MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 23, 2022

Mark Adams

Daniel Batcho

Lahaina Civic Center

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Postgame Press Conference

Ohio State - 80, Texas Tech - 73

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

MARK ADAMS: Well, I give a lot of credit to Ohio State. Looking at the stat sheet, they were just a little better than us in every category, and that's kind of how the game went. Just, they're a really good team, very hard to guard and well-coached, good players. I think they're going to have a great year. This is another game we can learn from.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Daniel?

Q. What do you feel like you learned during this tournament playing against this quality competition?

DANIEL BATCHO: I feel like we just need to be more focused and have less moments where we look kind of zoned out and we kind of don't know what we're doing. But that's coming to our age because we're really young. That's not an excuse, but it's true. I think we improve, like we learned a lot from this tournament. So that's what I'm glad about it.

Q. With your personal game, getting this experience, how has it helped you?

DANIEL BATCHO: It's given me a lot of confidence to see where I'm at because we were playing like, that's really good teams that we're playing, and just to see where I'm at, that's good.

Q. How did your eye get cut? I missed it during the game. I didn't see how it happened.

DANIEL BATCHO: I took an elbow on the rebound, but that's it.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you for your time, Daniel. We'll take questions for coach.

Q. You were 4-8 from three-point range the first half and then 1-10. What were they doing, what were the adjustments defensively that, contrasting those two hallves?

MARK ADAMS: Well, I think it was, I thought they were just really good getting a hand up and contesting shots. But we missed, we had some good looks that we missed as well. But that's, we think that's one of our strengths is three-point shooting.

But when I look at Ohio State and their experience and some of those guys they have, we're not anywhere close to those guys. Of course Sean McNeil's a guy that we coached against West Virginia and I actually recruited out of junior college and even in the portal. We think a lot of him. Likekele is a player that we played against Oklahoma State, just so tough, great character, leader, and you could see that on the floor.

I thought the biggest difference there were just times where we, in pressure, tough situations we didn't get a blockout or had a turnover or just didn't execute like we're supposed to. Their experience showed at that time and our inexperience was a big difference in the game.

Q. They got layups or dunks on at least three different plays. What did you see what happened on those plays?

MARK ADAMS: It's, again, lack of our inexperience. And you got to give a lot of credit to, I guess it was Key, their big kid, Zed Key, just would, they were really physical and sealing our guys on the top side. We just didn't have the backside help. Something we worked on.

But those are things we'll get corrected on post defense. But also on just our help side. Which was just late getting there. But they got some explosive players. And, yeah, that's something we don't usually like to see is giving up layups and dunks. That's just something we're not used to. Give a lot of credit to their head coach as well and some of the sets they ran.

Q. The 1-2 punch of Obanor and Batcho this week, despite a couple losses, were very productive, very good. What are your thoughts on how they performed?

MARK ADAMS: I thought they did well. KO finally hit some threes. He probably didn't shoot the 3 ball as well as he can and should. But played tough, aggressive and gave us everything he had.

But I thought that Daniel Batcho was just outstanding all three games. Just a warrior. And that consistency is what we're really looking for. We just, we've got to develop some of that with our guards. We'll get there. We just got some younger players at those positions.

Q. You mentioned some of the younger players and that's something you talked about. I know this is a sour note, leaving on a sour note, but what positives do you get? And what did you learn about your team this week in Maui?

MARK ADAMS: Well there's a lot of positives. I mean that Creighton game was, they're so difficult to guard. But we came back and played just a really good game against Louisville. I know we caught them, they're going through some adversity as well, but we played extremely hard. So we responded from that adversity. And then getting down early in the game and then coming back.

So I was praised how our guys responded and didn't just cave in and continued to fight. So I thought they did a good job getting back in the game the second half and at the end of the first half.

Q. Your thoughts on Justice Sueing today and his performance after he had a couple of off-shooting games. Was it at all surprising seeing him do what he did today?

MARK ADAMS: Well again he's a guy that we talked a lot about. He was really good. They got so many players that you have to focus in on that could get 15, 20 points. Just a very, very explosive offense. I talked about Sean McNeil and what he shoots. And then you got Brice, number 10, who may end up being a lottery pick, just unbelievable scorer.

So it's difficult defensively to just focus in on one or two guys. But certainly I thought Justice played really, really well.