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(female announcer) This is a production of WKNO-Memphis.
Production funding for "Sports Files" is made possible in part
by..
My guest today on "Sports Files" is the head coach of the Memphis
Tigers Men's Basketball team, Josh Pastner.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
The Memphis Tigers will open up play in the N-C-A-A Tournament
Tomorrow night when they face George Washington from the
Atlantic 10 Conference.
The Tigers are an eight seed after producing a 23 and 9
record that included five top 25 wins.
Their first round ouster in last week's American Conference
Tournament was a shock to the system,
one that has left Head Coach Josh Pastner at a loss for
words.
But now the Tigers have a chance to redeem themselves with a good
showing in the big dance.
Last year, Pastner picked up his first tourney win but this year
would likely have to knock off number one Virginia to advance
to the second weekend.
And if they don't, there will be many that will consider the
season a bust, especially when you consider the fact the Tigers
were in the top 25 all season long.
Today a special tourney preview with the head coach of the
Tigers, Josh Pastner, next on "Sports Files."
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Well Josh, I know it's been a crazy week preparing
for tomorrow's game.
We thank you so much for your time.
Well I appreciate you having me.
And I tell ya what.
I love watching your show.
You do a great job.
Thank you.
You have great guests and you ask great questions -- and not
even just basketball people, just anyone,
any other sports, just interesting figures.
And you ask really good questions.
Well I appreciate that.
An eight seed.
I know you thought maybe six, maybe seven.
You drawed G-W in an eight nine game.
Your thoughts on that?
Well I had felt on Sunday when the brackets were being
announced and, you know, here we are watching them on,
you know, earleir in the week.
When I saw Louisville go to the four..
Because I had thought Louisville was playing maybe..
I think they're playing as maybe the best team in the country.
Patino thought they were one.
Yeah.
And so for them not to be one, I was a little surprised.
Eh, I thought maybe they ended up being a two.
But when I saw them be four, I thought everyone was going to
drop down.
Because I originally thought we were going to be a six or a
seven because of our strength of our schedule and the strength of
our league.
I thought because of the league, they were gonna really value our
league.
But obviously, they did.
And so everyone dropped down a spot or two.
And what it probably shows you is two things because a lot of
people were asking about the S-M-U all through the week.
They've been asking well, what do you think about S-M-U.
Obviously they weighed the non-conference schedule.
And we played a great schedule.
And obviously they were in high..
They were in the 300's for non-conference,
what mattered.
That's one.
I also think it mattered and we have to do,
as a league, a better job is from top to bottom,
everyone's gotta have good numbers.
And that starts in the non-conference.
You've got to schedule teams.
You've also got to win.
And those things matter.
So if you do take a loss or two to different teams in the
league, it doesn't drop you and bury you.
That league needs to be where it's not.
There are no such thing as a bout loss,
if that makes sense.
It does.
There is no easy game in this tournament.
Obviously you lose, you go home.
But for all things considered, this eight nine match up with
G-W, which will be tough.
You're in the region in the east with Virginia who's the fourth
number one.
They play a completely different style.
So if you win tomorrow and they take care of business,
you guys will meet up with Virginia.
So with again, all things considered,
I guess it could have been worse.
Still be a challenge though.
Well I mean look.
Greg, you're at this tournament.
Who's not good that's in it?
Right.
I mean there's 68 teams.
There's 361 Division I teams.
That means there's 293 teams who are not playing in the N-C-A-A
tournaments.
So only 68 and you're talking 68 that are really good.
And it's becoming increasingly harder.
And I said this on Sunday.
I said it Monday.
I said it Tuesday.
I said it Wednesday.
It's becoming increasingly harder to get in the tournament.
And people in the profession understand that.
And it's not a birthright to be a part of the N-C-A-A
tournament.
It's not a birthright.
It's hard to do.
And..
But once you get in -- hey, it's a fresh start.
Everyone's good.
Greg, you've been covering this long enough.
You know this.
