Penn State Men's Basketball
Penn State Student-Athlete Postgame Press Conference
vs. Wagner – November 9, 2019
Izaiah Brockington | G | RS-So.
Q: Izaiah, congrats on the win today. Coach just kind of touched on your speed and athleticism as a team, how important as a group do you guys feel that it is to use that on a night-to-night basis in order to put yourself in the best position?
A: That's very important to our game plan. We have so many athletes and we feel like it's going to be really hard for teams to keep up with us possession after possession. With the guys we have coming off the bench and starting, we have just a lot of athletes, we have a lot of depth, and we feel like we can run a lot of teams out of the gym.
Q: Izaiah, Myles [Dread] didn't have such a great game. Have you talked to him since the end? What was his mood like?
A: His mood is great. On the team, we're all just worried about wins. We know bad games are going to happen and that's what your brothers are there to pick you up. You know, he was jumping around happy just like everyone else.
Q: Izaiah, going off of that, even though Myles didn't have a great night shooting the ball, he did have five assists, and the rest of the guys kind of picked up the slack. How does having that versatility in the back court help you guys win games?
A: I feel like it just helps us pick each other up when we're down. You know, we have guys that can do so many different things, so if you're not contributing points, you're contributing rebounds, if you're not doing that, you're contributing assists, and, you know, defense is always a constant for us, so it helps to be versatile.
Q: In addition to that, Jamari [Wheeler], not really known for his shooting, but had a pair of threes today. How does that kind of hype you guys up to see him, who's not really known for doing that, come along and give you guys points in that area?
A: It's definitely a big morale boost, because he's not known for that, so guys aren't going to be expecting that. I feel like that just adds another headache that opposing coaches have to deal with.
Q: The box score is going to say 30-point win, whatnot, but it didn't really feel that way, at least from my perspective. What do you take away from, I don't want to call this an ugly win, but maybe not a game that you guys all played perfectly?
A: You know, playing the way we did and still winning by 30, it shows how good we can really be. That was a tough team, and we just got to start off better, we can't come out sluggish like we did. We just got to stay disciplined and keep working in practice.
Q: Izaiah, as a guard, how important do you think it is to get the bigs like Mike [Watkins], John [Harrar] and Lamar [Stevens] going in the half court when you guys can't get stuff going on the outside?
A: I feel like getting them involved definitely gets us a higher percentage of shots. Once you get the inside game started it kind of opens up the outside game, so that definitely helps. Once you get the guys on the inside involved, then they're there to pick up the slack if you get beat on defense, they're there blocking shots, grabbing rebounds.
Q: Izaiah, obviously that's a team that came in here with I think with eight guys. Could you feel you guys kind of wearing them down a little bit as the game went on?
A: Definitely, yeah. We could see like, when we were shooting free throws and we were looking at them after time outs, we were like, these guys are getting tired. So that just gave us extra motivation to keep going, keep doing what we were doing and keep pounding on them.
Q: How do you capitalize an entire team?
A: Just pressure on defense, pressure on defense, and just keeping our pace going on offense, you know, not slowly executing moves, just executing everything hard.
Q: Izaiah, MJ (Myreon Jones) is someone who, last year, you know, when he came in we heard, great scorer, called him "Buckets," but this year he's already showing that he's able to facilitate, be a distributor. How have you seen him grow as more of a point guard in this off-season and so far this season?
A: He's definitely grown hugely in being a leader. Coach has been working with him on being more vocal. They've had him running the point more, just so he can see the game from all angles. They'll tell him something to tell the whole team you know, instead of just telling us outright. Just little things to make him more confident, more of a leader and just find his voice.