ISU post-Oklahoma quotes

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Iowa State - 3.14.13 1

Iowa State 73Oklahoma 66

An Interview With:

IOWA STATE

COACH FRED HOIBERGWILL CLYBURN

MELVIN EJIM

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by FredHoiberg and student-athletes Will Clyburn andMelvin Ejim. Coach, your thoughts on today'svictory.

COACH HOIBERG: I can't tell you howproud I am for the guys continuing to battle and togut out a huge win for us.

I thought the difference from early in thatgame, I thought we really -- the effort we startedplaying with was about five minutes to go in the

half. I believe we were down 8 on the battle of theboards at that time. We cut that all the way back to1. Got ourselves back in the game, had an 8-pointdeficit at the half, and just came out in the secondhalf with a great mentality.

Those last nine minutes defensively wasas good as we have been all season. To hold theteam with Oklahoma's firepower to 28 percent inthe second half is a great stat for us.

And then going back to the glass, weoutrebound them by 12, 43-31. A lot of that was asmaller lineup there in the second half. Melvin'sout there. He's Canadian, so he's tough. He's outthere playing with a bloody lip that entire secondhalf and swallowing blood, which can't be fun. AndWill went out and made play after play for us downthe stretch.

The other thing I want to point out is BubuPalo, who didn't play at all really until about thefive-minute mark, and then he brought us home.

And then obviously clutch slots. Tyrus hits a bigone, and then Babb hits the one to put us up by 5.

Couldn't be prouder of our guys. That's agreat win. The other thing, we haven't won here inseven years. You can see by our fan support, weget as good a fan support as anybody down here.

To get this win for them is really special,and going all the way back to my Big Eight days --I'm longwinded here -- getting back to my Big Eightplaying days at Kemper Arena and playing in frontof the fans, I know how special it is for them.Couldn't be happier for our fans.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for thestudent-athletes.

Q. Melvin and Will, you can bothanswer this. As shooters, as a team, you guyshave moments where you shoot yourself intogames and shoot yourself out of somesituations. Did you ever lose confidence you'dhave the ability -- I think you were 11 or 12 as ateam in the first half. How did you stayconfident shooting the basketball?

WILL CLYBURN: We have a team full ofshooters. And one thing about shooters, you have

to have confidence. Forget about making ormissing. If you miss a shot, gotta shoot the nextone. That's what we have on this team. Shooterswith confidence.

MELVIN EJIM: Going into the second halfwe know we didn't shoot pretty well, but we knewwe had confidence. Coach kept telling us theseshots are going to fall. All year we go throughstretches where they don't fall and we go throughstretches where we can't miss.

We kept our confidence, kept ourcomposure, stayed with our defense, and our shotsstarted falling toward the end.

Q. Will, the second half there you putthe team on your back a moment or two.Bringing the ball up the court, looked like youwere really feeling it. What were you guysdoing differently or from your perspective what

March 14, 2013


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kind of clicked for you there in the secondhalf?

WILL CLYBURN: Just in the flow of thegame. Everybody was out there playing hard.Everybody was out there playing for each other. Iwanted to do all I could to try to will us to a win.

And my teammates helped me. They gotme the ball. They set good screens. They gotopen. It was a good team effort.

Q. How do you explain holding them towithout a field goal in the last eight minutes ofthe game?

MELVIN EJIM: We knew we had ourbacks against the wall, and we just started playingharder than they did. In the first half, they playedharder than we did, and we knew that. We cameout and we really had this talk in there, and wesaid we needed to come out and play hard and getthe rebounds and be tough inside and not give

them easy buckets.We came out and we did that, and we

were able to hold them down.

Q. Will, you talked earlier in the weekabout not going in your shell. Did you have toremind yourself not to do that after strugglingthrough the first half and kind of explodingthere the last five minutes or so?

WILL CLYBURN: Yeah, I think it's allabout just me growing up as a person. Earlier inthe season I tended to do that.

I had a tendency of going to my shell when

things weren't going right. But my teammates andcoaching staff, they stayed on me. I just wanted toplay hard. Even if I wasn't scoring the ball, Iwanted to do something to help the team throughrebounding, defending, being a good teammate. Iwanted to do something to help the team.

Q. Guys, it hasn't happened yet, buthow much would you welcome a third matchupwith Kansas here?

MELVIN EJIM: Two first games againstKansas were pretty tough losses for us. Andthey're a good team; we're a good team. We felt

we played them well.So we're excited to play them and getanother crack at them.

WILL CLYBURN: I can't wait for theopportunity. If they win today, I want somepayback. They beat us twice during the year.Probably games we shouldn't have lost, but, hey,I'm ready for payback.

Q. Melvin, what was Bubu able to dodown the stretch that maybe changed thingsfor you guys offensively/defensively?

MELVIN EJIM: Bubu has a great ability tobe calm all the time. In the last couple of minuteshe calmed us down, was able to get the ball whereit needed to be. He showed great poise, and that'scontagious when your point guard starts doingthat. Korie did that throughout the game as well,but when the point guard starts doing that,especially in a crucial time like that, when you'redown, it really helped everyone to get into theirgroove and Will the ability to take over and reallyget ourselves organized and in that groove.