If a team starts making a bunch of threes,
whether it's us or the opponent, you're gonna have a great chance
of winning the game.
Right.
And really, that's what it comes down to.
You've got to make some shots.
We got to make some shots.
It's become possession by possession.
But hey, people talk about guards winning in tournament
time.
And we do have four senior guards.
And I know they've been not all been good at the same time.
At different games, there's been some highs and lows with them.
But there will be no better time by the law of average to work
itself out and be all on sync tomorrow night.
And with that said..
And I completely agree because there are people that are
critical.
Oh, Josh is bringing up that four guard thing and there's too
much dependency on the four guards.
What are your other options?
Well people that say that..
And again, I've said this and I've said it,
you know, this past Sunday at my press conference where there's a
minority of people.
And I call it the squeeky wheel.
I mean it's a very small minority who I don't really look
at as they're true Tiger fans.
They just..
They're negative nellies.
Right.
They just want to complain no matter what it is.
We could be 40 and 0 and they would complain.
But the majority of true Tiger Nation fans.
I'm talking the 99.9%.
They're going to be critical when you don't play well.
They're going to be critical of line ups.
They're going to be critical of things don't go right.
They're going to be critical if we don't win tomorrow.
They're going to be critical if we don't play well or don't
shoot the ball well.
But they're all going to be excited when we play well.
And they also understand it's a long season.
And they don't go so high and so low after each individual game.
I mean they might me upset some and be excited on others.
And so I think the majority of people understand hey,
okay.
You've got four guards.
I mean what coach in the country wouldn't,
you know, use those four guards.
And we have not.
And again, this is an absolute perception.
We have not played four guards at once.
We played it very rarely since early,
early in the season.
Perception is you play them a lot but you don't.
We don't.
We play the four guards not at all once but rotating.
And there's maybe a couple of times possession here and there
because of defense.
But we've really been two posted all times pretty much from the
beginning after the Oklahoma State game at Stillwater.
We've really done two posts.
Now let me ask you this.
I mean I think you and I can agree and a lot of other people
will agree.
I mean you've had a lot of big wins.
And you had a lot of bounce back wins as well.
So you really bounce back from adversity,
what you're trying to do tomorrow.
How tough was it in preparation for this tournament,
the mental aspect of things after the dud against
Connecticut in the tournament, the conference tournament?
You know, Greg, let me say this.
I didn't see the dud coming because we had a great week of
practice.
We had our best shoot around since I've ever been here.
We just laid an egg.
We stunk.
We were not good.
And U-Conn kicked our butt on our home floor.
And it was no fun.
And I apologize for the fans.
I apologize to the FedEx Forum.
I apologize to the University.
You took the blame.
I take full responsibility because when we lose,
the head coach has got to accept responsibility.
And so I don't..
I didn't see that coming.
I would have put my entire salary that we weren't gonna
play like that.
I'm serious.
I just have no idea.
You know it usually is a team you feel that you're gonna.
We were just in a daze.
So you get punched and punched and punched and then the
negativity.
And now you've got to get the guys back.
So we've had a good week.
And I think actually what the best thing to happen was we
practiced Friday and Saturday.
I was originally gonna give the guys a day off on Friday.
Probably the best thing I did.
Because my assisstants told me we need to practice.
And they were right.
And we practiced and we had a great practice on Friday,
great practice on Saturday.
Gave them the day off on Sunday and the day of selection on
Sunday.
And then we've had good practice this week.
Hopefully ready to go for it tomorrow.
They need to buy in to it that it was an anomaly,
that it was very rare.
It was just one of those things and we're gonna be ready.
Well the other thing -- I think people in Memphis,
Tiger nation..
I think because we've had so much.
And we've had a great regular season, Greg.
I don't want to take away.
We've had a very good regular season.
And we had a bad game versus U-Conn in that conference
tournament.
But also, I think some of that because of the U-Conn -- that
dud, as you called it.
And I called it a stinker.
I think because we've had some of those games where it kind of
avalanched on us throughout the year,
some of our losses.
