Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-SMU quotes
January 07, 2008 | Men's Basketball
CU Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
ON SCORING SPURTS ? “We are a team that scores in
streaks. At the start of the game we had some good shots, we just did not make
them, and that is why you have to be rock solid for 40 minutes on defense. More
often than not you are going to have shots that go down, and shots that don't
go down. However, the way that you sustain is to defend for forty minutes.”
ON PROGRESS ? “We are getting more consistent.
We had four players in double digits, which means that we had good shot
distribution. I like that we are sharing the basketball. Our assist to turnover
ratio is getting better. We had 29 deflections last ball game and we wanted to
get 39 deflections this game. We created 20 points off of 13 of their turnovers
because we were deflecting the basketball.”
ON LEVI KNUTSON ? “He stays ready by practicing
hard, and you play like you practice. Every time that you get on the practice
floor it should be like a game because it makes us better as a team. His work
ethic is terrific, and it helps him to stay sharp.”
ON RICHARD ROBY ? “90% of fouls come from defensive mistakes, and that is where most of his fouls came from. His positioning needs to get better, and that will put him in a position not to foul. Sometimes offensive struggles get to affect other areas of the game, and that is something that we all are trying to get better at. He gave us a great lift in the first half, and I am proud of what he did.”
SMU Head Coach Matt Doherty
GENERAL ? “We wanted to get the ball inside and
didn't do a great job of that. Both teams played a matchup zone and it was
tough for both teams to get in a rhythm. They won the game because they stole
the ball, we had too many turnovers. We wanted to get the ball inside but with
the matchup zone it was tough to find cracks.”
ON ADJUSTMENTS ON
RICHARD ROBY ? “We
matched up better in our zone in the second half and slowed him down.”
ON WHAT TO TAKE FROM
THE LOSS ? “I'm
frustrated. After the loss to Stephen F. Austin I was upbeat because we played
well. We played dumb basketball tonight. I'm tired of making a clip tape of the
game and having 50 clips with a quarter of them bad.”
ON STARTING CONFERENCE
PLAY ? “We play
Wednesday at UTEP. They are not unlike
ON
SHOOTING ? “We know we can shoot the ball well, sometimes we don't hit all the
shots we should make and sometimes our shooting looks better than it is. We did have some guys step up and hit some
big shots when we needed them.”
ON
SLOW START?“I can't tell you why we started the way we did. It was a good test for us, we weathered the
storm and went into the half up by 10.”
ON
FINISHING TONIGHT'S GAME?“It was very important for us, it shows that we're
growing up as a team. We've had chances
to put teams away in the past, like the
ON
MISSING DWIGHT THORNE ? “We definitely need him. He does a lot for us, especially
defensively. Going into Big 12 play
we'll need him because of what he brings to the floor on a nightly basis.”
ON
SMU'S SIZE ADVANTAGE ? “They were taller and longer than us, so we needed to
increase our intensity. On that same
note, they have to guard us too so we tried to use our speed and athleticism.”
ON
DEFENDING THE THREE ? “We know the scouting report, we know who the shooters on
the different teams are. Against CSU we
just couldn't find their shooters in transition and I think we did a better job
of doing that tonight.”
ON
PICKING RICHARD ROBY UP ? “I could definitely tell that he was frustrated. I told him to pick his head up because we
needed him out there. He was mainly just
frustrated because he was in foul trouble, he had to be more hesitant
offensively and defensively. I just told
him to relax and be Rich because we all know he can do amazing things on the
court.”
GENERAL ? “Obviously with
Dwight (Thorne) out I needed to step up.
I wanted to give us some quality minutes and play well tonight. I always want to play with confidence and
that's what I tried to do tonight. I
want to show the team that they can have confidence in me, and I want to play
well all the time.”
ON SMU'S SIZE ADVANTAGE ?
“We just had to play with an increased level of intensity and we, as guards,
had to crash the boards and help our bigs out.”
ON THEIR EFFORT TONIGHT ?
“The effort was a little better tonight, but we still have a lot to improve
on?there always is. Our effort keeps
going up and we need to keep improving our effort everyday. I thought we had a solid game effort wise.”
ON HOW HE PREPARED FOR
TONIGHT'S GAME ? “I practiced to get sharp.
We practice like it's a game, so I was going really hard in
practice. You practice like you play, I
just try to go hard in practice so that I can stay sharp when I'm not getting
high minutes in the games.”
