Postgame Quotes

Nov. 19, 2006

Recap | Final Stats | Notes |

Postgame Quotes
Kansas 87, Towson 61
Nov. 19, 2006

Head Coach Bill Self
On KU’s toughness:
“All in all it was a good step in the right direction. I wanted them to play tough with great effort and pride defensively. What is the principle of toughness? Rebounds. We did not get enough toughness out of our guys. We need to get a lot better at rebounding. We’re going to play teams a lot better and we’re going to play teams a lot bigger, stronger and tougher. Getting Sasha (Kaun) back soon will help us. We need to take better care of the ball. Certainly, we can do better in that area.”

On Sherron Collins, Russell Robinson, Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers:
“Sherron (Collins) was trying to do what I wanted him to do, and he’s getting better. Russell (Robinson) played well. He missed a couple of great opportunities to score, but he had great energy defensively. He missed a few layups – he needs to get better at that. Darrell (Arthur) scored 26 points on 12 shots. I’m pleased with those two guys. I think they were our best two performers. I thought Mario (Chalmers) was a huge pick-me-up, but not all five of our starters were really ready to play when talking about their mindset defensively.”

On guarding Gary Neal:
“We did a really good job on him. I thought that Brandon (Rush) could guard him, and he really did an above average job on him. We really wanted to get him some minutes guarding him. Sherron (Collins) did a good job on him too. All-in-all, we did a nice job on him.”

Freshman forward Darrell Arthur
On the loss against ORU:
“I don’t think anything can make up for the loss. We have to see it as motivation to come out every game and play strong. We have to match our opponent’s intensity.”

On his shooting:
“Most of my shots were layups off of transition plays. My teammates did a good job finding me.”

On starting:
“I was nervous at first, but my teammates talked me through it. I scored a couple of buckets and started to relax. To tell you the truth I like coming off of the bench more because you can see what you have to do defenisvely. You are able to see what the offense does well and you are prepared to go out there and make corrections right away.”

Sophomore forward Julian Wright
On the game:
“This is a small step. There are still a lot of things we can improve on. Our conference is talented; it has a lot of different players and interesting matchups. We want to continue to get better day by day and get rid of any mental mistakes we may have made. We need to stay focused and keep the intensity up.”

Sophomore guard Mario Chalmers
On the win:
“We needed [something positive] really bad. Some of the guys were starting to get down on themselves. This one will help us bring everyone back up. We just have to keep fighting hard and not allow anything like that [loss against ORU] to happen again.”

Head Coach Pat Kennedy
On Kansas:
“Tonight was a drastic change after just two games. The first 11 minutes we hung in there with them (KU) and felt we had to change to the zone defense. What I saw KU do tonight that I didn’t see them do in the tapes is that they really worked defensively. They took us out of everything we were trying to do, and they did a very good job on Gary Neal. I think for them it is hard to point at one guy. They are going to become a great team down the road because of what they have collectively. They are a young team as well. In the preseason rankings, some had KU had No. 1 and some at No. 3. Tonight I saw that talent level that would get them there, especially when guys return. Guards are strong and guys can shoot, posts are strong, they can make plays inside and mid-range. They obviously played very well.”

On his impression of Kansas following loss to Oral Roberts:
“Those kind of games can fake out the next opponent. Bill Self is a terrific coach, and they just didn’t get after Oral Roberts. They just let Oral Roberts hang in there. I don’t think there was not one time during that game that Kansas felt they got after it. Oral Roberts played very well, and they are a good team, but it seemed like Kansas cranked it up to the level they have to be at night-in-and-night-out tonight.

On his zone defense:
“I have played a combination of defenses over the years. I never had the luxury to have dominant players all the time. The beginning of the game we played a little 1-3-1 and a little 2-3, and that was our game plan to keep them off balance, and also, at the same time to get into our offense. We knew they were going to work on getting inside our offense.”

On Darrell Arthur:
“He is a very good player, but Kansas has a lot of good players. It might be (Mario) Chalmers one night and (Brandon) Rush another night. Arthur played well, and he is an overall talented player, he could do a lot of things. That is what Coach (Bill) Self has, is a group of kids that all do a lot of things.”

Senior Guard Gary Neal
On the game:
“Kansas is probably one of the best teams in the country. It was definitely a tough game and it was a learning experience for us. In the Big 12 and other major conferences you never see a guy come out averaging 25-30 points a game. It is just another level of competition. They made it a little tougher for me today and I learned from it. When you are playing at Kansas in front of a sold out crowd your margin for error is very small.”

On finding out that Kansas lost to Oral Roberts:
“We saw that they weren’t supermen and that they were beatable. It gave us a little sign of hope when we saw that score and we came in trying to pull the upset.”

On the Towson zone defense:
“It was effective for 11-12 minutes and then those guys started making open shots. That changed the whole dynamic and momentum of the game.”

On what impressed him most about Kansas:
“Their ability really stood out and they are a great team. It looked like they came together and played well as a team. They are a good ball club.”