“We have obviously made some significant progress since our two tests that we had with the SMU scrimmage that was a while ago and then the Mines game about ten days ago. I had two things on the board that I wanted them to do. That was to play extremely hard, which I think they did for forty minutes, I loved their effort. And to play with confidence. That is something that you can’t teach or coach, but you want your players to have a little bit of swagger in terms of how they feel about themselves when they step on the floor. You have to have that to be successful in college. You don’t want it to be too much, but you want them to believe in what they worked on over the summer and certainly through the fall. Overall, I was pleased with the first game.”

On their defensive adjustment
“It wasn’t an adjustment. It was just a reiteration of the game plan. We knew going in that Drake shot a lot of threes and they had good shooters. We had to make sure we got them off the three-point line. It was something we talked about. Midway through the first half they had seven threes. We want to hold a team to six threes in a game. We didn’t do a very good job there. We did a much better job in the second half. They got one late. We wanted to hold them to three in the second half. Overall, we started contesting shots better in the second half. You can’t let a good three-point shooting team get rhythm and get hot. Then you’ve got your hands full. The three-point line is a great equalizer in college basketball. We’ve got to understand that. There is some room for improvement there. We did a much better job in the second half.”

On Namon Wright
“I met with every play last week, individually. D’Shawn (Schwartz) wasn’t playing tonight and Del (Brown) didn’t play tonight. We knew we were going to need Namon. We started a big lineup just because of the way guys were practicing. I haven’t seen Namon play defense like that for that period of time. He has shown it in flashes, but defensively he got himself going. He was in his stance and was playing shots high. He got in the passing lane there in the second half and got a steal and dunk. I think his defense got his offense going. One thing we know Namon can do is shoot the ball. We want him to shot the ball when he is open and he did that tonight. He got himself going. I told him the better you play the more you are going to play. Tonight was a testament to that. He didn’t start. He came off the bench which going into the night I thought his role was. It doesn’t really matter who starts, it matters who finishes. You saw him get 29 minutes because he was playing so well. Tonight was Namon’s night. Next night it might be Elijah Parquet or Daylen Kountz’s night. This team has a lot of different weapons and Namon is certainly one of them. He was terrific tonight.”

On the offense
“We struggled a little bit out of the shoot tonight. We were sputtering a little bit. I thought we settled for threes. We always want paint touches. It is something we always talk about. Our first basket of the game, Tyler Bey got the ball to the rim in the paint and scored a bucket. You have to see that ball go through for it to go through again. Sometimes I thought early in the game we were settling for threes. I want our guys to play with confidence. There is a fine line there. I don’t want to settle with threes without paint touches. We did that a little bit early, but as time wore on we did a better job. We had a handful of bad shots, but we will watch the film. We can’t rely on the three ball without paint touches.”

On Tyler Bey
“He was terrific tonight. He was going after every rebound, keeping balls alive. One of the things we have really been on Tyler about is rebounding the ball with two hands. He was trying to do that tonight. He is going to have his share of double-doubles. I know he missed it by a point tonight. I liked the way he played and his energy. The play he made at the rim, Evan (Battey) got the ball to the rim and missed it and Tyler tipped it in. Those are the plays you can’t teach or can’t coach. He made that with God-given ability and hostile. He played with great energy and effort. We are going to need that from Tyler. He played his tail off.”

On Alexander Starting
“I can’t say enough about his minutes. Holy cow was he good tonight. Just playing his role and doing what he does. He makes us better when he is on the floor.”

On coming out strong to start the second half
“It is something we talk about at every halftime. Act like the score is 0-0. We came out and got what we call kills which is basically three stops in a row. We got that right out of halftime. That allowed the lead to grow. We got it to a manageable number. The key was with 18 minutes to go they called timeout. We were up 18 and I wanted to keep the foot on the gas. We did that and that is a testament to our guys and the progress that they made.”

On Evan Battey
“When I had my induvial meeting with Evan, we talked about finishing at the rim. He is still getting in the swing of things. He hadn’t played in a legitimate college basketball game ever. He is making the jump from high school to college, but he hasn’t played in the last two years. There is going to be a transition period for Evan. His teammates understand that. We see what he does in practice every day. Now it is just a matter of getting the jitters out. You saw what he did there at the end. He is just a good basketball player. There may be some rust and we will live with that. Hopefully he continues to get better.”

On the post play
“I was really pleased with our four post guy rotation. Lucas (Siewert) played heavy minutes in the first half, but didn’t play as much in the second half. With the way he is playing, we have to get him more shots. He was 4-4 form the field and 2-2 from three.

On sharing the ball
“The assist numbers for us need to be up in the twenties, especially on a night like this. We had 15 which is a good number. We need to really make plays for each other. When this team starts doing that, they can be a lot of fun.”

On Evan Battey’s defense
“He has got such a strong body. He got called for the last foul on him. It was really good defense. Officials are still trying to figure out Evan Battey too. It was their first time seeing him just like it was his first time seeing them. He is a big strong body. When bodies collide, Evan doesn’t bounce off you, you bounce off him. There is going to be some times when he gets fouls early. The officials will learn about his game and how good his feet are. I feel really good about him playing on the perimeter because of how great his feet are. You don’t think it by looking at him, but he has terrific feet. He did a great job of showing on ball screens. Evan is going to be a work in progress and he is going to keep getting better and better.”

