Head Coach Lon Kruger ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Opening Statement:
"It was a tough ball game. I thought we got off to a good start, and Kansas State made a nice run there. They made some three's late in the first half to play well. We tried to battle to get back into the second half, but we could not quite do that. We did not take very good care of the ball, and that is entirely because the Kansas State defense was outstanding. They did a terrific job and dictated. We have not had that much trouble holding the ball on the season and you have to credit Kansas State for that. I like their team. They are big and tough. They played great and unselfishly. I think our guys came in here and expected good things, and they came out realizing that we have to do things better to play at that level. So, we will do that. We will go back home, get to work and see if we cannot get better."
On K-State's shooting from behind the arc:
"It looked like that. It was not intentional by any means because they are good players. They are good shooters. (Shane) Southwell really adds something to them. His ability to step out and make three's. Of course, (Rodney) McGruder is a terrific player, and (Will) Spradling is a good shooter. So those three guys plus (Angel) Rodriguez who adds a few. They have good guys. We were concerned about a lot of things with them, but their ability to make three's has been a little streaky maybe on the year, but still very capable. So, it was not our intent to encourage them to shoot three's."
On Rodney McGruder:
"He works so hard, and it is hard to stay in touch with him the entire time. I thought our guys worked at it, but he got a little separation there a couple of times. It seemed like there was 3 or 5 possessions when he had a three. I do not know if it was that fast, but it seemed like it. He works. He got some separation and made us pay for it."
On K-State's shooting:
"Any club is a lot better when guys are making shots. Kansas State is very good, and when they shoot the ball like that, they are even better. They have good players that are capable of doing that. So, it is not a surprise."
On K-State's efficiency:
"They played better than we did, and that is the way it works. I thought they ran their stuff more efficiently than we did. Again, their defense was a big factor in us not executing as well as we wanted to on the half court. They made three's, and we did not for the most part. So, when you play a top-ranked team in the country you need to play better than we did to win, and we did not play at that level."
Senior F Romero Osby ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On K-State's defense:
"Like coach said, they were doing a good job of really making us extend our offense. They were pressuring us. They were doing a good job of not really fouling. That is what we did try to be physical, but they kept their hands back. When we did get to the free throw line, especially myself, I am a better free throw shooter than I showed tonight. I did not shoot them well. They just did a good job all around."
On his shooting:
K-State did a good job in the first half of really helping on our pick-and-pops. I never really had a chance to attack the big guy, and they just did an all around good job defensively. You have to give a lot of credit to them. They made it tough on me, and I got into foul trouble a little bit. The odds were against me a little bit tonight, but it is not about me it is about my team. When I am not scoring, we have other people stepping up, which is great. It was tough."
Head Coach Bruce Weber ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Opening Statement:
"It was a good hard-fought win in conference play against a very, very good team. Lon (Kruger) has done a really nice job. He has tweaked some things and changed his lineup and they are hard to defend. In the first 10 minutes, they definitely outplayed us. We jumped on Rod's (McGruder) back. I think he made three three-pointers in a row. Then Shane (Southwell) hit one and really got the crowd into it and our defense really picked it up. We talked about getting scramble rebounds before the game. We knew they were going to come because Oklahoma really spreads you out and they know how to rotate and you have to get out on their bigs but we did not do a very good job of that today. We wished we could have had a halftime session to learn how to guard that out of bounds play because we did not do a very good job against that. We can work on that the next time that we play them. Rod was big in the first half, Will (Spradling) in the second half and Angel (Rodriguez) was down the stretch. Shane was consistent throughout the whole game. We just had really good balance. We had a lot of positives. It was a good win against a quality team."
