December 29, 2011

Postgame Quotes

Dec. 29, 2011

Kansas 89, Howard 34
December 29, 2011
Postgame Quotes

Kansas head coach Bill Self
On the team jumping out to an early lead:
“We started out good. (Howard) just beat Delaware at home, and their record was 4-9 coming in. Indiana got them pretty good, but they’ve played everybody else pretty close. We got after them pretty good early. I thought we played with more energy and did some good things. Then we just kind of puttered around in the second half. I did think we did some good things. We shared the ball.”

On getting significant minutes for some players off the bench:
“Our schedule has been so hard that we haven’t had a chance to let guys play through mistakes off the bench. I thought Kevin (Young) did some nice things, and Naadir (Tharpe) did some good things. Justin (Wesley) did some pretty good things. Conner (Teahan) has been rock solid, so I feel like we have six starters and those other three need to really develop. I thought they did some good things to maybe get some confidence.”

On North Dakota:
“They’re pretty good. We watched them on tape. (Assistant coach) Kurtis (Townsend) has the scout, and he says they’re good. They’re going to be real good; they’re just young. The thing that disappoints me, if anything tonight, is we’re getting ready to open Big 12 play – we’ve done a good job of leading the league by far in defensive rebound percentage – and to come out and let that team get 16 offensive rebounds. We just didn’t hit anybody. I think a lot of it may be respect, but we didn’t go after the ball. That’s something we have to really emphasize before we get into league play, but we have to focus in on beating North Dakota first. When we play with energy, we’re pretty good, but when we don’t, we are so average. That’s been evidenced in the Davidson game, so we can’t afford not to play with energy any night.”

Senior guard Conner Teahan
On playing in a lopsided game like tonight:
“It was a lot of fun, actually. Our crowd came out with a lot more energy than we expected – especially since it’s Christmas break. Once we got our big lead, we were able to stay focused. In the past, we haven’t done a great job of doing that, but fortunately we were able to do that today.”

On why they were able to hold their lead:
“We were using our full court pressure a lot more, and that definitely kept us in the game. Offensively and defensively we were able to dominate on both ends and we’ve especially had a lot more energy than we have in the past couple of games. We’ve been focused on doing what we need to do on every possession no matter what the score is, and we have been doing that a lot more lately.”

On their full court press:
“We have had that for the whole time I have been here, but we haven’t used it as much. We decided to use it more tonight to keep the pressure on (Howard), and it was pretty effective.”

Senior guard Jordan Juenemann
On if it is rewarding for the bench to play more tonight:
“It is great to get some time out on the court, especially with all the reps we have in practice. Some of the walk-ons and the guys on the end of the bench haven’t been able to get in the game. It was nice that coach gave us the opportunity to go out and play and have some fun.”

On if they needed a type of win that they had tonight:
“It’s always great getting a win and getting comfortable so you’re able to show some things that we can do. It is nice to get back here and play in front of our crowd over the break. It was a great win.”

Junior forward Kevin Young
On the performance from the bench:
“I feel like the bench showed a lot more than we have been showing, and I think it is because we came out aggressive. We stayed after them and we had a lot of energy.”

Howard head coach Kevin Nickelberry
Opening statement:
“We got our butts kicked, it’s as simple as that. We’ve got a lot of young guys not dealing with the atmospheres both at Indiana and here. We played well at Georgetown, close to home. I thought with the students gone, there weren’t going to be this many people here, but we just didn’t do a good job dealing with the atmosphere. We took more shots in the first seven minutes than them–some wide open shots–but we didn’t make them. They made all of their shots and we missed all our shots. (Kansas head coach) Bill (Self) did a great job changing up their defensive schemes. They got after us. I watched the tape of the Davidson game. They played vanilla, but tonight, they denied all of our passes to the wing. He must’ve given a great pre-game speech because we couldn’t run anything. We weren’t prepared for the pressure that they gave. He pressed tonight, which he didn’t do on the games I saw on tape.”

On what he learned about his team after this game and their game at Indiana:
“I learned `Don’t go to anymore games like Indiana or Kansas.’ We haven’t dealt well with atmospheres. This is a young team. This is my second year and we have nine new players. This is a learning experience. We do very well at home or close to home, but we don’t do well on the road. After the Indiana game, we went back home and beat Delaware. I’m hoping this is just another bump where we can actually find a way to respond. The problem is now we have to go play (at) Kansas State, which is another physical team and another unbelievable atmosphere. We have to find out who we are really soon.”

On this being a learning experience for the young players:
“A year from now, or two years from now, this experience will prove beneficial for us. Obviously today, it hurts for them. I can give them speeches about two years from now, but for the next hour, these kids are hurting. They are not going to understand why this will help them two years from now. I looked at the stats and we played six freshmen over 18 minutes, and they weren’t ready. I don’t care what they did in high school; they weren’t ready for this atmosphere. My hat is off to Coach Self. He did an unbelievable job turning the pressure up on us today. It was something we didn’t prepare for. We watched the wrong tape. I’m going to fire my staff for making us watch the Davidson tape because it didn’t help us at all.”

On how they scouted Kansas:
“Against Davidson, they weren’t really going up against the wings as much. That was a surprise, and we couldn’t run anything. We couldn’t run any plays. They took everything away from us, and that was different. They looked more like KU in the past to me. He took the pedal off this year because he has a lot of new players, but I think he’s going back to doing what he knows. These guys aren’t going to let David come in against Goliath and even be a factor because four minutes into the game, we got knocked out.”

On what he told his players:
“You don’t even want to know. It wasn’t anything you could print. We have to forget about it after tomorrow and get ready for Kansas State. (Coach Self) really found a way to get those guys going because we are not as bad as we looked tonight. We’ve played well, but (in) the two atmospheres, at Indiana and this one, we just haven’t been good. As a matter of fact, we were awful. We just have to get better.”

On if he saw any positives tonight:
“Some of the young guys played well. (Theodore) Beyomo had nine rebounds. Prince Okoroh also played well and (Simuel) Frazier played well in his minutes. The positive is also a negative because we didn’t get any production from any upperclassmen, which is not good.”