Oklahom Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening comment:
“I am proud of our effort. I thought we got off to a good start, especially on the defensive end. This is the best we have been as far as moving the basketball, as was evidenced by one turnover in the first half. I thought we did a good job of sharing it, moving it, which opened up the drives. But again, I thought it all started with our defense. In the very first couple of possessions on defense, I think we forced turnovers. The first-half defense was really good. The second half was just OK. I thought Willie (Warren) was terrific. All year he had been doing a good job of driving and getting fouled, but he had been struggling behind the arc. It was very similar to last year how he started. Last year our first TV game was Davidson and he got going. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it tonight, with it being on national TV, but it was good to see him make some plays. I thought Tommy (Mason-Griffin) was great – six assists and zero turnovers. It was good to see Tiny (Gallon) have some positive stuff happen for him inside. For us, this was another step. A step in the right direction, and hopefully we can keep it going.”
On Cade Davis in the starting lineup:
“We needed experience. That was the main thing, so we put our three most experienced guys in the lineup. Crock (Tony Crocker) is a fighter and, even though he is playing against bigger guys, he is going to fight. It gives us, in my opinion, our best offensive lineup. We have four guys out there that can dribble, pass and shoot. They are pretty good shooters out there, so it spreads the floor out. Cade is a guy that brings so much energy and he is all over the place. Sometimes that gets him into trouble, but I’d rather a guy be that way than a guy that you have to constantly ask to go hard.”
On what happened that allowed him to get across the message that the defense needed to improve:
“We lost. We lost three in a row. We have been talking about it since day one, but I think our guys thought they could just come out and outscore people. One of the things that happened to us, after the loss to VCU, we went a week without practice because of how long that trip (to Alaska) was. When you are in those tournaments like Alaska, where you are playing back-to-back nights, you don’t have a lot of time to practice. I knew what the problems were, but it was hard for us to have time to correct them. But I think losing helped them understand how important it is.”
On how other players look up to Tony Crocker:
“He is the best example of a guy that’s willing to do whatever it takes. You are talking about a guy that is guarding fours. I don’t know how many rebounds he had tonight, but in our last game he had 16 rebounds. He is doing a little bit of everything for us, and that is what we need in our program. Crock, especially recently, has been a very good example of that.”
Sophomore Guard Willie Warren
On what made the team play more together tonight:
“We have just been striving to perfection, especially on the defensive end – just taking care of business since we came back from Alaska. We have the ability to defend, we just haven’t been showing it.”
On the excitement of playing Arizona:
“Yeah, I feel like that helped us out a lot, with their name, being a basketball school and all. We let three games get away from us this year and we know that. So we know we need the big-name schools, we need those wins – like Arizona, when we go to Gonzaga. Not to look over these next three games that we have before we get to Gonzaga, but we need some big wins for us down the stretch to help our resume out.”
On why the team is playing better now:
“We’re elevating our play. Tiny’s (Gallon) playing aggressive. I’m attacking from the jump instead of deferring or waiting until the second half when it’s too late when we’re down 13, 14. It’s a lot. Crock’s (Tony Crocker) elevated his play since Alaska. Cade (Davis) has elevated his play. Tommy (Mason-Griffin) has. Everybody has just elevated their game to the next level to help this team be great.”
On if he felt he came out stronger tonight than Wednesday against Arkansas:
“Yeah, my coaches, especially Coach (Oronde) Taliaferro, has been getting on me saying that I’m just looking like I’m not into the game early and I’m always looking like I’m ready to score once I need to score. And he said that I can’t do that anymore. I have to always attack from the jump. That’s something I’m going to work on and something I have to continue to do.”
Freshman Forward Tiny Gallon
On the emphasis of doing a better job on the defensive glass:
“Yes, that’s the boxing out drills that we do. We’ve been playing defense and we want the ball more than they do.”
On his injury in the second half:
“I was catching cramps, bad. That’s why he (Coach Capel) took me out, because I was catching cramps.”
On how his inside game is developing:
“Well, the team needed me tonight. The other games when I didn’t score so well, the guards had it under control. But tonight, we were just focused on defense. When we play defense, that’s when our offense comes in. Willie’s (Warren) looking for me more and stuff like that. He penetrates and kicks, but if I get double-teamed I’m going to kick it back out. I feel like when we play like a family and everybody trusts each other, we’re going to win.”
On if he feels that his game is becoming more of an inside presence:
“I feel like it is. The guards trust me more. They trust that I’ll make a strong move instead of doing a fade away or doing something that’s not fit for the team. Willie told me if I make a strong move he’d give me the ball every time, so I’m comfortable with that.”
Arizona Head Coach Sean Miller
Opening comment:
“I’ve had the opportunity to watch Oklahoma throughout the early part of the season and I know, especially considering who they lost a year ago, that they are a work in progress and are trying to build. In one person’s opinion, I thought that they played very well tonight and in all the games I watched, to me, they really moved the ball well. You can tell that Jeff (Capel) is day by day, week by week, implementing them to play more together and as a team, and I think they have an excellent basketball team and the best is yet to come.”
On Oklahoma’s Willie Warren and Tiny Gallon:
“I think Willie Warren deserves to be an All-American. To me he’s as explosive a scorer as there is in college basketball. I think Tiny Gallon will keep getting better and better. They did a great job of getting him the ball tonight.”
On Oklahoma’s basketball program and how it relates to Arizona’s:
“I really admire Oklahoma basketball overall as a program. I think they do things the right way in recruiting. They’ll lose players and in the next year they’re good and they build. It’s something that, as a new coach at Arizona, I really look to rekindle and bring back to our program. We’re very much a work in progress. Being the fourth coach in four years really kind of stands out in an environment like this today when you consider who we have on the court and where we are, not only as a team, but a program. Today is just one of many steps we need to make in a big picture to get where we want to get.”
On Arizona’s tough opening schedule:
“One thing, if you follow us, you’d probably say is that we play one heck of a schedule. We played three really good games in Maui and an excellent UNLV team and lost a heartbreaker in that. Now we’re coming into Norman to play Oklahoma. This is a schedule that’s really set up for a good team. Sometimes when you lose, confidence starts to become part of the problem. When I looked at our team in the first half I saw some guys that, quite frankly, had that look that, as a coach, you say, ‘Uh oh.’ At the same time, I don’t want to take anything away from Oklahoma’s performance, but they didn’t beat an excellent basketball team tonight. They beat a team that has a long way to go and is really trying to find themselves.”
Senior Guard Nic Wise
Opening comment:
“They’re a young team too, just like us, so they’re going to get better game by game. Early on I think our offense was just stagnant. We would run plays and when they didn’t work guys would just stand there waiting for someone to make a play. That’s something you can’t do on the road. You need to make things happen. You need to move, screen and get other guys open. Don’t let their pressure defense stop you from scoring and doing what the coach is telling you to do in the system of your offense.”
On this being Arizona’s first true road game:
“This was our first actual road game. We’re a young team so maybe guys felt different when there’s no one there cheering for us at all. That’s one thing I think we did a little better after halftime. Coach got on us, letting us know we need to forget on the road and do the same thing we do at home.”
Junior Forward Jamelle Horne
On the struggle of trying come back in the second half:
“Having two factors, being down and the second being away, naturally that’s going to be extremely tough to come back from. It’s kind of the way that we came out in the first half that put us in the pit. It was hard to dig out of. We continued to fight and continued to play. That’s all we could do in that last 20 minutes.”
