Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening comment:
“Congrats to Tech. They made plays throughout the game. I thought they played with more energy and just better than us throughout the game. I thought we made a good run and played with some good energy the last six minutes, but just could not get over the hump. We had a couple of really good opportunities. Willie (Warren) got a wide open shot and we thought Tommy (Mason-Griffin) got a good look on that last one, it just didn’t go in for us. It was a tough one, but we have to come back, we go on the road and play a good team.”
On the team’s second-half play:
“We finally started getting some stops and forcing some turnovers. We were able to execute on our end and get some baskets. The energy picked up. Our fans were trying to give us energy throughout, and again I thought the last six minutes we gave them something to cheer about.”
On Tiny Gallon:
“I thought he did some good things, especially in the second half. He was a presence for us down low. I thought he made some strong moves, I thought he made some good passes. He got a couple deflections on the defensive end and one in transition, which was a good play for us. We need him to be consistent with that for us. He has to get better defensively, but we need him to be a consistent threat down low for us and he was that in the second half.”
On Willie Warren:
“He played well except for the six turnovers. He has to get better there and that’s something he’s had a problem with in Big 12 play. He certainly did some good things offensively for us.”
On the importance of winning on the road:
“It’s huge. We haven’t been very good there. We are going to a place where we’ve played pretty well the last couple of years at Oklahoma State. Hopefully we can play really well there on Saturday.”
“I know Travis (Ford) will have his team ready to go. Those guys have a lot of pride in their program and their tradition. We have gotten the best of them the past couple of years up there so we know they are going to be really excited about the game. We need to be even more excited. Great opportunity for us.”
Sophomore Guard Willie Warren
On the last sequence of shots at the end of the game:
“We had some pretty good shots. We feel like we had the right people taking shots. The ball just didn’t bounce our way.”
On defense at the end of the game:
“That was our main focus, especially at halftime. We gave up 36 points and Coach Capel just was like we didn’t have any intensity out there at all. We were supposed to chase the curls sometimes, and we weren’t chasing them. We were supposed to go through the middle on the pin-downs and we weren’t going through the middle. So we just weren’t playing fundamental defense and that’s what we need to do.”
On the progression of his injured ankle:
“Yeah, it’s getting a lot better. Our trainer has been doing a great job having me wake up every morning, coming in and getting treatment two or three times a day. And it’s a day-to-day process. I’m not quite 100 percent, but that’s what I’m aiming for.”
Freshman Guard Tommy Mason-Griffin
On if OU got the shot it wanted on the final play:
“Yeah, it was either for me to set the back screen for Tiny (Gallon) to get a lob over the middle or (for me to) pop out and get a quick shot. No more than two dribbles. We wanted to get a shot up with (only) two seconds left.”
“Now that I look back at it, I wish I would’ve gotten another dribble or two.”
On OU’s poor 3-point shooting:
“It just carried over. We didn’t have that great of an intensity level, so our defense didn’t create our offense tonight like it normally did in the past few games. So that’s what that was.”
Texas Tech Head Coach Pat Knight
On Texas Tech’s defense:
“Anytime you can score over 60 points, I’ve always said that that’s enough to win from an offensive standpoint. I’m pleased with the defense -- again, having a big first half where we only gave up 28 points. We thought (Tommy) Mason-Griffin was going to be key. The kid has really come into his own these past couple of weeks. We were able to try and slow him down a bit; that was huge.”
On Oklahoma’s 3-point game:
“That was huge. They’re going to do that, those guards. You put (Tony) Crocker, (Tommy) Mason-Griffin, and (Willie) Warren out there and that’s not fun for any opposing coach. We really concentrated on not letting them get any 3’s. We gave up some drives but we thought it would be better giving up some 2’s instead of 3’s. We studied their last game against Texas and (Cade) Davis got going and everyone got going. We didn’t want that to happen. It’s tough. If you want to win on the road you have to eliminate the 3-point shot because teams can really get going and players that don’t necessarily shoot the ball well on the road usually shoot well at home. We were able to get the lead, then at halftime we changed up our defense to really concentrate on the 3. We’ll give out points in the paint; we just won’t give out the 3.”
Texas Tech Junior Guard John Roberson
On driving to the lane as his main offensive strategy:
“I knew Tommy Mason-Griffin was in foul trouble so I was trying to be aggressive. The lane was opening up because of the ball screen. Darko (Cohadarevic) and (Robert Lewandowski) were setting ball screens for me so the lane kept opening up and I kept attacking it.”
On playing against Willie Warren for the first time this year:
“He brings a scoring mentality. He can throw the ball up and he can score. We were trying to attack him on defense. We knew he had a bad ankle so we were trying to attack him on the offensive end. He gave them a spark tonight. They fed off his energy. We just needed to deal with it.”
Texas Tech Senior Forward Darko Cohadarevic
On defending Tiny Gallon:
“ We had a couple of different strategies. To begin with, we were just trying to push him off the block as far as we could and just buckle down when he would start dribbling in. We did a good job to begin with, but later on I had three fouls and tried not to get the fourth one. I was playing a bit softer and that kind of caused a few problems. I take a little blame for them coming back like that.”
On Tiny Gallon’s aggression on the block:
“He went for rebounds a lot harder than the other times. We watched the tapes and scouting reports. It’s just on us with boxing out, we have to do a better job. We need to learn from this game.”