And so I think that bothers people.
And that's just somewhat of a make up of our team, two things.
One -- we haven't done a great job.
We've gotten better but when it's kind of gone south,
we haven't stopped it.
It's gone south and south and south.
On the other hand, we are.
And because of how it's gone south because we haven't scored
meaning that we're a team, because of whatever it is..
Usually teams want to be a defensive identity.
We're really an offensive identity.
And we are best when we score.
And when we're not scoring for whatever it with our team..
They get down.
We just don't.
And it's hard for us to stop.
We've done some games where we've stopped the avalanche.
But there's been other games where it's just gone south.
And part of that is everyone talks defense,
defense.
No.
It's because when we're not making shots,
we're missing lay-ups.
We're missing freethrows.
It just sucks the life out of us on the defensive end.
Snowballs.
That's just our make up of our team.
And again, people might not like it.
And I took criticism and it can go to me.
But that's what our..
That is what our personalities and the personnel with our team
for this year..
That's kind of where it's at.
And we are third in the country in assists.
But again, if we can start scoring,
you know a lot of that stuff gets,
you know, washed under and we're able to win games.
One more quick thing on the conference tournament.
And this is beyond your control.
Obviously you have the decision to make.
It's coming back to Memphis next season.
Do you believe this tournament will come back with the Tigers
falling in the quarters?
The crowds weren't as big as they expect.
Do you think it'll be back at FedEx Forum?
I think that we lost in the quarter finals.
The teams won't be so upset about,
you know, The other coaches will be okay with us.
Bring it back to Memphis!
So you know I don't know.
I think we'll be back.
I don't think it'll be back after '15.
But I do think it will be back for '15.
And then I think we'll be somewhere else at '16.
David Pellom, one of the seniors,
one of the six that you have.
Actually, we saw seven on senior day.
But six active players played at G-W.
Obviously he was injured and did not play last year.
Can you learn something from Pellom talking about his old
team?
Yeah, I'm sure you can learn somethings,
maybe the nature of what Coach likes to do and things like
that.
But you know I've had a lot of people text me through the week.
Hey, do you know all their calls?
Do you know what they're going to do?
This is a different team.
I mean..
Horrible change in knowing.
But we don't know.
You know we're not gonna.
He doesn't have all their calls.
And people change year-by-year on what they call stuff.
But we got to watch films.
And again, Greg, I believe this.
Basketball is so much different than football.
Football -- so much of it, you can have strategy.
And you have a week to prepare break downs and all these.
I think basketball, you are who you are.
And again, you're not gonna change a bunch of things.
We got to play how we got to play.
And like I said, we're a little bit offensive minded.
And we've got to make shots.
And if we make shots, we got a great chance of winning the
game.
Who is the single most important player for you guys?
No question.
It's not one.
It's two.
It's Joe Jackson and Chris Crawford.
And if they're in a daze and not playing well,
just pack the airplane up and we'll head home.
If they're both at a high level, we've got a great chance in
advancing.
We've seen them both in high levels at times,
a lot of times more at a high level than not.
But when they're not, it hurts.
And that's also a snowball effect.
Let me ask you this.
They have not.
You really don't have this big vocal guy on the court,
this big vocal leader.
You have four seniors.
You have two that have been with the program for four years.
Does that hurt?
Yeah, you know I think it hurts.
I also think we probably don't have a true,
true point guard at times, too, you know.
Because Joe and Chris have done a great job of,
you know, handling the ball.
But you know they both had the ability to be combos and scoring
guards, even coming from high school.
But you know.
So they've really improved in that area.
But I think some of the natural tendencies where you're talking
about a vocal guy, we don't have that vocal guy.
And you know those are things that we've got to,
you know.
Hopefully through recruiting and everything else,
we'll have a nice, vocal guy in the leadership role.
But I don't want to take anything away from Chris and
Joe.
Those guys have won a lot of games.
They've won a lot of games.
They've been tremendous here.
They graduated.
