Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening Statement:
"Congrats to Texas. Good team, very physical. I thought they did a lot of good things out there today. It’s going to be tough for us to beat anyone if we don’t make shots. I thought, though we didn’t make shots in the first half, we were right there at half-time. I thought we created that for it to only be an eight point game. At half time I thought we had the pace needed to win this game. And then, to get the awful start we had in the second half is mind boggling to me. It’s a simple getting the ball and bounce and they turned it right back over. What that does is it invites the crowd to get into it, it got [Dogus] Balbay even more excited, it got the team more excited and it changed the pace of the game there for a little bit. It knocked us back. We weren’t able to handle the pressure, but I thought we battled, I thought we competed. We just have to be a better team."
On Jordan Hamilton:
"He was one of the guys that we talked about. There were three guys we talked about, we said we couldn’t give them open looks. And at the start of the game, the second half, we gave two wide open looks to Jordan. Obviously we know he’s a great scorer, and he’s a guy that loves to shoot, loves to score. What we wanted to make him put it on the floor and we worked on it for two days, we watched tape, we studied it, and for us not to be able to follow through with that, four of his five threes, I felt, were wide open. We didn’t make him put it on the floor. We’ve got to get better at those things. That’s another example of something that we can control."
On what he likes about this team:
"It’s a tough time to ask me about this question because the loss is so fresh, but I like our future. I really like our future. I think we have some guys that are gaining valuable experience this year. I think we have some guys that are being thrown in to the fire immediately, and I think that will pay off. I think Tyler [Neal] came in and really competed. I thought Andrew [Fitzgerald] did some good things offensively. He has to understand how important he is to us. I keep saying that. He can’t pick up cheap fouls, things of that nature. I thought Cameron[Clark] did some good things out there today. Again, I think we have some resolve. I don’t think we gave up, I think we fought. It’s very disheartening for a young group when they don’t see the ball go to the basket. Again, I thought we had the pace right where we wanted. I felt like we would have had a much better chance of winning than the score indicated coming into this game. But the fact of the matter is that we have to put the ball to the basket."
Forward Andrew Fitzgerald
On what the team takes from this loss:
"It’s hard to build off something like this, but at the same time we need to look at the positives like how some of our players would come in and fight. It’s tough to play in this building. I can’t really explain the frustration."
On his success inside in the second half:
"With posting up hard and creating space and any hook shot or jump shot that I have, the ball decided to go in. It started building my confidence and I played from there. Last game, Baylor was in a zone so I was looking to help the team as much as I could. Texas played man-to-man the majority of the game so all I had to do was get in the right position at the right time and use the space I had to store."
Senior guard Cade Davis
On Texas’ early second half play:
"[Dogus Balbay and Jordan Hamilton] made a huge impact at the start of the second half. A lot of that was due to our inability to take care of the ball and we lost Hamilton twice knowing that he is a great shooter. You can’t leave a good shooter like that open. That got them going and gave them momentum and got the crowd into it. A lot of it is our own mistakes. Those are things that we should be able to stop and limit those turnovers."
On getting down early:
"That’s been a struggle for us all year, getting down early against teams especially on the road. That’s something that we’re going try and limit. We have to make sure that we jump out early and try and build the lead early ourselves because it’s tough for us to fight back, especially at a place like this and when they have momentum like they did. That’s something that we struggled with all year and we have to correct it at some point."
