Postgame Quotes
Feb. 7, 2009
Postgame Quotes
Kansas 78, Oklahoma State 67
Feb. 7, 2009
Kansas Head Coach Bill Self
On the team’s overall performance:
“We did some good things today. I hate how we finished the game, and that’s the last taste in our mouths. We were miserable the last four or five minutes. That should’ve been a 20-point game. They (Oklahoma State) were trying to foul at the end, but they (the officials) never called it, which I haven’t seen very often. It was a win. I wish we would’ve finished the game better, but we were able to get through it, and now it sets the stage for a pretty big Big Monday.”
On the team’s defense on Byron Eaton:
“Sherron (Collins) did a good job on him, and we did a good job on ball screen defense with him. He’s good. He got ten assists, he finds guys and he’s very fast. His change in direction is fabulous. He was a fabulous football player, too. He was one of the best running backs in the state of Texas and he chose to play basketball. We did a good job on everybody except (Marshall) Moses and (Obi) Muonelo. Moses had a great game, and we weren’t going to give Cole (Aldrich) much help on that. He did ok, but Moses got too much against him. Obi shot the ball so well, and he doesn’t need much space to look pretty good.”
On Kansas’ 8-0 conference record:
“It gets harder from here. We’re as good as we can be as far as the league race goes. Certainly, I’m really looking forward to going to Columbia. It will probably be as difficult a setting as we’ve played in all year, but we need that. I think our guys will be excited, but certainly, we have to take care of the ball a little better. We had 17 turnovers, so naturally we have to be much better against Missouri.”
Junior Forward Mario Little
On his stamina:
“I felt pretty good. My leg really doesn’t bother me during the game. Just like everybody else, I get a little tired and fatigued during the game. You get a little sore running and jumping, but overall I feel good.”
On leading the team in scoring:
“We know that Sherron (Collins) and Cole (Aldrich) need to get touches. I am just here if they need me. I try to knock down shots and hit the glass when I play at the four spot. I am just here to do whatever the team needs me to do.”
On the three-pointer he hit in the first half:
“I was just trying to give him some jabs. He was playing pretty good defense, but I jabbed and he backed off. I feel comfortable with my shot so I just tried to let it ride.”
Junior guard Sherron Collins
On Oklahoma State’s Byron Eaton:
“He’s a good guard. You can’t take anything away from him. Today wasn’t one of his good days. We started with him and I think I did a good job on him in the first half. In the second half he got going a little bit. Late in the game we lost concentration and let him do things. Overall, we did a good job on him as a team.”
On not trying to out play the opponents best player:
“It takes a lot from my teammates when I get in a one-on-one competition with someone else and try to out play them. I’ve been getting my teammates involved and letting them help me. I think that’s the best thing I can do.”
On attacking Oklahoma State’s pressure:
“I think we attacked it real well. Especially in the first half and in the early part of the second half. Late in the game we had some turnovers we shouldn’t have committed. Like the pass Brady made. Early in the first half he wouldn’t have thrown that pass. I had a few turnovers. We got lackadaisical and weren’t ourselves.”
Sophomore Center Cole Aldrich
On his career-high 18 rebounds:
“I was just being aggressive on the boards. I knew that they didn’t have a lot of size. I knew that we could get out in transition, so I just tried to grab every rebound and get it to our guards to try and get an easy basket that way.”
On not looking ahead to Monday’s game at Missouri:
“It wasn’t that hard to not look ahead to Missouri. We knew Oklahoma State was going to be tough. They proved it last year when we were ranked third in the country. We played at their place and they made us look silly. That really hit home for Sherron and me and the guys that were on the team last year.”
On playing against a smaller team:
“It helps my confidence a little bit knowing that I can play with a smaller line-up. I struggled against Nebraska. They have a smaller team. I tried to move my feet on the perimeter when we’re trapping ball screens and do all those little things.”
On guarding Oklahoma State:
“One thing that we tried to do was to trap Eaton and try to contain him. Today I did a pretty good job of that and being able to move my feet and not get those easy fouls that I have in the past.”
Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford:
On his team’s poor performance at the start of games:
“These bad starts have become a common theme for our team. We have done a lot to try to prepare for that not just versus Kansas, but for us to get off to better starts. We have done stuff in practice and preparation-wise to get our guys mentally prepared to come out and get a better start. But it is tough to come out and get a good start. We try to convince our players that it is not about making or missing shots at the beginning of the game, that it is about how hard you play. However at some point it does eat at you when you are not making shots. It does mess with your confidence a little bit and I think that it was the case.”
On the play of Cole Aldrich:
“He is really good, he has that good five-to-10 foot jump shot and that jump hook. I thought that we did a good job not allowing him to just catch the ball and lay it in. We didn’t want him to just catch and lay it in with nobody in front of him.”
On the play of Mario Little:
“I thought that Mario Little made a couple of key baskets. When we started up little runs he made some key baskets in the middle of the paint.”
On the play of Sherron Collins:
“I think that Sherron is playing terrific basketball right now. We have seen this coming on. When you have an inside-outside threat like you have in Aldrich and Collins, that is just nice to have.”
Oklahoma State guard Byron Eaton
His overall thoughts on the game:
“Like I told my teammates in the locker room, we have to stop waiting until we get down a certain amount of points and start trying to fight back all the time. I tried to warn them about how it is to play here. I played here my sophomore year and I think they beat us by 30. So I was just trying to tell the guys that we had to come out and fight from the beginning. We should have been fighting since we got down here yesterday because this is an unbelievable place to play. Overall, I think we did good. We had a lot of wide-open shots that we just didn’t convert.”
On the first-half shooting effort:
“We go in spurts where we hit a few shots now and then, but I think once we start hitting shots on a consistent basis I think we’re going to be the hardest team to beat.”
On passing to teammates even when they continue to miss shots:
“I believe in my teammates 100%. If I can get a wide-open layup and I see one of my teammates wide open, any one of my shooters on our team, I think I would pass it out to them. That three can definitely get those guys going, and it will definitely get me going. So I’m going to keep kicking it out to my guys no matter what.”
Oklahoma State forward Marshall Moses
On going up against Cole Aldrich:
“It was cool. He’s a good player, a big-time player. I know him a little bit from high school things. He was tough to guard. I felt like I could, I believe in myself and I believe in my team.”
His impressions on playing in Allen Fieldhouse:
“That was cool too. The crowd got pretty loud, probably louder than any place I’ve ever played. I don’t think that should have mattered if it did. We can win. I believe that we can win. We’re not the same team that’s been going to the NIT the last couple years. We’re an NCAA team and I think it’s time to start winning like one. Allen Fieldhouse or not.”
On if he learned anything playing against Aldrich:
“I learned a few box-out tricks that I had to learn real quick or else he would have had 30 offensive boards tonight. He’s strong, big, and he knows how to play the game. For a sophomore, he plays like a senior, or a fifth-year senior, maybe. So I learned a couple things.”
