WICHITA, Kan. -- Head coach Gregg Marshall talked about his evolving rotation of threes and fours and pondered nicknames for his not-quite-monsterous trio of fives, all while looking ahead to Seton Hall, in Wichita State's weekly men's basketball press conference. Read on for the full transcript:
 

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HEAD COACH GREGG MARSHALL ON...
 
…Increased playing time of freshman Markis McDuffie
"Markis is obviously very talented, we knew that [coming in]. He's a bright young man, but he's young. He was 17 when he got here…His talent is obvious, but I'm just not sure he was in-tune all the time; not paying attention and locking in. He was a little bit behind at the beginning of the season because of that.
 
In [the Advocare Invitational in] Florida, he demonstrated some of that too. Even though he scored buckets, and is long, athletic and is going to get better and better every day, not knowing what defense we're in can hurt us. That's something that the casual writer or fan may not understand or ascertain from his actions."
 
…What the emergence of Zach Brown and McDuffie mean for Evan Wessel's position, potentially putting him at power forward (the "4")
"[Evan's] undersized but he can shoot it, as he did in the first half against Utah, and stretched their defense. He just doesn't want to do the ball-handling part. We've been effective with a three-guard offense, basically meaning the '1,' the '2,' and the '3' all handle the ball, drive it, and pass it, like Tekele Cotton [who was] our '3' last year. This year, it's Zach Brown and Markis. You see them [being] more apt to want put the ball on the deck. Evan doesn't want to do it. He can, and we've encouraged him to do it, even at the '4.' But he doesn't seem to want to do it. With the struggles of some of the '4' men, we were able to put Evan back at the '4,' and Zach Brown's been playing really well, and Markis McDuffie has also been playing really well."
 
…The plan on using the "Three-Headed Monster" combination of Tom "Bush" Wamukota, Shaquille Morris, and Rauno Nurger
"I would love for one of those guys to become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Moses Malone, but I don't think it's going to happen. Short of that, I'm going to play them in a rotation until one of them [shows] 'I need to be playing more. I'm clearly getting more done, I'm more productive than Player B and Player C.' [If that happens] that guy is going to get maybe 20 minutes, and the other two will split the other 20 minutes. Until I see a clear delineation with their talents and what they're getting done, I'm going to stay with the way it is.
 
I think I got a little ahead of myself by going with the term 'Monster…' I haven't come up with what I want to call it. It's a 'Three-Headed Something,' but it's not quite a 'Monster' yet. But defensively, they were really good against [UNLV's Stephen] Zimmerman and [Utah's Jakob] Poeltl."
 
…Zach Brown's improved defensive ability, potential, and comparison to Tekele Cotton
"His ceiling is as high as any player we have. Inch for inch, pound for pound, he's one of our best athletes. He can shoot it fairly well, he can dribble pretty well, and he's bigger than Tekele Cotton; he's probably three to four inches taller. Defensively, he can do everything that Tekele could, if he's in-tune. I've talked with him for a little over a year now about not losing focus or concentration on the defensive end. Losing sight of the ball on one possession, losing sight of your man on a possession, and not seeing both at all times and being in the proper position. Any athlete can make some plays…but you've got to be in a position to make those plays, and that was his problem: he would lose focus. But he's really zoned in since we got back from Florida."
 
…How Conner Frankamp can build off his late-game shots in the Utah game
"[I think there's pressures, like that] he's the 'hometown guy,' the fans are really pulling for him, obviously there's a great an interest in what he does and how much he does it.
 
He admitted to me he was very nervous, and it's to be expected. He hasn't played basketball since the spring of 2014, a year and a half ago approximately, and in front of a crowd. In practice, he's tremendous. You saw at Shocker Madness, he won the three-point contest easily. If you're playing a game of 'H-O-R-S-E,' there's no one you'd pick before him. That being said, he had some pretty good looks, especially against UNLV. He had one bad shot against Utah, but of the nine or ten shots he's taken, that's the only bad one. And the next-to-worst [shot], he made…his natural reaction, because the shot clock winding down, was to catch and shoot it even though there was a hard contest by a bigger guy. When that happens, there's no thinking about it. You know you have to shoot it, and he just let his muscle memory take over…and he drained it.
 
He's a great shooter, and he's going to end up having a breakout game here soon. But he's got to do the other things, he's got to defend, come up with loose balls, and run the court. He's played something like 25 minutes now at Wichita State, so he's just getting himself broken in."
 
…Expectations for Saturday's game at Seton Hall
"I hope we take the mentality we've had in the last three games: defend and rebound as well as we can. Offensively: run our system and let shots come through the system. When it breaks down, give [the ball] to Fred [VanVleet] and see what he can get us."