Mizzou Sports Email

Tigers Meet The Press At Big 12
Kansas City, MO - The Missouri men's basketball team met the media Wednesday afternoon at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., in preparation for tonight's Big 12 Conference Tournament opener against Nebraska.  Here are excerpts from the presser... 

HEAD COACH MIKE ANDERSON
Opening statement
“First of all we’re glad to be back in Kansas City and have the opportunity to play in the Sprint Center, and hopefully we’ll play in front of a lot of Tiger fans. This is an exciting time of the year when you talk about the conference tournament. This is the one tournament where someone will qualify for the NCAA tournament. That’s our goal and that’s our quest and we get the chance to open up against a Nebraska team we’ve played a couple of times and we split those games. So, hopefully our guys are looking forward to it and as we get some guys back to healthy hopefully we can put together 40 minutes of good basketball.”

On team’s attitude going into the Big 12 tournament…
“Everyone is 0-0 in this particular tournament, this is who advances to the NCAA tournament. When you get to this stage there has got to be a sense of urgency. And I think through our season our kids have competed. We’ve played hard and at times have had to find ways to win. But one thing they’ve done, they’ve always competed. And I always said, we never did put together 40 minutes. I thought the game we played at Nebraska for a half we did a great job, but from there in the second half we didn’t get our bodies into them and they were able to do some things. When you get to this point in the year, to me, it’s exciting, and hopefully our guys feel this way. It’s survive and advance, one game at a time.”

On what Mizzou needs to do to succeed…
“There’s that sense of urgency. You need to get that first one and that brings on the next game. In tournament play for our team, the way we play, it’s hard to prepare for, especially when you don’t have that much time between games. The first game is always the most important game. We’ll have to get on a run, get the confidence then who knows, we may have quite a few fans here and that always helps. We just need to bring confidence.”

JUNIOR FORWARD DEMARRE CARROLL
On Nebraska’s Center Aleks Maric…
“We’ve just got to go out there with high energy. Whenever he catches the ball we’ve got to get to trap him quick and make his pass it to another guy. We need to go out there and really work on the defensive end.”

On his first eligible season at Mizzou…
“Playing with this team was amazing, you know. We had our ups and downs, but we’re still here. Like Coach (Mike Anderson) says, ‘We may be sick, but we ain’t dead.’ Everyone is coming to this tournament with a 0-0 record. We’re coming with a new attitude, with determination and high energy. We don’t have anything to lose so we’re going to lay it all out on the floor.”

On teammate Leo Lyons and their dual-effort defending Maric…
“Me and Leo have been playing great ball. Leo has been playing amazing basketball. Hopefully we can continue what we’re doing. With my quickness getting to the loose ball and Leo’s overall good game, if we can put things together, hopefully we’ll come out with a victory.”

JUNIOR GUARD MATT LAWRENCE
On having a full roster playing against Nebraska for the second time this season in Lincoln, Neb.
“I think it affected the game a lot. And we’re going to try to do the same thing we did to them the second time, throw a lot of people at them, sub a bunch of people. We want to get them tired, run them up and down the floor. We want to try to take away from their offense and now that everyone is healthy and starting to step up a little more we’ll try to keep that mentality going into tomorrow’s game.”