Postgame Quotes
Jan. 31, 2009
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Postgame Quotes
Kansas 66, Colorado 61
January 31, 2009
Kansas Head Coach Bill Self
On today’s game:
“I’m not on their staff, but I’m sure Jeff (Bzdelik) would say that’s one of the best halves they’ve played all year. They were really good and we were equally bad. We did a lot of good things. We got the lead to 21. In the second half Cole (Aldrich) scored two points because we didn’t get him the ball and did a poor job against their zone. More importantly, we let bad offense affect us. We were just horrendous defensively the second half and they made shots on top of that. And we played dumb. We’re fortunate that we won and we picked a good day to make our free throws. I’m glad we went 19 for 20 because we needed every one of them.”
On Sherron Collins’ contribution:
“He had a rough day. I do think he made the most important play down the stretch. I even told Sherron to not let missed shots affect his play. No matter what’s happening on the offensive end, tough teams will never change their body language. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. We’re still young and we’re learning. But it was a win, and a win that we’ll take. We’ll get ready to go play a very, very talented Baylor team on Monday.”
On playing Baylor:
“I thought in the second half our entire defensive unit was bad. The first half we weren’t great, but they didn’t make any shots. Most of our guys got beat off the bounce. Usually when we are off defensively it’s not because of a lack of focus. We made some boneheaded plays and that’s frustrating to me because we’re better than that. But we’ll take it and we certainly have our work cut out for us on Monday, but I’m really looking forward to going down there.”
Kansas Player Quotes
Sophomore center Cole Aldrich
On playing with the mask:
“The mask felt fine; there were a few points in time when I just couldn’t quite see the ball. There are a few places on the mask where you can’t quite see everything, but that is how it is going to be. Wearing the mask is better than rebreaking my nose.”
On how long he will wear the mask:
“I will wear it until my nose gets better. The doctors think that I should wait until that point when my nose could take another shot.”
On his overall play:
“One thing that I really wanted to emphasize was going after the boards hard. We have had different experiments with masks the past few days and this one was really good. So I felt comfortable enough to watch the ball the whole time, and go after the rebound.”
On missing the only free-throw:
“It was the front end of a one-and-one, which made it even worse.”
On the trip to Baylor on Monday:
“It is a real quick turn around. It is going to be tough; they are really talented, and it is an away game for us. It is going to be really tough for us.”
Junior Guard Sherron Collins
On Colorado’s comeback:
“I don’t think it was the shots not going in. It was us being careless with the ball and turning it over. I’ll take this one. I think this one is on the guards. Fortunately, we didn’t lose, but with them getting that close, we needed to take more care of the ball.”
On the second half:
“They (Colorado) didn’t switch anything. They did a good job and crawled back. They hit tough shots. They did a good job executing their offense. I don’t think we played defense well at all tonight, but overall in the second half, we just lost our poise and came out flat.”
because I’m not the biggest person out there. It’s one of my normal moves and I was able to elevate and get it in.”
Freshman Forward Markeiff Morris
On adjusting to college play:
“We’re getting used to everything. We had to get used to the style of play at KU. We had to get used to playing all the time, even when you’re tired. We had to get used to being able to take up all the slack.”
On rebounding:
“We were missing a lot of shots. Sherron had an off night. We had to clean up his missed shots and bring energy to the game. Coach said to go out there and rebound because guys were missing rebounds. We don’t always miss a lot of shots like we missed today. We just had to go out and rebound.”
On Colorado’s comeback:
“They were making a lot of shots and we were breaking down, when there was 10 seconds left on the (shot) clock. They were hitting a lot of shots and we weren’t playing defense for the whole 35 seconds.”
Colorado Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
On the difference between the first and second halves:
“We improved our defense. We rebounded the ball a little bit better. We continued to not turn the ball over and when we went to the rim, we didn’t avoid contact, which is what we were doing in the first half. Against great length you have to take it to their chin and make plays. Those kinds of little things add up.”
On what his team can take away from this game:
“I thought that we adjusted well and we grew as a young basketball team. The most important thing to understand is the difference between the two halves and how to improve as a team.”
On his team’s defensive adjustments:
“It goes back to basic defensive fundamentals. We had vision and we denied cuts to the ball. We closed out a little bit better. A lot of our fundamentals were a little bit better.”
On Sherron Collins’ shot with 22 seconds remaining:
“That is a great young talent making a great play. We forced him into a tough shot. But give him credit, he is a very talented young man and I have the utmost respect for him. He made a couple of big shots and free throws down the stretch.”
On his message to his players:
“We need to continue to play hard. We can’t do it for just 15 minutes, you have to do it for 40 minutes. That is the problem with youth. Especially in this environment you have to play the entire game.”
Colorado Player Quotes
Junior Guard Dwight Thorne II
On the difference between the first and second half:
“We weren’t defending in the first half. We went to the locker room, made some adjustments and came out in the second half and started defending better. We took care of the ball and rebounded better in the second half.”
On the last two minutes of the game:
“I thought that we were going to get the win when we were down by two. Unfortunately my contact came out and I had to come out of the game. That kind of took me out of my groove. Kansas made more big plays than us down the stretch. Sherron Collins’ shot in the lane pretty much sealed the deal.”
On cutting the Kansas lead to two points:
“We just played Colorado basketball. We defended well and shot 65 percent in the second half. We just tried to do things that we know we are good at doing.”
Senior Forward Jermyl Jackson-Wilson
On trimming the Kansas lead to single digits:
“We just believed in ourselves. We were making some of the same mistakes that we have been making all year. Kansas went up by a lot but we still believed in ourselves. You only get a chance to play here once a year so we tried to give it all we had. We kept chipping away and finally got it down to single digits.”
On Cole Aldrich:
“He got a lot of offensive rebounds and a lot of touches in the first half. We tried to get more pressure on the ball. When he got the ball we tried to make him shoot over us.”
On what the team can take from this game:
“Obviously I wanted to win. This was the first time I have been here where the fans didn’t sing (the rock chalk chant) with 10 minutes to go. It is a big improvement for our team and we have to grow from this.”
