Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening comment:
“Congrats to K-State. They are a very, very good basketball team. I think they have a chance to have a really good run in the NCAA tournament. They have all the qualities you need. They are older, they’re tough, have a veteran backcourt. There are a lot of different things you can do up front with a lot of different guys and they are a very good defensive team. I thought (Denis) Clemente was tremendous and that was the difference in the game. You have a fifth-year point guard who has been very good at both places and is having a first-team all-league player of the year type of season for them. He controlled the game from beginning to end on both ends of the floor.
“I thought we did some good things. I thought we competed and I thought we had some chances in the first half to maybe have a little bit larger lead at different times. We had a wide open 3 in the corner by Cade (Davis). If we make it, it has a chance to put it to 10, and the place is probably going a little bit crazier than it was. We missed some opportunities and when you are playing against a team like that, a team that is that good, you have to take advantage of every opportunity. I thought we ran out of gas in the second half. Our guys were competing. We were tired and they were a little bit fresher than us. Again, I thought we did some good things, but unfortunately we didn’t come out with a win.”
On freshmen Tiny Gallon and Andrew Fitzgerald:
“They did some good stuff in the first half. Both Tiny (Gallon) and Andrew (Fitzgerald) did some really good things in the first half. They scored the ball and we did a pretty good job of blocking out in the first half. I think they maybe had three offensive rebounds at halftime. That’s something we really tried to concentrate on and talk about. We did a good job there. Tiny did a good job making strong moves to the basket, making a short jump shot and giving us a presence down low.”
On defending Denis Clemente:
“I think Clemente is the fastest guy in college basketball going from end to end, especially with the basketball. When he’s making his jump shot like he’s been doing, he’s awfully, awfully tough to guard. They do a good job setting different types of screens for him and he’s very aggressive off the screens. The main thing is that he’s older and more mature. He has such a confidence out there and such control of the game. That’s something that the really, really elite point guards have and I think he’s an elite point guard.”
On keeping the team motivated:
“Well you should be motivated because you have an opportunity to play, you have an opportunity to grow and get better. For the younger guys, it’s an opportunity to play against really good competition. Hopefully we have a competitive spirit.”
Junior Guard Cade Davis
On Kansas State’s guard play:
“They are two of the best guards around, (Jacob) Pullen and (Denis) Clemente. They are so fast with the ball and equally fast without it. In that stretch early in the second half they got it going and kind of set the tempo of the game. They started hitting shots that stretched the lead on us and we didn’t battle back from that.”
On the play of Andrew Fitzgerald:
“He played great. He got his shot down on the baseline and that’s kind of his thing right now, just catch, turn and shoot. He got it going and he was feeling it, so we kept feeding him down there and did a good job. He got fouled a few times on his shots by head faking and trying to get those guys up in the air. This game should give him a big boost of confidence and hopefully we can get that out of him from here on out.”
Senior Guard Tony Crocker
On what happened in the second half:
“They did a real good job of knocking down shots and they went to the glass and got rebounds. We didn’t get as many rebounds really as we should have. They hit a lot of shots, including that 3-pointer at the start of the second half. Overall they are just a good team and they hurt us.”
