Postgame Quotes

Dec. 19, 2006

Recap | Final Stats | Notes |

Postgame Quotes
Kansas 94, Winston Salem State 43
December 19, 2006

Head Coach Bill Self
On the Jayhawks’ performance:

“I thought we played well, we had 29 assists. The competition wasn’t as stiff in comparison to what we’re going to see on Saturday, but I think that we forced them to play poorly for the most part. I thought we shared the ball, pushed it pretty well. We didn’t execute great in the half court, but it’s getting better. We’ve got some guys being more aggressive which is good. I’m encouraged coming out of here. But, by no means is this an indication of what we’re going to see on Saturday. This was a good game for our guys to get some rust off”

On Kansas’ team unselfishness:
“All scorers should always be thinking about scoring, and we have some guys that can really score. But that’s not why we’ve been playing poorly. It’s because we’ve been passing too much. We haven’t been aggressive enough to put ourselves in the position to make plays, whether it be shooting the ball or getting our nose dirty. Tonight, I thought we had them on their heels pretty good. I thought we did a good job pushing it.”

On different players logging minutes:
“The score of the game may have dictated some of it, but not much. I wanted to play as many guys as I could. To be honest, our second unit has really played well in practice. Saturday, though, the minutes won’t look like they did tonight. We’ll have a few guys playing above 30 [minutes] probably. Still, it’s good to get everybody in the game. I thought Jeremy [Case] and Brady [Morningstar] really brought something to the table tonight. It’s good to get those guys’ confidence up and we’ll really need one of those guys to step up and be a factor for us.”

Sophomore Guard Brandon Rush
On the game:

“This game felt much better than just playing against our own players. We came out and did a pretty good job tonight. I think we shared the ball on the fast break and got some easy buckets. I think we ran our offense better, as we executed our plays that we normally run. I think we paid more attention to detail these last few days.

On practice:
“The last 10 days have been really cool. We’ve been practicing real hard, not taking any days off, doing what we needed to do for this game and for Satuday’s game. I think we got a lot better of these last 10 days.”

On the crowd:
“The crowd always motivates us to come out here and play this type of game. It’s Christmas time and I think they did a great job motivating us. I wasn’t surprised (with the attendance) because it’s Kansas.”

Junior Forward Sasha Kaun
On practice:

“I definitely feel better than a couple of weeks ago. Practice has helped us gain some confidence. We are getting better in practice every day and that’s the most important thing.

Junior Guard Russell Robinson
On Boston College:

“Boston College is a good team. They are going to come in here hungry and ready to play. They run a offense that we have trouble gaurding and I think its going to be a big challenge for us. We just need to prepare over the next couple of days and I think the coaches will get us ready.”

Winston-Salem State Head Coach Bobby Collins
On the game:

“I told them at half time that we only had three two-point baskets and five threes. They are so big on the inside that we couldn’t get anything else. We are not very big; my post men are 6-4 and 6-5. We fought as well as we could in the post and I thought they did a very good job of executing. When they (Kansas) had an inside presence they went to it, and when they didn’t they went over the top, and if they couldn’t go over the top, they hit threes. They were hitting on all cylinders tonight.”

On the atmosphere:
“Even though we only seat 32,000 at home we pack the gym and you don’t even know that there is only 32,000 (people). We’ve been to Notre Dame, Auburn, Georgetown and a lot of other big places. I tried to prepare them (Winston) early about being mentally tough and being prepared to play in the environments we have to go to. To actually experience it is the challenge. It’s just like when you are lifting weights — you have to lift heavier weights to get stronger. We have to see what happens at the end and know that if we can get through this we will be mentally tough, not just with basketball, but with life.”

Freshman Guard Darius Floyd
On early success to start the game:
“We started out hot, we had some threes go down. We were just trying to feed the hot hand.”

On the atmosphere:
“This was like nothing any of us have faced before. We heard a lot of talk coming into this game about this place. I think we can learn from this experience.”