Iowa State defeated TCU 92-83 on Saturday night, but the overwhelming questions following the game surrounded Jameel McKay, who did not play. 

McKay went through warmups, was in uniform and sat on the bench, but did not play in the game. An ISU spokesperson said Jameel McKay was not suspended and it was a coach’s decision. 

Following the game, much of the questions ISU coach Steve Prohm faced revolved around McKay’s status and situation. Here is a full transcript of Prohm’s press conference regarding McKay: 

Question: “Jameel McKay, why didn’t he play tonight?”

Prohm: “Coach’s decision and that’s it. No more than that.”

Question: “You’ve said multiple times for you guys to be at your best you need him to play so why did you decide not to play him tonight?”

Prohm: “For the best interest of where we want to be down the road. We’re excited to move on to West Virginia and that’s it. It was my decision and there’s really not much more to it.”

Question: “Steve, [McKay] was very forthcoming after the Thursday meeting, saying it was an emotional meeting, players are coming to tears, it made it sound like everybody was on the same page. Did something happen after that?”

Prohm: “I think everybody is on the same page. The one thing we’ve got to do, is we got to start focusing on the positive things that this team is doing instead of always some of the negative things that are going on. We’ve done a lot really good things. We have two weeks left in the regular season. We got a chance to go on the road, two really good environments, test our character and then we got two really good home tests. You got a senior class that Georges [Niang] is the winningest player in the history of the school and so you want to be able to celebrate those two wins and so that’s where our focus is and that’s it. Proud of these guys, it’s a good win and now we got to get ready for West Virginia.”

Question: “Is he suspended?”

Prohm: “No. It’s my decision and that’s it. You guys can keep firing these questions but that’s it.”

Question: “Will he be available to play Monday?”

Prohm: “No question.”

Question: “Was he available to play tonight?”

Prohm: “He was available to play if I wanted to put him in. Hallice didn’t play the other night at Baylor. It’s my decision and what I want to do and that’s it. No more or no less. Obviously we need Jameel to be great. Everybody in this room knows it. Our team knows it. He’ll be ready to go and our team will be ready to go and it’s going to take a tremendous effort to win at West Virginia and we know that.”

Question: “Steve, he came off the suspension and played two games, didn’t play tonight, is there a concern with you of anything that you tried to get him to do to change coming off that suspension, maybe not sticking or anything like that tonight?”

Prohm: “Man, I want our team to go out the right way and win games and that’s it. I want to start celebrating the positive things, the good things and not look at all the…you know, I’ve done that before. One year, [I] nitpicked everything and it hurt us. We need to be talking about Abdel Nader, Deonte Burton and Georges Niang right now.”

[Prohm then answered numerous questions about other aspects of the game for awhile, before the subject came up again.]

Question: “Did Jameel know before the game that he wasn’t going to play?”

Prohm: “He probably had an idea.”

As you can tell, Prohm did not care to elaborate a whole lot on McKay’s situation. McKay was also not made available to the media after the game to comment on the situation.  

McKay was suspended indefinitely on Feb. 6 and missed two games for what Prohm described as practice related. He returned and played Iowa State’s last two games before sitting out against TCU.