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Thursday, March 15, 2007
SIU players speak out
As promised earlier, here is a transcript of the Southern Illinois players' press conference:

REPORTER: This is for Tony. It's been quite a while since you guys played a game. How do you guys handle the time in between the tournament and do you think that will have any effect on the way you play?

YOUNG: I think the last week or so we've been getting back focused on doing the small things that we do. After last week's loss, we've had a lot of time to sit back and focus on things we need to getter better on and we've just been going hard at each other getting ready to play the game. I think we'll be ready to play once we get back on the floor.

REPORTER: Jamaal, could you just talk about your opponent and what kind of a game you expect.

TATUM: Well, I know off the top we expect a dog fight. That's the type of things we're good at. We know they're going to come out and play hard for 40 minutes just like we're going to do. As far as the type of defense and all that stuff, we haven't really gone over that stuff a lot yet, but I think we're ready to go.

REPORTER: A question for Jamaal or Tony, you've always been a really defense-minded team, but this year you're scoring a lot more points, you're winning a lot more games, getting a lot more national attention. Is there anything in your minds that has changed this year from last year that you're doing in preparation?


YOUNG: I don't think we're doing anything differently, I think we're just more focused on getting better at the thing we weren't as good at. Like I said last year we struggled a lot on offense, so for us being a more mature team and growing and learning from the things we did last year, I think this year is just focusing on doing offensive things and Coach is giving us a lot more shots in practice and just working on your own game and working on your own offensive skills.


REPORTER: Jamaal, I wonder if you could just reflect on when you first met Tony and how you've seen his game at all, but also his personality and temperament.

TATUM: When I first met him, I just thought that we were -- I looked up to him and I was like, he's going to take me, he's going to be what shows me the ropes and stuff and then I kind of realized that we were pretty much peers, you know, and we enjoy the same things, have similar personalities and we're both sore losers. And over the years, I just realized that we both had to become better leaders and we were both willing to do it and we both did. So I think that over the course of time, he's become a lot more mature and that's helped me become a lot more mature.

REPORTER: Both of you, I know I'm putting you on the spot because your coach is sitting next to you, but what's special about playing for Coach Lowery?

YOUNG: The biggest thing about playing for Coach is he's one of the coaches that understands his players. You've got a lot of people that push you to do things you don't want to do, he gives us the freedom to go out and play the way we want to play but within his offense and the things he wants us to do. And he really rides us and makes us strive to be the best we can be as far as people, as far as players, really just all around.
He doesn't settle for us being second best. He doesn't let us settle for it either.

TATUM: I'll agree with Tony on that. He definitely pushes us. When he came back from Illinois and we got our first workout with him, he put me and Tony against each other and I thought he was trying to make us transfer schools or something the way he came at us, but he was just expecting a lot out of us, he knew it was going to be a big year and he knew that he had some shoes to fill and we had some shoes to fill and that we had to be a good team and we were a great team that year and he came back and he really put it on us and made things difficult for us. That's the thing about him, he expects so much out of all his players that he will push you and I'm thankful for what he's done because I've become a lot better player under him.

REPORTER: For both of you guys, Southern's been sort of the underdog in this situation in the last few appearances, now you guys come in with a high seed and you're sort of taking on a different role, could you talk about that, being the favorite, and also is Southern starting to become like a Gonzaga of the midwest?

YOUNG: I think as far as being a favorite, you look at every game the same because going into the NCAA tournament, anyone could lose at any day, so you can't come in and think that just because you're a favorite that you're automatically going to win or you can't disrespect your opponents. I think the big thing is to stay level headed and play our hardest.

TATUM: I definitely think we have the same mind set as we had the year before and the year before that, no matter what seed we are. We go in and fight every day in practice, we go in and work hard and we compete and I think fourth seed or 10 seed or 12 seed, we're going to go play the same, hardest on the court.

REPORTER: This is the fourth time around for both of you guys, it's the last time around for both of you guys, how are you approaching this or is your mind set any different after you've been here all these years?

YOUNG: I think maturity level is the big difference for us. Before we came in knowing we won't win, but having the outlook that if we lose, we'll be back next year, having something to look forward to as far as getting ready for next year, but with it being our last year, it really just hits you, the fact of reality that once you lose it's all over with, so we just stay on everyone else and stay on each other to continue to get better and get ready to play hard.

REPORTER: Tony, just look back at how you came to Southern Illinois, how that worked out, it seemed like kind of a crazy path.

YOUNG: I think it worked out great for me when I came in, I was a little scrawny kid getting beat up by everybody. It was a learning process for me, I mean, now, I go out and try and pick on as many people as I can. Once you've been in a program like this and you play with so many different people and so many different types of players, you learn how to grow up and you learn how to go out and try your hardest to win games and I think Coach Lowery really taught me a lot about myself as far as a person and playing basketball.

REPORTER: Just to follow up, also how did it work out to be at SIU?

