Prohm previews O-State game
Head coach Steve Prohm and Iowa State (16-6/5-4) face an important road game at Oklahoma State on Saturday.
Here is what Prohm had to say to reporters prior to the Cyclones' departure to Stillwater.
On how Jameel McKay is feeling:
“He’s doing good. I haven’t seen him today. We were off (Wednesday) and gave the guys a day to get away and relax their bodies. I’ll check in. I think he’s doing better, talking to Vic (Miller).”
On if McKay doesn’t have the burst he usually has because of the injury:
“With injuries, I think you’ve always got to just ask the players. You never really know what they’re going through. We need Jameel (McKay) to be at the top of his game for us to max out.”
On how McKay didn’t manage to get one defensive rebound vs. West Virginia:
“The biggest thing in that game is the second half we go 5-for-13 from the line and we get out-rebounded as a team by 17. That can’t happen. You watch the first 17 minutes of that game and we looked really good. We dominated the game. The last three minutes, we gave up 14 points mostly off of turnovers. The second half, we get up seven.
“Our attention to detail and shot selection down the stretch wasn’t very good. We were up five, give up a transition three and don’t match up. We’re up two, our shot selection is not great and they get a layup. In the end, when we were down to a minute and a half, we get three great looks and didn’t come up with them.”
On how hard it is to account for McKay not getting defensive rebounds:
“We need those and we need Deonte (Burton), Georges (Niang) and Jameel to dominate the glass. That’s something we’ve done a good job of, when you break all this Ken-Pom stuff down. I look at it a lot. It’s not the end-all. We’re one of the top teams in the country of keeping people off the glass. It obviously wasn’t the case the other night.”
On the chance that Oklahoma State’s Jawun Evans might not play with a shoulder injury:
“I watched the game last night and that’s unfortunate for them. They were in a great position with him in the game. He’s a tremendous talent and tremendous point guard. They do a ton for him. Middle pick-and-roll, flat ball screen, high ball screen, and really good, crafty and getting into the paint. He can make shots and play with your big and get by them with a floater. He’s a huge key to their team. If he’s not playing, we’re still going to have to play our ‘A’ game on the road. I’ve never been to Stillwater, but people have said it’s one of the toughest places to play in our league. I haven’t heard anything on Juwan yet, so we’ll prepare like he’s playing.”
On how tough it is looking long-term after another disappointing home loss:
“I’ve been trying to reiterate the big picture the whole time. But when you have the expectations and preseason expectations, and lose a couple games at home – you win those two and you’re really in tremendous shape. You’ve got to look at the big picture. Everybody is going to remember March anyway, as we go into the summer.
“We know the areas we need to get better and made some improvements in that area, and reverted back to some of them the other night against West Virginia. These guys know what we need to do better and are willing to do it. We’ve got great character in the locker room. I believe we’ll get to where we need to be. How many Big 12 regular seasons will that be? I don’t know. This league is extremely tough and the margin for error is very slim. You can see how jumbled up the league standings are right now, so there’s not much separation.
“You’ve got to look long-term and what’s the best way to get our team playing the best in February or March. You look at what we’ve done and there are not many teams in the country that have won the quality amount of games that we have. We have the third-most top-50 wins, we may have the most top-25 RPI wins and have beaten three top-five teams. We are doing some good things, but you’ve got one or two losses that stick in your gut.”
On the bad free throw shooting in recent games:
“We’ve had statistically good free throw shooters miss them as well. The other day, Dooley (Abdel Nader) goes to the line and goes 0-for-2, Georges misses a front end of a one-and-one and those are big. At Texas A&M, we’re 4-for-12 from the free-throw line. That’s 9-for-25 in possession games. We’ve got to be better at the line.”
On how he coaches team through those woes and if it’s a mental thing:
“I don’t think it’s in our head. We’ve just to go play. We need to have fun. There shouldn’t be any pressure and we should enjoy the process. There are a lot of teams. Duke is 16-6 and the best team in our league and number on in the country is 18-4. The separation is (small). You can’t just live in peaks and valleys. You’ve got to be ready to knock this day out. We’re ready, focused and will be prepared for Oklahoma State.”
On what’s changed in team’s improvement on defense of late:
“It’s a new process of us really trying to focus. We do spend a lot more time on defense than we do offense, except for maybe the last practice coming back from A&M when we needed to clean up some offensive things. It’s a process of just getting better, knowing personnel better and playing more zone. There’s a lot of factors. Shot selection and tempo offensively has helped a lot. Though I thought West Virginia – there were times we could get better shots, slow the game down at times and get ball reversal.”
On the importance of team being tougher for longer stretches of games:
“When they watch our team that we coach, I want them to say ‘that’s the toughest team on the floor’. And you can be tough by not just getting defensive rebounds; you can be tough by being able to run good half-court offense, by getting ball reversal and making free throws down the stretch. I would love our teams to be known for being tough mentally and physically. We’ve got that in this locker room and have shown it several times this year. But we’ve had two stretches at home that for a couple minutes we weren’t very good. The margin for error is not very big in this league.”