KU Postgame Quotes

Dec. 9, 2006

Recap | Final Stats | Notes |

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Kansas 68, Toledo 58

American Century Investments Shootout ∙ Kansas City, Mo. ∙ Dec. 9, 2006

Head Coach Bill Self

On the win:

“Yes [it was an ugly win]. I thought in the first half we made shots, but we didn’t guard. In the second half, we actually guarded better but we didn’t make shots. It was exactly like the Oregon win here, the Cal win here and the Wisconsin-Milwaukee win here. It was kind of a dud win, but we did some good things and we also did some very foolish things. Brandon [Rush] was aggressive and I thought Sasha [Kaun] gave us some good minutes. There were too many mental errors. [We] obviously missed some free throws and things like that down the stretch.

On rebounding in today’s game:

“They got six offensive rebounds that went out of bounds. Sometimes rebounding stats can be a little bit misleading. They got six deflections that went out of bounds offensively. If you want to break it down, just how much our big guys dominated because of their size, Brandon [Rush] got five offensive rebounds, Julian zero [rebounds], Darnell one [rebound], Sasha zero [rebounds], and Darrell one [rebound]. Our big guys combined for two offensive rebounds. But in the first half, we only missed six shots. There were not a lot of offensive rebound situations. That’s a misleading stat.

On Brandon Rush:

“He was more aggressive. He played better. He still didn’t make shots from two, but he did a good job shooting the three. He didn’t hesitate and I thought that was good. I thought he was much better. He’s going to pop out of this and when he does it will be in a big way. Certainly, this was a good start today.

On Sasha Kaun:

“Sasha was good and behind Brandon [Rush], I thought he was the best player in the game for us.”

On Russell Robinson:

“It bothers me a lot [that he passed up mid-range jump shots] because our team’s confidence is day-to-day. You don’t go from being a really good player to a really bad player overnight. And for guys that are competitive and confident, that shouldn’t happen. But we have guys that defer or don’t put themselves in the situations to be aggressive.”

Junior Forward Sasha Kaun

On the game:

“We didn’t have any energy today and we are not where we want to be. We are not where we want to be right now and we just need to find something that will get us going. My knee is starting to feel a little better.”

On what Coach said after the game:

“He just said what everyone else saw. We need to play with more enthusiasm and have more of a presence about us.”

Sophomore Forward Brandon Rush

On the game:

“I felt like I played pretty well. My teammates looked for me a lot tonight because I have been in a slump and they just want to help me out of it. They found me and I made a lot of wide-open threes. I didn’t do anything differently than I have been doing. It feels goods. The way we played today makes me wish we didn’t have such a long break. The next 10 days will be pretty rough on us with two-a-days and having to deal with finals as well. I think we played defensively other than getting outrebounded because we contested all of their shots.”

On playing in Kansas City:

“I played here last year and it was pretty much the same thing. Some of my family members came to the game, but it was no big deal.”

Sophomore Forward Darrell Arthur

On coming off the bench:

“It has been something coach and I have talked about doing for the past few weeks. I think it works better for me to come off the bench because when I start I commit silly fouls early in the game.”

Toledo Quotes

Toledo Head Coach Stan Joplin

On the game:

“Kansas is a talented basketball team. We thought that if we could keep them off the boards, get back in transition and limit our turnovers we could give ourselves a chance. Obviously, 15 blocks has to be a school record. That makes their defense so much better when they have someone in the back line stepping up and blocking shots like that. But that means we got to the basket 15 times, we just couldn’t finish; and it’s tough to finish over a bunch of trees. I think our effort was good. We kind of panicked down the stretch, but I thought we had them where we wanted, we just didn’t capitalize. When you play against a good team like this on the road it’s very tough. I thought our effort was good, but they have a good team.”

On Kansas’ blocks:

“If they are going to block shots against Florida they are going to block shots against us. We tried to use our perimeter play as much as we can, but still we got to the basket and they rotated over. We got the ball inside, but it’s tough to finish over those guys.”

On Darrell Arthur:

“Being a freshman is very tough. We knew how good he was after watching him play in AAU circuit this summer. We just wanted to make him work as hard as we could, but as far as getting him into foul trouble I think that it is a tough transition from high school to college for all freshman playing at this level.”

On Kansas’ high-low offense:

“With their high-low, they were clearing out the weak side because they had Rush in the corner and we couldn’t help off of Rush too much. I thought where it hurt in the first half was not so much the high low, but because Rush got some open threes. We have to know where he is at all times. We wanted to be there on the catch, but we gave him too much room. He is an outstanding basketball player and those threes hurt us more than the high low game early.”

Senior Forward Keonta Howell

On Kansas’ defense:

“It was not a problem trying to run the offense, but once you ran the offense, executed it well and thought you had an easy shot, someone would come out of nowhere and block your shot. It was tough to get baskets inside. Usually our guards get to the basket pretty easily and finish, but today it was harder to finish.”

On the attitude of the team coming out of halftime:

“We wanted to put a little bit more pressure on the ball and try to stop the high-low. They were owning us down low with the high-low offense so that was one of the things we emphasized at halftime, to try and slow that down.”