YOUNG: How did I get there? I was getting recruited by a bunch of different schools, SIU, when I went on my visit, I went to the Sweet 16 and watched the practice. I talked to Marcus Belcher and Coach Weber, and then when I came on my visit, it was just a lockdown, talked to all the players, got a chance to hang out with everybody. With this program, being around us, you can feel how much of a family everyone is. You can feel how much everyone actually likes each other and is always around each other. When I got that feel from everybody, it was a no-brainer for me.

REPORTER: Do you feel an edge this year that you all didn't have last year at this moment going into this tournament, and why do you think that is? Based on what you guys have been talking about, but what's the single biggest factor?

YOUNG: I think the biggest factor is fear for us right now. We know what we want to do, but everyone's scared for it to end. Nobody wants to lose, nobody wants to go home. So I mean, we just go out and just continue to practice hard every day regardless of what we're going to play, who we're going to play. We continue to beat up on each other regardless of how we feel. We came to shoot a lot of shots and do all those little things that people would usually lag away from, just to try to get to the NCAA tournament, just for the fact that we want to continue to get better.
So our mentality this year is different from other years and we don't want to lose, we're not going into it as, well, if we lose, it's another year.
We're looking at it as if we lose, it's all over so we're going to go out and just give it our all.

TATUM: I think that we can tell we have an extra advantage this year by the way we're practicing right now, and practice has been very
physical and everybody's been competing and that's what you expect for a team that's going to make a big run in the tournament. And every day, we haven't seen the intensity slip and that's what has to happen to carry over into the game so I think the edge is definitely there.

REPORTER: Can you answer the question I asked Tony a while ago, about how your attitude towards playing in the tournament is different this time around and how it's changed through the four years?

TATUM: I think we both know that this is definitely on our clock right now. You go out the first round of the tournament and that's when your clock is on, Tony and Jamaal's clock, no one else's clock. It's kind of one of those things if you want your legacy to be good or not, Tony and Jamaal, their senior year, they were really mature and leaders and led their team to how far we go in the tournament, to a lot of wins.

REPORTER: Could you just describe Tony's demeanor on the court and do you think it's accurate to say that he likes to have the other fans kind of hate him.

TATUM: I think so. I think we all like to have the other fans hate us, we get our motivation that way. But I think more than the other fans hate him, I think he likes to have the other players hate him and that's the biggest thing right there, when he knows he's getting underneath somebody's skin, he tries to do it even more. That's what you've got to have. That's the mind set of a great player, a great competitor like he is.

REPORTER: For both or either of you, for your years now you've seen how the Missouri Valley just keeps getting better and better. Can you talk a little bit about the quality of the conference, as a Mid Major, and maybe whether it's about time for it to go?

YOUNG: I don't even refer to us as a Mid Major. I don't even like the word, so I just look at it as if we're a competitive school. I feel we can compete with anyone anytime we get on the court with them. As far as our conference goes, we've got all these schools constantly winning games and beating these high major teams and all these bigger teams and the quality of players and all these schools are getting the quality players that we recruit and all these other schools are constantly getting better. So I think that just makes our conference that much better every year.

TATUM: Honestly, I don't even pay attention to the terms they use to describe the caliber of team as us right now or our conference, because we get the respect we deserve after the game and nobody comes up to us after the game and tells us, you're a good Mid Major team, they come up to us after the game and tell us, you're a good team. And I remember playing Oklahoma State sophomore year and their coach coming up to the coach and telling him how good of a team we are, he didn't say you guys are good for a Mid Major team, so I don't really even pay attention to the titles anymore.

REPORTER: Tony, maybe I should have asked you this first, do you sort of like that feeling of, I don't know if villain is the right word of really getting under people's skin and relish that?

YOUNG: I enjoy it. Ever since I was in high school, you just play defense on somebody, they get mad at you, it's funny to me, just to see how other people react, and then when I got here, I know how I reacted when Stetson and B. T. and all those guys did it to me, so if I can make somebody feel the way I used to feel, that's a great thing.

REPORTER: Just to follow up, what would you say the difference in your temper is today than it was four years ago?

YOUNG: I think it's maturity, just growing up and becoming more of a man than I was before. Before you get mad over everything and let certain things bother you, and now you just brush it off.

REPORTER: Tony, does Holy Cross remind you of any team that you've played before? How would they compare, say, to Creighton?

YOUNG: I can't compare them to Creighton, because I haven't seen them play a lot. I watched a couple games, but unless you play against them, you can't really compare two teams like that. But watching them play, they're a good team. Seeing them get out and run and seeing some of the things they do, but like before, we need to go out and continue to play hard, just do the things that we do.

REPORTER: For both of you, when you saw the brackets and people looked and saw Illinois is a possibility, what was the reaction or was there any reaction at all?

TATUM: I think everybody had to get past the fact that we couldn't possibly be playing them, because you have to get past your first round game to play everybody. We're a very mature team, so I think everybody got past that quickly and realized that we had a good Holy Cross team ahead of us, and that was the first line of business.

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Published at 8:12 PM by Hoop Time.
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