K-Stated

Give it up for Levi Wolters, who, for the third week in a row, has listened in and transcribed Frank Martin’s Wednesday conference call. Well done, sir.

On assistant coach Brad Underwood, who was an assistant at Western Illinois, which is Saturday’s opponent, from 1992-2003:
“Brad’s earned his stripes in the coaching ranks. You look at him, he goes from his playing career immediately to – I guess he served one year down at Texas – and then immediately to being a head coach at the junior college level, so Brad’s learned how to coach the hard way – kind of the same way I did. He got thrown into the fire right away. And, you know, he’s earned the stripes. He head coached at the junior college level out at Dodge and also Daytona Beach. He kind of sandwiched himself between, I believe it was 10 years a Western Illinois. He’s a stand up guy who loves K-State. It’s a great marriage right now.”

On Underwood as a recruiter:
“He’s been involved in recruiting at a high level. He can go out and recruit some of the junior college guys. Around the country you’ve got to deal with all the AAU guys and all the people who are involved with players. He understands. He can identify talent. He can identify young men who are good enough or not good. Being at Western Illinois for 10 years, it’s obviously allowed him to recruit in the state of Illinois and the Chicago area, which is an area we would continue to like to recruit.”

Did you learn anything from watching tapes of the last two games that you didn’t know already?
“I don’t know that I learned anything, but we were able to make the players learn something. I don’t know what it is, but I have a pretty good feel on how our team plays after a game. Don’t ask me why, it’s just something that I have. I did learn one thing: I thought Bill Walker played a lot better than I had given him credit for in the locker room. He played a very good first half. He played with energy. He was aggressive, and he did a lot of good things for us. But I think our players saw the differences between when we do things a certain way and why we have success, and when we do them a different way why we don’t have success. We’re constantly trying to teach our guys, and when you’ve got so many freshmen and first-year guys, it’s very important that we continue to do that.”

On Dave Hoskins’ injury:
“It’s the same thing I said the other day. It’s no different. He just had the surgery. We’re going to sit around and wait until he gets word from some doctors. That could be two, three, four weeks. He’s not rushing it back this time, because he tried it last time and it didn’t work. We’re going to wait around until he gets clearance, and when the doctors give him clearance, we’re gong to revaluate the whole deal.”

Is Dave allowed to do any training?
“Just normal rehab process that people who have arthroscopic surgery go through. I know Cory, our trainer, gets him in the pool and gets him cardiovascular work in the pool, and the just normal-range-of-motion movements that he’s got to go through and assemble leg strength – exercises that I’m very familiar with.”

On Blake Young’s play:
“He’s been great. He’s doing exactly what a senior should do. He’s competing at a high level. He’s really doing a great job leading, especially on a team that has so many young players and one of its seniors out – and even Clent’s been out. Clent’s only practiced three full practices. Blake’s kind of had to earn that leadership role all on his own, and he’s done a great job of it.”

Are you concerned about individual opponents or more about the progress of your team?
“We’re always concerned about improving ourselves No. 1. There will never be a game we go into where we’re more concerned about our opponent than we are with ourselves. If you start worrying about other people and stop worrying about yourself, then your chances of succeeding aren’t very good. So we’re going to worry about ourselves. Then game by game, we obviously put emphasis on that next opponent, because at the end of the day you have to win the game, and in order to win, you’re team has to be prepared to understand the things that they have to do to be able to succeed in that upcoming game. But Western Illinois, they only return one player that played at all for them last year, so they’ve got a lot of brand new guys. They play a lot of four-guard lineups, so it will be a little different than what we faced in the first two nights. It’ll be interesting. Coach Thomas, he’s been around some great players throughout his coaching career. He went out and I know he’s extremely happy with his recruiting class. I think it’s going to be just another great night over at Bramlage.”

Are you trying to get guys like Andre Gilbert and Ron Anderson an ‘X’ number of minutes, no matter what goes on in the game?
“I don’t look at it that way. They’re going to get the minutes they deserve to get, and I’m pretty simple, you compete and practice, then I’m going to put you in the game. And when you get an opportunity, it’s what you do with that opportunity whether you get a bigger or smaller opportunity. That’s kind of how I handle it. Ron, against Sacramento State, just didn’t play as well. He just wasn’t as active as we need him to be, and then against Pittsburg State, he was. So he got more minutes. Same thing with Andre Gilbert. He went out against Sacramento State and played like a first-year guy that wasn’t sure of himself. Even tough he started, as the game progressed his minutes were reduced. But he came back against Pittsburg State, he came out and played like he’s capable of playing, with a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm – just like an older young man. He competed.”

Do you see frustration from Bill Walker because of the injuries?
“I don’t see any of it. I don’t know why anyone would think that he’s frustrated. Bill’s an upbeat guy. He’s got an unbelievable personality. You overcome a knee injury, a cramp in your calf definitely is definitely not going to keep you down.”

When will you head to Orlando, and what’s the schedule there next week?
“We leave on Tuesday. We play Thursday, Friday and Sunday.”

How do you handle tournaments? Are there concerns with going to Orlando?
“The obvious thing is that it forces players to prepare with minimal time – everything is a quick turn. It’s tournament style. That’s what the postseason is all about. That’s why all these exempt tournaments are so important into what we do. It’s the only time during the year that you can actually prepare your team for the Big 12 Tournament, the NCAA Tournament – just the framework on how you have to prepare… the understanding. Because if you line up and play Thursday night, which we will, and whether we succeed or fail Thursday night, you’ve immediately got to eliminate that from your mind and play the next night. So it teaches you how to move forward. You have to prepare for the first game. Our preparations all next week will be for George Mason, not anybody else, because if you don’t win that first game then there’s no second game to worry about. So then you go in and line up and play that first game, and then you kind of wait until after the game. Then you assess the next team after the completion of the first night.”

Will you do anything extracurricular down there?
“Saturday’s a day off, as far as playing games. We’ve got tickets to go see the Orlando Magic, if we choose to do that. We’ve also got tickets to go to one of the Disney parks. But I’ve told our players we’re going down there to win games. We’re going down there to represent K-State. People who want to go vacation in Orlando, then they need to pay for their own trips.”