 Tournament coverage is available on Big12Sports.com.
Audio from today's press conference is available to the right in mp3 format.
HEAD COACH Mark Turgeon
Do you like your possible matchups in the Big 12 Championship?
"Well, they're all hard, no matter who you get. You can look at it that way. I'm just glad we have a bye. It shows you had a pretty good Big 12 season. Obviously Tech we've seen twice and Missouri we've seen once. They're both motion teams. They don't run a ton of plays, so the prep work...I wouldn't say it's easy, nothing's easy. But we guard motion every day in our shell and things. It all depends how you're going to guard ball screens, that's really the thing. Missouri's a little more complicated defensively. They'll run different presses and matchup zone and things. So they'll present more things to prepare for offensively. It's good for us because we won't find out who we're playing till 10:30 that night and to not have to go through 50 plays will help a little bit."
Either way you will probably get a pretty emotional matchup, a home court for Missouri or a Texas Tech team playing for Pat Knight...
"Yeah. If it is Pat, it means Tech's players have rallied around him and they beat a really good Missouri team. If it's Missouri, it's like you said, that night I think it will be Missouri and three south schools, so they've bought most of the tickets in the building. It could be a tough building for us."
After the Missouri game here, Khris Middleton was kind of dubbed by his teammates as the "go-to" guy. Can you talk about his play since?
"He's had I think one other game like that, at Oklahoma State where he put us on his back for a while. You know, teams are getting after him and they're well aware of where he is. And I think the more guys around him can play well, Khris is such a good passer that if they're going to double him or dig hard on him or come help when he drives, then other guys have got to make plays. He's had two phenomenal games this year, with Arkansas and Missouri. You look out there sometimes and think he maybe had 4 points, and he's got 13 or 14. So he still scores and gets double figures. Go-to guy? Yeah, we still go to him. We go to David, we go to B.J., we go to different guys late in the game depending on who's hot. If Naji's in there, we've gone to him a few times. So I'd still say he's a go-to guy, but is he a go-to every time like (Donald) Sloan was? No. I think (teams keying on Khris) has opened things up for some different guys, but guys have to continue to step up. And Khris can find them."
Do you ever urge him to be more aggressive maybe on both ends of the floor?
"I've just been urging him to play better. I think Khris got tired. There was a lot on his plate, I think he got tired and I think his body got tired. We've been resting him more. We did zilch after the Kansas game. We took Thursday off and we practiced maybe 20 minutes hard on Friday. We were out there for like an hour but we practiced hard for maybe 20 minutes, just to get guys fresh. I thought we were really fresh on Saturday. I thought Khris' fatigue was affecting his defense. So we've been on him pretty good about being a complete player, and just doing the best he can. Khris obviously doesn't have to score 25 points for us to win games, but we just want him to be the player we know he can be."
How pleased were you with the team's play this past week?
"I thought we played pretty well. We made some defensive mistakes at the end of the Baylor game and in the Kansas game that were just not very smart plays. And then both those teams made us pay for those mistakes. That's what you have to get rid of. If we get in another big game, are we going to make that same mistake, or do something we know we're not supposed to do defensively? Or, if we do make a mistake is that team going to make us pay like those other two teams did? But no, I was happy with us this week. I thought we really competed. I thought for about a 10 minute stretch in the second half against Texas Tech we were as good as we've been in a while. We were really good. We were not making a lot of shots-we missed a lot of open ones in that stretch, including free throws-but I thought to build it to 17 we were really playing at a pretty high level. Tech had been playing well, and they were playing hard and playing loose. I think in 7 of our last 8 games we've really played pretty darn well."
Talk a little bit about the All-Big 12 awards your team won...
"Yeah, I was thrilled. I didn't know if Khris or David was going to be second team. I knew one of them was and I figured the other one was going to be third. I was really happy BJ got honorable mention, I thought he definitely deserved that. I was pleased."
Could Dash Harris have made the All-Defensive team?
"Yeah, that was the only one I was angry about. I think Dash is if not the best, definitely one of the one, two or three best defenders in the league and gets no credit for it. He gives up a lot-Tristan Thompson and (Laurence) Bowers are on there because they block a lot of shots. People equate that with good defense. I think (Dogus Balbay) at Texas has a reputation of being a good defender, but I'd stack Dash up with anyone defensively. The job he did Saturday was remarkable. He's done it all year. He just doesn't get the credit. He's definitely a first-team defender, I think we all know that. You can't screen Dash, he gets through screens. The job he did on Keiton Page at Oklahoma State...I mean you could go on and on and on. He's had a really good year defensively, especially these last eight games. Dash has taken it to another level. What he did on (Alec) Burks? Are you kidding me? Burks couldn't get a shot off late in that game. So it's a little disappointing. It's real disappointing for him, because everyone gets on Dash about his shot and that's the one thing we can hang our hat on. I always try and tell you how important Dash is to our team, and how he gets us into our offense, and how our offense flows better, and how well he guards. It would have been nice for him to get that award."
Do you equate his play over the last 8 games with the team's success?
"Yeah. He's been good. And we knew that we beat Colorado because Dash played well. I can't even tell you how many points he scored in that game, it's insignificant. He's played well. He didn't play well at Baylor, because of the zone, and as a team we didn't play well. He's pretty important to us."
Is there anything you tell your team to keep them loose at this time of year?
"We stay loose. The stakes are high all year. I mean, you're on the bubble in December. There's a Bracketology in December. The stakes are never not high, unfortunately. So we stay loose. We have fun. We just talk about getting better. The good thing for us is we've been in a lot of close games. So we'll see. To me the Big 12 Tournament is a chance to go have fun. It's a grind, you play teams you have seen a lot and have an understanding for your team. But you go have fun, do the best you can, play in a great environment-the Sprint Center is usually full-which is fun. And you try and get better going in to the NCAA Tournament where hopefully you can make a run."