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Oklahoma Postgame Quotes
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OU Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening comment:
“A win is a win. It wasn’t pretty. You have to give a lot of credit to Louisiana-Monroe. They were very prepared for this game. It felt like early they tried to take the air out of the ball a little bit, which was a little bit surprising. We didn’t come out with the energy that we needed to come out with – for whatever reason, I don’t know. It took us getting down and punched in the mouth for us to start punching back. I thought we got a little bit deflated when we weren’t making shots. We turned the ball over. We have eight turnovers in the first five minutes. It’s a great lesson for our guys because we played early in that game like we practiced yesterday. If anyone was at practice they saw how much we turned it over. It was a great lesson for this team, and especially our new guys, to understand that you just can’t turn it on.
“As the game went on Cade Davis gave us a huge, huge lift. He was everywhere. He was talking and his leadership out on the floor and energy out on the floor picked all of us up. We went to a four-guard lineup and I thought that helped us out and gave us a jolt of energy as well.
On taking teams off the dribble:
“We hope that is an advantage for us all year. We have some guys that can do that, but we have to develop some other things, as well. Some other guys need to step up and play better. We have to trust more. That is a big thing collectively as a group. Some guys trust some guys, but we have to trust each other. That is part of a maturing process and a growing process.”
On the team’s shooting performance:
“I said from the beginning we can be a really good shooting team and I don’t change from that. As a shooter you can go through nights and stretches where you don’t shoot the ball well. We shot 14 percent, 1-for-7, in the first half (from 3-point range). So that was really bad. Thirty-six percent from the floor. I thought we did better in the second half. We went 50 percent from 3(-point range), 59 percent overall. I still think we are and will be a good shooting team.”
On Tony Crocker’s defending bigger guys:
“It gives us some versatility and it is something he is going to have to do, whether he likes it or not. He is going to have to be able to fight and compete, and bang with some bigger guys. Cade is going to have to do it too.”
On Cade Davis’ performance off the bench:
“This is a kid that played 15 minutes a game last year on an Elite Eight team. He was one of the first guards off the bench and in our first game he played seven minutes. He came back the next day in practice and had a really good attitude. He didn’t pout, didn’t sulk, wasn’t sulking on the bench. He is mature and he is into the team.”
On freshman Steven Pledger:
“He is still going to shoot it and we still want him to shoot it. I thought he took one bad shot, where he had an extra pass. But the thing I love—you can coach him. You can talk to him, you can say stuff to him, you can get on him. He doesn’t pout, he doesn’t sulk, he doesn’t drop his head. He is a kid that was 8-for-9 the other night; 21 points in 19 minutes. A lot of people are talking about him and he came off the bench and got in at the 14-minute mark and was just as happy as he can be about that. We need a team full of guys like that—learn how to lose themselves completely into what we are doing.”
Sophomore Guard Willie Warren
On the reason for OU’s struggle at the beginning of the game:
“How we practiced the day before. You practice the way you play and we turned the ball over consistently the day before and it showed up today in the game.”
On where the team needs to improve as they approach road games:
“We need to take care of the ball. We’ve got a very good team, you know, getting to the basketball, getting fouled. We have shooters like Cade [Davis], Crock [Tony Crocker], Steven [Pledger], so turning the ball over is just limiting our opportunities to get points on the board. And also, we need to be able to get stops. I feel like the game was a little bit too close even though we pulled it out towards the end. I feel like we gave up too many points too.”
On whether or not he is ready for the experience of being fouled more this season:
“Oh yeah. I’ve been getting fouled like that since high school so I knew coming in this year I’d be getting a lot of attention. So I’ll be ready.”
On if he feels like he has to keep control of the team when shots aren’t falling:
“I just think when teams go on their runs, getting fouled and getting to the free throw line is a way to get your team huddled up, talk to them, and get their breaks if they’re tired. That was the main thing. They were going on their run, so I really wanted to get to the rack and try to get fouls so we can talk and pull together.”
Senior Guard Tony Crocker
On being able to get a lot of inside looks in tonight’s game:
“Yeah, they pressured a lot and they didn’t really have much help-side (defense). But I think we did a good job of penetrating and picking spots.”
