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March 20, 2015
OMAHA, NEBRASKA
OREGON - 79
OKLAHOMA STATE - 73
THE MODERATOR: The Oklahoma State Cowboys join us. Phil Forte, Le'Bryan Nash and Anthony Hickey represent Oklahoma State as their student-athletes. Opening comments from Coach Ford.
COACH FORD: Our congrats to Oregon. They played a heck of a game. They just outscored us. Plain and simple outscored us. We played pretty good for us offensively. For us to go out and score 73 points with 12 turnovers is not bad, but they just outscored us. We didn't have an answer. We have struggled a lot this year with teams that score a lot of points, and give them credit; they made big shots, at big moments. We had a couple of runs and didn't capitalize on them. We had a few turnovers, and we didn't really -- when we would make a run and get a lead, we never could extend it in the second half. First half we extended the lead, but second half we never could extend the lead when we got one. But give them credit; they're just a tough team to stop. We tried a couple of different things, and they made shots. 79 -- you know, somebody scores 79 points, we're going to have a tough time beating somebody that scores 79.
Q. Young ends up scoring 27 but -- only 10 and until the very end it was 7 I think. It looked like Anthony was more on him, talk about the defensive switch on Young.
COACH FORD: Anthony did a great job, we switched Anthony off him because we were going to switch guys on him, and we didn't want Anthony to get switched out on Cook. So we put Newberry to start out on him because we knew we were going to switch, and that would have put Newberry on Cook when we started the half, and then that didn't go too well, and Anthony did a great job on him. He had the one flurry at the end of the half, that changed the game, be honest with you, it changed the game. That one flurry really was a big difference in the game right now. You look back at it, a huge difference. His one big run he made basically by himself.
Q. Phil, what was it like on the floor during that stretch that Coach just mentioned when Joseph Young was scoring all those points in a row, and what was allowing him to do that?
PHIL FORTE: I mean, some of them I think you give him credit, he made some tough shots. Other times he would come off a ball screen and we weren't up there, a guy like him and his skill level that he has, you can't give him any space. If you give him just a step, he will make you pay for it.
Q. Anthony, you waited your whole career essentially to play in the NCAA Tournament. You got that chance tonight. It was fairly clear as an outsider looking in that you were going to take full advantage of that and play hard. Talk about your mindset and your attitude tonight in this game.
ANTHONY HICKEY: My mindset was just to play hard, try to stop Young as much as I can. He made a lot of tough shots. I just wanted to do whatever just to win. Just play hard for the main thing; affect the game as many ways as I can.
Q. Le'Bryan, obviously you've had such a long career here at Oklahoma State. What's going through your mind now that you've played your last game?
LE'BRYAN NASH: Just looking back on what I could have did in that game. I'm not thinking about the rest. I'm thinking about this game right here and now. Turnovers killed me. It would be a different ball game if I didn't have no 7 turnovers. Good players don't turn over the ball, and it hurts a lot just being my last game. I really played hard for OSU. I really want to win and I really want to be known as a winner. So you know, exiting like this, it hurts a lot. I just want to thank all these guys for being my teammate and my coaching staff for coaching me right and just getting me better every year. That was the biggest thing. Just thank you, just thank God and hope my career can keep going in the NBA or obviously wherever it is.
Q. Coach, you reacted to Le'Bryan when he said that. Does that hurt you to hear that he's taking responsibility like that?
COACH FORD: It hurts because he knows he's a big reason we're sitting here. The career he's had has been an unbelievable career. He will go down as one of the great Oklahoma State basketball players to ever play. What I love about him, he has finished very strong. These last two weeks have been probably the best two weeks of his career. He has played at an extremely high level. He's going to get a chance to play at the next level, no doubt. I never have gotten -- I never -- he did -- his positives totally outweighed his negatives tonight. I can guarantee you that. I can promise you that. His positives very much outweighed the negatives. Had a few turnovers, but we put him in a position that's a pretty tough position a lot of times. Everybody is playing him, so it's going to happen. But he did a lot of positives; all three of these guys did a lot of positives out there tonight. We got outplayed by a good Oregon team. They're a very good offensive team, very good offensive team. We didn't play bad tonight. We didn't guard that well, as well as we're capable of, but we didn't play that bad. They outplayed us, and these guys should have no regents for that. Couple of few things we could have done differently, could have went our way, but these guys played hard. He knows how I feel.
Q. Travis, can you explain the sequence at the end of the first half? Was there a mistake?
COACH FORD: There was a mistake, yeah, obviously.
Q. So you thought they had five and that's what it showed on the board?
COACH FORD: Obviously. Obviously, yeah. We'll figure out -- yes.
Q. Phil, how hard is this right now, this moment?
PHIL FORTE: It's really tough. Toughest thing for me is just knowing that I'm not going to get another chance to play with these seniors and these guys next to me. It's been a long journey, been through so much together, and I'm just going to miss playing with this group of guys. That's the part that hurts the most; these two guys to the left of me, I won't get another chance to play with them, and that's the toughest thing.
Q. Travis, sort of along the lines of what I asked Anthony about his performance tonight, he just seemed like he was intense every moment he was on the floor.
COACH FORD: There was absolutely no doubt. Look at his numbers, 5 steals, 17 points, made a lot of big shots. Again, he was getting after it. And what's impressive is he did guard one of the best offensive scorers in the country for 94 feet. Not just picking him up, but 94 feet. We were locked in. I told these guys I have no regrets as far as their effort level, how hard they played and their intent. Every time-out they were talking, their intent was there. We -- you know, it seems like it happened last time against Oregon. This Oregon team has won 12 out of the last 14. They're a strong basketball team, finished second in the Pac 12, runner-up in the Pac 12 Tournament. They've got a basketball team that's playing well. We did not play bad tonight; we did not play bad. We just didn't come up with enough plays. They came up with a few more plays, and that's the name of the Tournament. That's happened the last two days to a lot of teams. They just played a little bit better than we did today. We didn't play bad, we didn't play bad. They just played a little bit better than we did.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen, best of luck.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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