NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 26, 2004

Lute Olson

LUTE OLSON: First of all, congratulations to Wake Forest. Coming here and getting it done. I thought from our standpoint, it's a case of we're playing the No. 1 team in the country and we really had a legitimate chance at winning, then it's like I told our players, it's that we need to build on this situation here. You know, we had a lot of lost possessions on them with the difference in the turnovers, we had just eight for the whole game; they had 17. So we ended up with nine there. Offensive boards, we had seven more offensive rebounds than they had. So we had the extra chances. We have to figure out a way to get fouled. When you go to the line three times and they go to the line 25 times, you'd better have a lot of other things working for you when that happens. I thought we played -- I thought both teams played with a lot of passion, a lot of heart, and their guards are a problem to keep track of, but I thought the matchups were really pretty good. I thought Mustafa played 34 minutes with no turnovers and six assists, and that's a solid game. He didn't shoot the ball well, but his floor game was good. Justin Gray is a handful. He does a great job of moving without the ball and getting himself open for good looks.

LUTE OLSON: Yeah, well, they didn't drop the help and that's what he was trying to do was to get that open. But, you know, Wake Forest knew that we were going to try to go to him, too. They did a good job of defending him.

LUTE OLSON: Denying him the ball, doing a good job at that. They have really good quickness defensively on the outside. But, you know, you can't shoot 23 percent and win games. I mean, the second half, we shot 23 percent and still had a chance to win the game. I think we're better shooters than that, but we'll just have to see what's happening there.

LUTE OLSON: Yeah, Jawann still needs to be much more involved offensively, because he's a guy that can shoot the basketball. But to shoot the ball, you've got to do a good job of screening other people and using that screen to get yourself open. So that -- but that's going to get better. The obvious thing is he's a good competitor.

LUTE OLSON: It's disappointing, but it isn't because the guys didn't play hard. It wasn't a case of our coming out and not being ready to play. I thought we played with a lot of passion.

LUTE OLSON: It's probably a coaching mistake then if I didn't. I don't know why I would call one at that point, but, you know, if they -- I don't know. Obviously it's got to be a coaching error. (Smiling).