They've been tremendous, you know,
role models for the university and for the athletic department
and that Memphis jersey.
And they've also won a part of a class that's won a lot of games.
You've been very successful with the high-low going inside to
Austin, going inside to Shaq.
And see, that's another thing.
Not a lot of people talk about that.
I've had more people, you know.
Why don't we play high-low basketball?
We do play high-low basketball!
And that's what I'm talking about.
That's the minority.
And that's being uneducated as in terms of uneducated about
understanding the game.
Do you need to do a better job and stop listening to them?
Could be but it's hard not to because it's everywhere.
So..
And here's my thing.
And I hope people respect thing.
I don't, like, hide from it.
Like I don't.
I'm very transparent.
I don't have a dialogue.
Fans can be up.
I can dial anything with media.
I don't ever duck.
And so I'm upfront about stuff.
And I think, you know, as much as people get on to me about
coaches speak about talking about other programs and other
players and coaches, one thing I don't give coaches speak is
about our team and about how I feel on this and that.
And I think I've been extremely transparent,
maybe as any head coach in the country about their team.
Because I don't look at it as my team.
Yep.
It's Tiger nation's team and they deserve to be transparent.
Shooting has been inconsistent.
You even said you thought it would be better going in to the
year.
With that said, do you think G-W sags in the middle and makes
you, forces you to take shots?
They're gonna do the same thing that U-Conn did.
They're gonna do the same thing that S-M-U has done.
They're gonna do the same thing Cincinnati's done.
We're gonna have to make threes.
If we don't make some threes, it's just gonna suck the life.
I mean they're gonna be sucked in.
And if we don't make some threes,
it makes it much more difficult.
And it doesn't mean we have to shoot 20 threes or 30 threes.
Like we beat Louisivlle.
We only shot nine threes.
We were six and nine.
That's why we won the game.
Lousiville was four and twenty-three.
We don't have to shoot a bunch.
But it gives them something to think about.
You've got to make some.
And Greg, we're not a selfish team.
Not at all.
We move the ball so well, our shots are open.
And so I've had people tell me well,
why don't you just tell them not to shoot threes.
Again, you're not going to.
Guys are open.
You've got to give them confidence.
And if they're open, they've got to make shots.
I always say there's two grades -- how you guys did in the
regular season, ultimately how you did in the post season.
How would you grade out the regular season?
I would..
Greg, our regular season -- a B, B as in boy.
And I say that because we had a lot of five -- top 25 wins,
swept Louisville and won the Old Spice preseason tournament in a
new league in a much tougher league.
And where U-Conn, Lousiville, Cincinnati had the advantage of
being the Big East all those years to understand that this is
our first year.
So we had to grow and learn from it.
Obviously I grade ourselves an F as in Frank in the conference
tournament.
And then the grade -- to be determined in the third season
with the N-C-A-A tournament.
What do you think this team has to do in the post season?
You can talk about wins.
You can talk about just play, how they play to call it
successful.
I think I put a lot on the regular season as being a
success or not.
Personally as a coach, I put a lot on the regular season.
Like I said, I graded a B as in boy.
But all signs say road to the Final Four.
It doesn't say road to the regualr season.
So everything's gonna be judged on what we do in the N-C-A-A
tournament.
And I understand that.
I'm not ducking it.
I'm not hiding from it.
You and everybody else in the media,
print, tv, radio, fans -- they're gonna.
They said in the pre-season hey, if Memphis has got to get to the
second weekend for us.
When I say us, meaning to consider.
I mean I heard you say it many times.
Second weekend to consider successful.
So I think if you ask..
If you're asking me, I feel our regular season has been
successful.
But I think Tiger nation, for them to say it's a success,
we're gonna have to get to the second weekend.
Do you think -- this seems like it's an obvious answer to this
question -- playing in the American has prepared you
better?
One-hundred percent.
We're just a better team because of the better competition we
play night-in, night-out.
And again, I'm a huge fan of Conference U-S-A.
And there were some really good teams.
