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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 1, 2012Chris WalkerARIZONA – 85 TEXAS TECH - 57 COACH WALKER: Man, we played a really, really good team tonight. I think that team has a chance down the road to be in the Final Four. They have experienced guards and size, really good coach, and they really did some positive things. The one thing I'm going to do is take it as an opportunity. We have some young guys. We have some inexperienced guys, and that was a good game for them to get a taste of what high‑level, Division I basketball is all about. Now we can get their attention a little bit more. Now as we go into the Northern Kentucky game, we can't get down on ourselves. We can't worry about what we didn't do against Arizona, and we have to focus, and get our focus back, get our heads up, and get ready for Tuesday. That is the most important thing. Like I said after the Jackson State game, when I said that Arizona is the next game on the schedule. I'm saying the same thing again. Now Northern Kentucky is the next game on the schedule. We've got to be positive. I think that going forward I tell my guys every single day, guys, we've got to chip away. The only thing we're responsible for is being the best team we can be by the end of the year. You can learn a lot from this game. We can certainly learn a lot, and that's what we're going to do going forward. I'm very happy with their effort. They played until the end, and that's what they're all about. Whether they're up 40, down 40, we'll play till the end. That is the most important thing. Forget about the scoreboard. It's about our effort and how we respond to adversity. And how we respond to adversity is what I'm most proud of our guys about. Q. Obviously inside they were really bruising. You were talking about how Tolbert and Daylen were going to have to meet the challenge. How tough was it that they didn't see the floor much in the first half because of foul trouble? COACH WALKER: That's going to happen in Big 12 play against bigger teams. We have to play through it. We have to find a way. It's just another challenge. That hurts our offense a little bit, and we have to get the guys more involved, because when those guys go out, we become more guard oriented. At the end of the day, it's tough to score on teams with that kind of length. Obviously, we want to make sure we play without fouling. But even though that was the case, I thought those guys kept a great attitude and tried to play as hard as they could. They got frustrated, which was understandable. But going forward was something we've got to work on and get better at. Q. There was about an eight‑minute stretch into the first half, start of the second half where you didn't score a field goal. Did they make adjustments in their defense or was it just a function of not taking shots? COACH WALKER: I think they're just a really good team. The court is so small with guys that long. I think if we go back and look at the tape, there are a lot of shots that we just missed. We just missed some chippies. We had that the last couple games inside. We're just not finishing. To go back and play defense every single time after missing a shot like that gets deflating to those guys. On top of that, they haven't had to experience that. We had that against Jackson State, but we weren't playing Jackson State tonight. You play a team, they can get you down, keep you down, they play with poise. You can't speed them up. They've got size and experienced guards. So what we have to do is become better at controlling the game, staying together when things get tough and then do a better job of taking care of the ball. It's just rookie mistakes. It's things they've got to go through. They've got to learn. It's just growing pains. Q. Can you talk about the disappointment tonight, the loss, and what you think the team needs to do to play against a high caliber team in the future? COACH WALKER: Let me say this again, I think that team is a Final Four team. That is a tall challenge for us right now given where we are. Not that we're giving in, but we respect Arizona. That was a really, really good team. You have a chance to learn. It gives me a chance to get my players' attention and say, guys, that's where we want to be. That's where we're trying to get to. Yeah, they took us to school, but that's where we're going to be. Now you can do two things. You can you hang your head. Now Tuesday could become a worse loss. I said it to the guys before. What do you think, and I hate to talk about other teams, but I said, what do you think Baylor felt like when they lost to College of Charleston the other night? They have to turn it around and go on the road and win against Lexington. Same thing here. We have to turn it around and play well against Northern Kentucky. That is the great thing about basketball. You get to play games right away and you get a chance to feel better again. Q. Arizona had a worse assist‑to‑turnover ratio than what they were usually able to do. COACH WALKER: We couldn't press them like we press normal teams. Their guards are so good, so we had to do adjustments. Again, they had experienced guards and they have a lot of them. So you have to make minor adjustments. We pressured them a lot. We really tried to get after them. But, again, they have a lot of really good players. What we have to do going forward is get our guys to play smarter on offense. You get frustrated when you can't score. To go eight minutes without scoring, that means you have to stop them every time down the court which is really, really difficult against a good team. So if you get a couple of baskets here and there and get your press going a little bit and get the crowd involved, that could change things a little bit. To go eight minutes without scoring, that part there could be the difference in the game. If a team goes eight minutes without scoring on us and we get ahead of them, it will be hard for them to come back on us. So the thing I'm impressed with our guys with their fortitude, they did not give up. They held their head high. We do the fight song, and everybody's there with their guns up. That's what we're all about. We're all about pride. You're not going to win every game, and these guys aren't going to get down.  We're just going to look forward to the next game. I told these guys that the most important thing is when I stop talking tonight and they're with each other, what they say and how they relate to each other and what they say when they leave the locker room. Other than that, we're good to go, and we'll get ready for practice tomorrow. Q. Do you like the rule like where Mark Lyons keeps his eligibility and the opportunity to transfer? Do you like that? COACH WALKER: Yeah, absolutely. If anything helps a kid, if it helps a kid, I don't know his particular situation, but I'm all about helping kids. If that is something that helped him that was instrumental in him becoming a better man, and Sean Miller actually recruited him and he had a chance ‑‑ with the coaching change, he had a chance to better his situation, why not? They're kids. It's not the NBA. They're not making a lot of money doing this. If that's something that made him feel comfortable, that's going to make a difference in his life, God bless him. Q. How hard are they to guard? You guys loaded Tarczewski pretty well, and that led to a lot of open threes. Did that balance make it difficult to defend? COACH WALKER: They made eight threes, but they made six in the first half. So that eight‑minute stretch we don't score and they're making threes, it's hard to come back from, particularly on a team like this. It's hard to come back from a team that's inexperienced. I don't like to lean on the inexperienced part because at some point we'll stop talking about that. It's the reality of the situation. It gives us a chance to learn and become a better team. That's what it is. It's a growth period. This is a process. Again, I keep saying about being positive. We'll push the needle in the positive direction and not going to hang our heads. I told the guys before the game we have to have a warrior mentality. We're not going to win every war. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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