On how Cade Davis’ performance inspired the rest of the team tonight:
“Cade came in and did a really good job. He comes in and goes really hard at practice and he’s waiting on his time to play. When (Coach Capel) called his name he was ready. He came in, knocked down big shots, played defense for us. It made it where we can run a smaller lineup.”
On guarding ULM’s bigger forwards tonight:
“More towards the middle or end of the first half and most of the second half, yeah. Their big men—Coach told me they can shoot the ball a lot—so he wasn’t really trying to bang a lot down there.”
On the importance of reaching double digits in points tonight:
“It’s a confidence builder going into the next game knowing what you can do. It just helps out your confidence really, and gets you going and that way you’re bringing more energy and helping the team.”
Head Coach Orlando Early
Opening comment:
“Coming in here on the road against the 17th-ranked team in the country is definitely a tall task. They’re bigger, stronger, deeper and more physical, and we were able to compete with them for most of the game. It was 27 to 27 in rebounds and, again, I thought our guys competed well.”
On Oklahoma’s improved defense in the second half:
“I think Coach Capel got after them at halftime. I think they woke up a little bit and realized our group was pretty good. You have to defend against those guys or else we’re going to make plays. I thought they (OU) defended better, but we were still able to shoot 55 percent in the second half when we shot 34 percent in the first half. I think they picked up their intensity in the second half.”
On switching to a smaller lineup:
“We felt like we could take advantage of our quickness and our shooters against a bigger lineup. Jeff (Capel) did a great job of going small where they could defend us. Crocker is like a 4 man in our league, but in this league he’s a wing player. He was able to match up against our 4 guy which made it more of an even game. They also had Tiny Gallon and Ryan Wright on him, then they put Andrew Fitzgerald on him. They had a tough time defending our 4 guys.”
On foul trouble in the second half:
“I guess I have to do a better job with the guys. It was 23 to 9 on fouls tonight. We need to do a better job not fouling. We were on the road and shot four free throws when they shot 29. We put our hands on them and fouled them and we need to do better than that.”
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Oklahoma Postgame Notes
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• No. 17/17 Oklahoma picked up its 1,500th win in program history with a 72-61 victory over ULM. The victory also marked the 150th in the career of head coach Jeff Capel.
• The Sooners have won 14 straight home non-conference games and 72 of their last 74.
• OU’s guards accounted for 63 of the team’s 72 points, or 88 percent.
• Willie Warren scored a game-high 24 points while attempting just 12 shots (6-of-12) from the field. The 6-4 sophomore is averaging 23.8 points over his last five regular season non-conference games dating back to last season.
• Warren matched career highs with 11 made free throws and 13 attempts from the charity stripe (.846). Through two games, Warren is 18-of-21 (.857) from the line, averaging 10.5 free throw attempts.
• Oklahoma was .828 (24-of-29) from the free throw line. On the year, OU has converted 49 of its 57 attempts from the charity stripe (.860) and is averaging 28.5 attempts per game.
• OU shot .591 from the field (13-of-22) in the second stanza after hitting just 8-of-22 first-half shots (.364). The Sooners shot .477 for the game (21-of-44). They posted a .500 figure from 3-point range in the second half (5-of-10) after making just 1-of-7 (.143) attempts in the opening stanza.
• The Sooners trailed for 14:56 of the opening half (largest deficit was eight points) after taking an early 5-0 lead. OU did not regain the lead until Willie Warren’s layup at the 1:39 mark (23-22).
• OU closed the half on an 8-2 run (4-of-5 shooting during the span) with made baskets by four different players (Cade Davis, Warren, Tony Crocker and Ryan Wright).
• Nine of the Sooners’ 13 turnovers came in the first half.
• Tony Crocker reached double figures with 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
• Tiny Gallon had his second straight double-digit rebound effort with 10 boards after (he had 15 against Mount St. Mary’s).
• The Sooners now hold a 4-0 series lead against ULM, with all games played in Norman. Prior to tonight’s victory, OU posted wins in 1984-85 (101-95), 1994-95 (93-68) and 1996-97 (95-68).
• Oklahoma plays its first road game of the season Saturday when it travels to Richmond, Va., to face VCU at 6:30 p.m. CST. Capel served as the Rams' head coach for four seasons prior to his arrival in Norman.