But the Cincinnatis, the Connecticuts,
the Louisvilles, the S-M-Us now.
I mean, you know, even, you know,
we've played a heck of a league.
And I think that's going to better prepare us going to the
N-C-A-A tournament.
We also got to get the job done tomorrow.
Without question.
Athlete for athlete, you're as good as anybody.
Absolutely.
The phsyicality of this team is not quite there.
You're not playing a real physical team in G-W.
If you win or Virginia wins, you're not playing a real
physical team in Virginia.
But that's been kind of a bug-a-boo.
For the future as far as the physicality,
what's the game plan?
I think one of my most important hire will be who I hire in the
spring on a strength coach.
I think that's gonna be probably the most important hires that
I've made since I've been here .
Moving in to a league like we're in,
is hiring a strength coach.
Final question for ya.
The seniors going in to the game adn really all the players but
the seniors going in to the conference tournament,
I think in the back of their mind they realize hey,
you know if we lose or even if we win the tournament,
we still got another game to play.
Possibly tomorrow is their last game.
Possibly Sunday or hopefully it's down the road.
North Texas, yeah.
That makes it.
I mean this is really do or die but especially for a bunch of
seniors.
And when you have a bunch of seniors,
do you like that?
Because they got to go in knowing that this is it.
I do like it.
And..
But Greg, there's no time for rah-rah.
We got to earn it.
We got to get on the floor.
And we know what we need to do.
And the guys understand what we need to do.
We just got to get the job done.
Purely a business trip, right?
Straight business trip.
Again, people want to know why we didn't do the..
On Sunday.
This past Sunday, the selection show with the party like we
usually do.
Because I just want to keep it a straight business trip.
Plus, the last three years we've done it,
we didn't get out of the first weekend.
[laughter] Yeah, he's a little
bit like that, Josh.
We know sometimes you want to break things that are going bad
and continue to do things.
But part of it's my job to give us the best chance what I feel
to keep us locked in and give us the best chance to have an
opportunity to win the game.
Josh, thanks so much for your time.
Thanks, Greg.
And you're not the minority.
You're the majority.
I'm not the negative nellie!
Overtime is coming up next.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Once again thanks to Josh for his time and we'll
have more on the Tigers later in the show.
But first, as we introduced to you last month,
"Sports Files" is going to help you learn how to play the game
of golf.
And if you already play, we're going to try to make you better.
More specifically, Greg King is going to make you better.
Greg is the director of golf at Mirimichi Golf Course,
and today is lesson number two in good golf made easy.
So today, we're gonna work on the next set of fundamental
disciplines of good golf made easy.
We're gonna work on three things today and that is measuring
yourself to the ball, the alignment that you need to
possess in the game of golf and, as well,
the ball position, also known as where do you play the ball
between your feet.
So I'll get started with a down the line view of.
The question that I get asked all of the time is how far
should I set up from the ball?
And what I want to display to you here,
I've got a six iron in my right hand and I've got a driver in my
left hand.
And I've got two golf balls down here.
And when I establish a set up with the six iron right there
and a driver right here, what you'll notice is that these two
golf balls on the ground are dramatically different in
distances that I am away from the ball.
The constant that you see when you look down the line,
and I'm just gonna mimic a grip here is..
The constant is the distance between the end of the grip and
the front line on my thighs.
So after you made your athletic set up and you let your arms
hang from your shoulder, you let the club tell you where it wants
to rest when the bottom of the club is sold flat on the ground.
This is the constant.
Where do I set up for my hands?
You let the club tell you how far you are away from the ball.
So for fundamental alignment , I'm gonna ask you to visualize a
railroad track.
Two parallel lines.
And so that when you set up the ball,
the club face, the bottom of the club face,
you always want to aim with the bottom scoring line.
If you can see that that's aimed directly perpendicular to your
line, once I set up, I've got these alignment rods on the
ground to illustrate to you that I'm going right down this target
line right here through the middle of the ball.
That's my target line.
