Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening statement...
Congrats to Texas. They were the tougher team down the stretch. I thought we played well for 31 minutes. Then their older guys stepped up and made plays. Then they got great contributions from two freshmen. J'Covan Brown stepped up and made some plays behind ball screens. Jordan Hamilton really played like a veteran tonight. I'm proud of our guys. I thought we did some good things. I thought we executed. I thought we got out to a good start. Again, our inability to defend and get some stops, just the little things. We're getting closer. We're a team where we have to do everything right to give ourselves a chance to win. We're getting closer. I thought we did a lot of things right tonight. Little things end up being big things like free throw block outs, blocking out in general, understanding stuff we go over in practice, personnel and how we want to defend certain situations. They had a lineup in we thought we could go zone against. We didn't handle the ball screen in the zone the correct way, and they scored three straight possessions. Those are the things we go over and we talk about and we have to carry those out on the floor. I thought we did some good things. We're getting closer, and we look forward to playing on Wednesday.
On their rebounding struggles...
They're a great rebounding team. That's what they do. It hurt us with Ryan (Wright) only playing only seven minutes. If you remember back at our place, I think he had 14 rebounds. He never was able to get into the flow of the game. Every time he got near someone or touched someone, it was a foul. So that hurt us. (Andrew) Fitzgerald hasn't been a great rebounder on the defensive end all year. That's something he has to improve. They have a great rebounding team. That's one of their strengths, is getting the ball up on the glass and going to get it. They really controlled the glass tonight.
On if that's the best they have played in the first 30 minutes of a game...
On the offensive end, still there's a lot to be desired on the defensive end, but on the offensive end it was. One of the things I kept telling our guys is we had chances in the first half. We were up 10, 12, 13 to extend the lead. We started trying to hit home runs. I kept telling them let's keep hitting singles. We're getting them on base, we're moving them around. Let's just continue to do that. That's what I mean about little things - understanding that we're executing, we're getting about any shot we want. We were making shots in the first half. I thought we were executing. We scored a good amount of the time when we got good shots. At times we got out of character.
Senior Guard Tony Crocker
On not getting stops in the second half...
We've been working on defense and stuff in practice knowing that's what we've got to get better at, because a lot of teams are scoring points on us. We're scoring too, but they're outscoring us. So, really it's just we need to work on getting stops at the end of the game. It was a close game in the first half, and in the second half, they took the lead and kind of stuck with it.
On Texas' ability to get to the basket...
I think they got a lot of easier buckets in the second half. It was a long game, and everybody was playing as hard as we can. They ran guys in and out. It comes down to pride. They wanted it a lot more. Those guys, (it was their) senior night, we just came up short.
Junior Guard Cade Davis
On cooling off in the second half...
I think it just came down to that they wanted it more. They were getting more offensive rebounds off of free throws and things like that. We had to play defense longer. I guess you can say we ran out of gas. We hurt ourselves on the defensive end, and that's why we couldn't get going offensively.
On the first 30 minutes of the game...
I'd compare that to a few games where we'd played really well. We battled. We did some things really well offensively and defensively. Like (Tony) Crock(er) said, we've got to be able to do that in the second half and close out games better.
On Texas' run to take the lead...
It was just the defense not getting back. They had some wide open looks. There were too many offensive rebounds we let them have.
