Quotes

March 1, 2006

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Postgame Quotes
Kansas 75, Colorado 54
March 1, 2005

Head Coach Bill Self
On the first half defense:

“We played as good of defense in the first fifteen minutes as we have the entire year, except we did not rebound the ball. I thought our defense was great. We had a comfortable lead but we should have scored 8 to 10 more points. Our offense was fairly inept. We scored a good majority of our points off our defense and then the law of averages caught up with us and they started making some shots.”

On the Texas loss:
“I thought they (Texas A&M) would have a good chance to win. I think it is hard to win on the road, especially when teams are fired up and ready to play and I knew they would be. By looking at the score, they did a great job of mudding the game up. They got a great win and it gives us a chance. We have to beat a team that has already handled us once but it certainly puts us in the game (for the Big 12 Championship).

On Stephen Vinson’s play:
“I thought Stephen played great. I thought he did a great job. I can’t speak for them but (Richard) Roby never got any rhythm until the second half. Good players can make bad shots and he’s very good at that. He’s going to make shots eventually but in the first half he did not get shots off.”

On the seniors’ starting:
“The plan was to try to win. That’s what I told the seniors after the game. You guys did a nice job but you’ll remember this because you guys impacted the game as favorably as anybody else on our team did. They were key performers tonight to give us a chance to win.”

On the game:
“I thought that’s the hardest that we’ve played all year. I thought they would bounce back, they usually do, but we played hard tonight. The seniors got us off to a nice start. We competed hard but we just didn’t rebound the ball once again.”

Senior Guard Stephen Vinson
On his Senior Night:

“The only thing that could have gone better for me personally, is that I could have made four out of four threes instead of one out of four. With what happened, we had our eye on that score (Texas’ game against Texas A&M) a little bit. It was great to win this game because Colorado is a good team, but to see that we are back in a tie for the Big 12, there was some excitement on the bench.”

On what was going through is mind when he hit the three:
“I have been shooting well the last few days in practice, so I was confident going in. My first couple were in and out. It was a little bit of relief because I wanted to make it an even more special night. It was the most fun because you make a shot and you are running back down the court towards where our families sit and I see my whole family hugging each other, and that is what makes it special — getting to share moments like that with people that you love.”

On the upcoming showdown with Kansas State:
“It was already going to be a big game whether there was a Big 12 race or not. We know we are playing for something and they will be ready. Their fans will be as excited for that game as they have in many years because they have a lot on the line too. It’s where we want to be. We want to be where we can control our own destiny and that is where we are right now. We are going to try to have a couple of good practices and go get a ring.”

On the opening minutes of the game:
“I remember Senior Nights in the past where they have gotten off to good starts and we just wanted it to be a special night just like it was. Once we (the seniors) got out, looking up at the scoreboard, it was very gratifying to see that we got off to a good start.”

Freshman Guard Mario Chalmers
On Colorado’s frustration in the first half:

“When we had them down, we were just trying to keep them down and not let them back in the game. They started making a little run, but we got refocused and got the lead back up.”

On the team’s reaction to Colorado’s comeback:
“They hit a couple big shots. (Chris) Copeland and (Andy) Osborn hit a couple threes and that helped them get back into the game. We refocused a little bit, started hitting our shots and attacking them.”

Head Coach Ricardo Patton
On the game:

“In the first half we just couldn’t make shots. I thought defesively we played well; played hard. But you have to go down to the other end and make baskets and we didn’t do that. I thought they (Kansas) missed enough free throws in the first half to give us a chance but we didn’t convert. I didn’t that we handled their pressure. I approach every game the same way, play to win.”

On cutting the lead to eight at 4:46 in the second half:
“We were down eight with the ball and then we had two critical trunovers. And the one thing that you can’t do against good ball teams is turn the ball over. We can’t have empty possesions. So we come down and we turn it over twice. (Jayson) Obazuaye threw it between two defenders. I think Marcus Hall did something and then we gave up a couple threes. If you play Kansas at home they just make you pay.”

On what he told his team at halftime:
“I thought they played looser (in the second half). I just challenged them to step up and and not let the pressure take us out of things that we wanted to do. I thought we played pretty soft the first half.”

On Texas A&M beating Texas:
“I puts us in fifth place. Other than that, that’s it. It proves this league is not down. We have some awful good teams in this league.”

Senior Forward Chris Copeland
On Colorado’s play:
“We came out late and played hard. We knew we were a much better team than what we showed in the first half. I think we showed ourselves better in spurts in the second half. We just did not finish the job.”

Senior Forward Martane Freeman
On Colorado’s scoring:

“I know there are a ton of guys on the team that can score; I think we have proven that all year. We just didn’t get it done tonight. We made a run to cut it to eight, but we turned the ball over a couple of times. They (Kansas) got a couple of fast-break baskets from it (turnovers).”

On Colorado’s first half deficit:
“I looked up at the scoreboard and with seven minutes in the first half we had four points. We lost the game in the first 13 minutes. When our guys are missing shots, they have to understand there are more ways to score than just shooting jump shots, like crashing the boards. We got intimidated when our jump shots weren’t falling.”

On Kansas’ defense:
“Every time we got by one of their guards their big guys were waiting for us on defense. It was like we were playing the shell drill in practice. We settled for jump shots instead of staying in attack mode.”

Junior Guard Marcus Hall
On the first half:

“They just played harder than us, there’s not much to it. We played good half-court offense in the first half, but we allowed them to get too many transition points.”

On the second half:
“We just attacked more. We’re better in the open court, not in the half-court offense. Our game plan in the second half was to cut the lead down. We did that by cutting the lead to eight with four minutes left in the game. We turned the ball over twice.”