So I've got these alignment rods on the ground and I want to set
up my body parallel to my target line,
which includes and encompasses feet,
knees, hips and shoulders.
And if I can get my body set up in correct alignments,
that's a great start to good golf made easy.
Greg, why don't you come and show us a little bit?
So he's gonna set up to the ball in his great stance.
His arms are hanging.
He's got a great grip.
And his lines are really good.
You can see that when I set a club down right here on the
front of his toes, very parallel.
He;s got parallel alignments in feet,
knees, hips and shoulders.
He's ready to play the game.
For the last fundamental we're gonna work on today is ball
position.
Where do I play the ball between my feet?
And as an important note for you,
I would like to really sort of drive home that when you measure
yourself the distance away form the ball and where do you play
the ball between your feet, you could have the greatest swing in
the world.
But if you're not measured correctly,
you're not gonna strike it in the sweet spot of the club.
So let's go over ball position just for a minute.
I've got two clubs in my hand -- a driver,
which is the longest club in the bag and I've got a six iron,
sort of a middle of the road club.
And what I'd like to illustrate over here is that with the
driver, the longest club in the bag,
I'm gonna play the ball forward in my stance,
just off the in step on the left heel.
Some players even play it in step of the arch of my left foot
or front foot.
With the six iron, because obviously it's a shorter club.
So I'm gonna have to get closer.
But also in ball position, where between my feet,
it's much closer to the center of my stance.
It's about half way between my belt buckle and inside of my
left foot.
Every club has a different length,
which means that we're different distance away from the ball.
And also, a good rule of thumb is just to know that the longest
club in the bag, the driver, the fairway metals,
we play the farthest forward in our stance.
And as we get in to the shorter clubs,
those get closer to center.
For fundamental shots, I'm gonna play everything from the center
of my stance, forward.
So Greg, let's come in and have you illustrate.
We'll start with the driver on the ball position.
So we've got it set up for ya.
Will you set up right.
Inside the arch, you said?
Yes sir.
Okay.
Very good.
You could probably even move your feet a little bit to the
right to play the ball a little bit closer to the front of your
stance.
Okay.
There you go.
That's a great position with driver.
Now let's do the six iron.
Obviously again, you'll have to get closer to the ball because
the shorter club.
And we're gonna play the ball closer to the middle of the
stance.
So each club in the bag has you set up uniquely a little bit
different.
Measure yourself.
Uniquely a little bit different.
So now you see he's got it about half way in the center.
He's letting his hands hang from his shoulders,
that correct distance away from the front line of the thighs.
Greg, you're ready to go.
So with the six iron, I've got the ball played about half way
between the belt buckle and my left foot.
Everything as a fundamental rule to know is that the driver,
the longets club, the fairway metals,
are played the furthest forward in my stance.
As I get in to my shorter clubs, my six irons,
about half way between belt buckle and left foot.
And the shortest clubs, the wedges,
are played close to center.
But generally, everything's played forward of center.
So now you know a bit about where to play the ball between
your feet, ball position and how to measure yourself to the ball.
Another great lesson from Greg King.
Hey, March Madness is firmly underway,
although the Tigers won't hit the court until tomorrow night
at around 6:00 central time.
We heard from Coach Josh Pastner earlier in the show as they get
set to play G-W.
And now, some thoughts from senior guards Chris Crawford and
Michael Dixon Jr.
Just we just need to stay focused,
locked in, you know, just stay the courts,
just do our job and like I just said,
get the job done.
You know we can be successful.
We just got to go out there and do what we've been doing well
for, I mean, 23 games.
And I think that we should be fine.
We've got a good team and we've got a lot of good players on
this team.
I think that the perparation and the time that guy's gonna put in
the gym is going to pay off.
And we're gonna be ready to play.
And that will put a wrap on this week's show.
Remember, you can catch any of our previous programs by going
to WKNO-dot-org and clicking on 'Kno Tonite.
Have a great week.
Go Tigers!
And we'll see you next time.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
CLOSED CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY WKNO-MEMPHIS.