On D’Shawn Schwartz sitting out due to NCAA rules
“Our compliance office does an unbelievable job of educating our players and our coaches what the rules are. I have learned as a coach that maybe I need to be more hands on when it comes to that, especially when it breaks to the summer. It was an infraction of playing in an unsanctioned summer event. We just had the compliance meeting a week before he played in it. It was more of a lapse on his part. Kids are kids. He is not a bad kid. He didn’t do anything wrong. Just played in something he shouldn’t have played in. We have to pay attention a little bit more in those meetings. That is behind him and behind us. We will learn from it and hopefully his teammates will learn from it next time. I vowed when I became a head coach that one of my players would never miss a game for that. I failed in that regard. I take responsibility.”

On Deleon Brown
Del’s status is that he is going to play Friday night. It was a coach’s decision. Del and I are good. I look forward to having him and D’Shawn on the floor. We will have all hands-on deck on Friday night.”

Colorado Players

Namon Wright, Sr., G
On what allowed him to get going tonight
“A good point guard and having good teammates, and just being confident in shooting the ball when I’m open. Also, just playing defense, a few of my baskets I got from playing defense and getting in the lane when we’re running in transition. Daylen and Shane were finding me and I was finding them. We were playing as a team, being aggressive and running when we got stops.”

On coming off the bench
“I don’t have a preference, for me I just want to help my team however I can. I make sure our team is flowing the best way it should, and whatever way our coaches see that is probably right. The group I’m with is usually the younger guys on the team, so I’m sure it’s a great balance. We didn’t have the shine in depth tonight, so the balance was probably a little different, whatever to help my team. We just got to have the right focus mentally, starting, off the bench, it doesn’t matter to me as long as we when ball games.”

On Keeping the lead throughout the game
“Absolutely, that’s exactly what we talked about at half time we made sure were making progress and playing the 3 point line. Just being aggressive, in the last 10 minutes in the first half we really guarded the three, the first 10 minutes we weren’t. I think we built off that in the second half.”

On being more aggressive
“I’m just trying to let the game come to me honestly. Tonight, I got open on a back cut and to me that’s what got me going to be aggressive, I try to let the game come to me, but sometimes I’ll watch certain players and they take the game over, and that’s something I’ve got learn how to do a little bit better sometimes. I like the game to come to me, but being aggressive, in a balanced attack, get to the free throw line, drive the ball, shoot when you’re open, and guard. Tonight I feel like we all did better.”

McKinley Wright IV, So., G

On playing a good 3-point shooting team
“It was a good learning experience for us. Coach had been stressing over these last couple of days, had good they shoot the 3. I think they showcased that tonight. In the second half we did a lot better job of running them off the three point line. It was a learning experience for when we play against teams in the future that shoot the ball well”

On Drake’s 3 Point Shooting Early
“Early we got caught sleeping a little bit. They hit two wide open ones out the gate, and we talked about it in the timeout. We did a good job the rest of the way running them off the three point line and making them finish in the lane.”

On the quick 2^nd half start
“That’s something that we had a lot last year, where we would go into half with the lead and let a team get right back in the game. Our focus is to put teams away when we got them down, and I think we showcased that tonight, now we got to keep it going”

On Seeing Evan Battey play.
“It was great, he got emotional there after the game and I was there to pick him up. Its tough, a guy has a stroke not to long ago, the first year the NCAA ruled him out, then the stroke after, it’s tough. I can’t imagine personally what he and his family have been through. I know it was tough for us when we heard of the news. With his speech, he couldn’t talk, he’s getting better to this day. We’re happy for him and glad to see him out there, he’s going to be big for us this year.”

On what the team can do better going forward
“Come out the gate ready. I know a couple of guys who play for Omaha and they like to shoot the three, we’ve got to come out the gate and not let them have those first couple of threes to start the game. We’re going to focus on defense this year, scoring isn’t a problem for us. We’ve got a lot of scorers on this team that you’ve seen tonight.”

Drake Bulldogs Head Coach Darian DeVries

On Drake’s Performance
“I thought early in the game, the first 15 minutes or so, I liked where we were at. Down the stretch we battled back and took the lead, it really felt like at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half things just got away from us a little bit. The last three minutes before half time put them up 11 and to start the second half they extended their lead to 19. I told the guys, this certainly doesn’t define who we are by any means. It was a night that got away from us, we need to look at the tape and see some of the areas that we are good at and see some of the areas that we really need to improve. A lot of it is just in some of the details of things that we will continue to get better at. We will take the day off tomorrow and then on Thursday we will go back to work.”

On How Things Changed after Halftime
“If Nick Norton didn’t miss a couple of those open ones that would have cut the game to eight and maybe would have gave our guys a little juice on a team that, for a while here, is going to constantly be trying to define themselves as a group and where do they go to and where do they look to for some of their leadership and some of things that when stuff does go a little south, how do you pull that group together. To start that second half we missed an open one and they came down and got a couple easy ones. That is not the way that you want to come out from a “Rah Rah” speech at halftime is have things go from 11 to 19 pretty quickly.”

On the Impact of the Team’s Foul Trouble
“We did get into some foul trouble. I didn’t think that it really had a huge impact on the game per say. We had to manage it a little bit but I thought that a lot of it really was at both ends of the floor. Offensively, we got pretty stagnant. I actually thought that our movement in the second half was a lot better until late when the game was already decided. Then defensively, you can’t let a team shoot 60 percent from the field, up 15 and expect them to change. Then there were just those spurts of two or three minutes where they hit us with those 8-0 or 10-2 runs, those took away from a solid effort in a lot of other parts of the game. Avoiding those types of runs are a big part of winning college basketball games.”

Colorado-Drake Quotes

McKinley Wright IV, So., G

Drake Bulldogs Head Coach Darian DeVries