Q. Your jump shots were falling in thesecond half, but you also had a prettysignificant edge in points in the paint. Seemedlike you really messed with OU. Where did that

come from? Why were you guys so effectiveinside as well as the jump shot?

WILL CLYBURN: Everybody knows weshoot 3s. Everybody's going to go out there, try toguard that. So usually 2-point field goals andtrying to get to the lane, they don't want to come offshooters, so it's a lot easier for us to get in thepaint.

And I feel that was a strength of ourstoday, and plus our shooting in the second half.

MELVIN EJIM: I think when we startedmissing those first couple of shots in the beginningof the game, we just -- we didn't want to be

complacent, with just shooting 3s. We startedattacking the basket, tried to look inside and reallygoing for offensive rebounds and trying to get easybuckets.

So I really feel that was a big significantpart of why we started scoring more points in thepaint, because we weren't shooting it as well. Andthen we kept doing that throughout the game andour shots started falling, so it was just playing off ofitself.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.Questions for Coach.

Q. How excruciating is it to watch yourteam from the bench when you go through oneof those long spells where you can't hitanything compared to when you get hot?

COACH HOIBERG: Well, the one thing Iknow with the shooting that we have on this team


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is eventually the percentages will work themselvesout. We shot them much better in the second half,6-of-14, and we're going to take looks. We'regoing to take open looks.

My job as a coach is to try to get thoseguys playing with confidence every time they're outthere on the floor. The one thing that I did like andthat I talked to them about is how we did attackwhen the shots weren't falling, and if we continuedto attack that would draw on the defense and if wemade the right play and kept our spacing, we'd getsome of those open looks.

Guys stepped the at key moments, madehuge ones. They go up 13. We hit one right backat them. Will hit that one -- I'm sorry, Georges hitthat one. I knew eventually if we kept attackingand playing that way that we'd eventually hit someand some crucial ones as well.

And then to score 36 in the paint and wedidn't shoot the ball at a real high clip today is

something that I think won us the game.

Q. Coach, you went with Bubu Palo inthe second half for a pretty long stretch thereand had Korie Lucious on the bench. Whatwas the reasoning behind that?

COACH HOIBERG: The biggest thingabout Bubu is his defensive ability. I think he andChris Babb are our two smartest, two bestperimeter defenders. We needed to string togetherstops. I was putting the ball in Will's hands at thattime so we could afford to have Korie out.

And I talked to Korie. He went over -- he

actually came over to me -- this is huge for aleader to do this -- and he said: You stay withthose guys out there on the floor.

And that's huge for a guy like Korie to saythat, that has the experience that he has and hashit big shots to get his team into the Final Four.

So that just shows you the maturity of ourteam, the leadership on our team. And we wentwith Bubu and, again, he made play after playdown the stretch and also set some good flarescreens which got our guys open and Will foundhim.

Q. What did you like about the smallerlineup in the second half, Booker or Gibson oranything?

COACH HOIBERG: I was a littleconcerned with that. We go small at some pointduring the game just because we were not doing ajob on the glass. So I was a little bit concernedwith that. But second half, just with the effort we

were playing, I was confident we could hang withthem. And then our ability to push past was great.Plus Melvin stayed out of foul trouble today. AndMelvin's the leading rebounder in our league andhe always finds a way to get those big ones,including the big last one, and he knocked downthe two free throws to put us up three possessions.

Q. Can you talk about with the first twoKansas games going to overtime, now the jobshifts and Oklahoma's in the rearview mirror,but what do you talk to those guys about interms of checking emotion or energy, or howdo you want to prep them for that game? It willbe pretty anticipated.

COACH HOIBERG: It's going to be a fungame. The first two especially for Kansas werevery fun. For us, obviously we came on the losingend, but they were entertaining games. And wegotta find a way to get some stops against those

guys. McLemore went off on us the first timearound, and Elijah Johnson had about as good aeight-minute stretch as you could play plus theovertime.

We're going to continue to play the sameway. Try to come out there and find a way to get awin. Our guys, they'll be ready for it. I know someof them played a lot of minutes today, but you getanother opportunity to play Kansas. Our guys willstep up, and I'm confident we'll play well.

Q. You've seen Will play throughstruggles quite like that before and come

through on the other side?COACH HOIBERG: That's the best I've

seen Will. In fact, I was going to take him out, andhe's saying, Coach, I'm feeling it, I'm feeling it, sogo for Tyrus. We took Tyrus out and kept Will inand he responded with a big shot. Will said that tome one other time this year, and that was againstBaylor. And that's the game he went off, so Idecided to go with it and stayed with Will.

Not only that, but he kept us -- kept alivesome offensive rebounds, went out and had threebig ones that led to some baskets. Just, again,made big-time plays, not only scoring the

basketball, but also making plays for histeammates.THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.FastScripts by ASAP Sports

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ISU post-Oklahoma quotes