Murray State University Athletics
Weekly Press Conference
3/2/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Quotes from head coach Mick Cronin during the weekly men's basketball press conference on March 1 at Pagliai's restaurant in preparation for the No. 2 seeded Racers' Ohio Valley Conference Tournament first-round game at home against No. 7 seeded Tennessee Tech on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Opening statement:
"We're 0-0 now, but I don't even think you have a record when you're conference tournament starts. It's not like you're 1-0 if you win tomorrow night. It's about winning, surviving and living to fight another day. We've been preparing all year to be in this situation. Hopefully, we'll reap the benefits of our hard work and we'll handle it well. Our senior leadership has been big for us all year, and it'll be paramount for us this week. Those guys have paid a big price to have the success they've had this year. I'm a big believer that when you've paid that price and worked so hard, it's a lot harder to give up when you're in a fight. We fully expect to be in a fight tomorrow, as well as the rest of the week, if we get that far."
On his feelings heading into this week's OVC Tournament:
"I'm just pleased that our guys have been receptive to the things that we've been teaching. If you look at our last six games, team's are shooting 35 percent against us from the field and just 23 percent from the three-point line. That's how you win. If you can do those things, you can almost drop-kick the ball on offense and still win. As (MSU assistant) Coach (Ryan) Wolf says, you can just drop back and punt if you don't have any scorers and still win. Those are the types of things that we've been working on all year so we can put ourselves in a position to win even on a bad offensive night. That's how you have to be in March. You have to be tough enough to handle the elements, adversity and anything that gets thrown at you. We can take our game at Austin Peay earlier this season because in that case, the season moved on after it was over. There may have been some tough situations. We may not have shot it well or Adam may have gotten hurt. There are a lot of reasons why we lost that game, but now we can't afford to lose those games. If we lose those games now, we go home. I've been trying to prepare these guys for the mental toughness it takes to survive. It's more about the mental toughness than it is the physical toughness. It's also about being smart enough to understand that when we're down, we're not out of it."
On the status of junior guard Adam Chiles as he recovers from a dislocated shoulder suffered on Feb. 14 at Austin Peay:
"He's going to practice today. If he gets through practice today and he doesn't have any soreness, he'll play tomorrow. He was cleared by the doctor earlier today, though he tried to clear himself about a week ago (Cronin says with a laugh). But he'll have his first practice today, and we'll see how it goes from there."
On whether he has a set number of minutes he'd like to play Adam Chiles, if he is able to play on Tuesday night:
"Adam's worked extremely hard. His attitude has been tremendous, but I couldn't put a number on the number of minutes I'd like to play him. You just play something like that by ear. I can tell you that if he plays, he'll be at 100 percent physically, so I won't have any specific number of minutes in mind for him."
