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NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 26, 2008Tyrese RiceAl SkinnerNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Q. Big game tonight. The arena and the impact of the arena as a young team, how did they respond to that? COACH AL SKINNER: I don't think -- I mean I think -- I don't think it impacted us. I think we, you know, from that standpoint because I think our biggest issue this evening was I didn't think at times that we showed the patience that we needed on the offensive end. We tried to create offense, and that really didn't work for us. We had a number of turnovers because we were trying to create offense instead of executing the stuff that we needed, and hopefully we'll get better at that and show a little more patience there, at least in recognizing when you should and when you shouldn't. We did not do a good job of recognizing opportunities. I thought we missed a number of opportunities, and hopefully that will come as the season goes along? Q. Getting to execution, it seemed like there were points when Tyrese was on the court calling a play and then you had to call it again to make sure the guys got it. COACH AL SKINNER: Yeah. You know, we really didn't communicate, and sometimes it's tough to hear in the building, and so we gotta be a little more alert to what's going on and be a little better prepared, but even saying that we still didn't execute as well as we did. We didn't recognize the opportunities, I guess, and that's something that we have to improve upon, because there were times that we had very good opportunities, and we didn't recognize them. And so we ended up with a poor shot. But in saying that, you gotta give Purdue a lot of credit because I think they constantly put pressure on us. I think they constantly kept their defense up, so because of that, I guess like I said, we didn't show the patience that we needed. Our internal clock sometimes sped up. Q. How did the Purdue pressure affect your patience? COACH AL SKINNER: Well, I give them credit for it being constant, but we've been having issues. These are the same issues we've been having, so it's been no different. This is our biggest challenge is being able to show some patience and execute it and not allow our internal clock to get sped up. This is not the first game that this has happened and we just gotta get better at it and when we do that's when we'll see more success for ourselves. Q. Do you want to see more out of Rakim Sanders. COACH AL SKINNER: Yeah. He really didn't have a good flow going tonight. But I mean as a team I don't think -- there were times we did and other times that we didn't, and I guess that happens sometimes with a young team, that we were not as consistent as we would have liked to have been, particularly on the offensive end, and then defensively, I thought we made some mistakes, and that's the part that I was probably most frustrated with was our lack of execution on the defensive end. I mean we were making -- we consistently made the same mistake over and over and over again, and that cannot happen, and that happened tonight, and you know, that's the part that was very frustrating for me. Q. Playing a team like this, like Purdue, they're a big school, does it help your squad progress? COACH AL SKINNER: I mean there's some improvement that we made. I mean there's some things that we did, but it wasn't consistent enough, and that's really what it takes in order to win a game like this. You gotta be consistent throughout your 40 minutes, and we weren't. We had what I consider big break downs, particularly on the defensive end that created easy opportunities for them, and that's what you -- you want to take away the easy opportunities, because they're a good basketball team. They're going to make great shots. They're going to do that, but what you don't want to do is allow them to receive easy opportunities, and we did that? Q. The internal clock you talked about, it seemed to be more out of whack when Tyrese was on the bench. What do you expect the unit with him on the bench, how does that need to come together, and how much is that on Tyrese being the senior leader? COACH AL SKINNER: The thing is that obviously in practice one team plays without him, so they should know how to do that, and you know, so we just gotta make sure that we exercise that and that we execute that. So that's really not different for us, because in practice, there's obviously -- we don't have a so-called first team and second team in practice. We mix it up, so guys are accustomed to playing without him, so that really shouldn't be an issue for us, from that standpoint of what you're trying to say. Q. Just quickly expand on the turnover ratio. It was 16 to 9. Do you think it was more a lack of your patience or just Purdue's good defense? COACH AL SKINNER: You gotta give Purdue credit. I don't want to take anything away from them because we mishandled the basketball, but part of it was because, again, we just didn't recognize the opportunities, but you gotta give them credit because they were in position to take advantage of the mistakes that we were making, and that's what makes a good defense, and I don't think they gambled at all defensively. They just sat back and played their defense, and if we made a mistake they took advantage of it. If we didn't, then they just defended us and waited for us to shoot it. So you know, it's a great indication of how well they do defensively, and hopefully it's something that we will eventually evolve to. Q. What did you want them to get out of this trip more than anything? COACH AL SKINNER: Well, we gotta try to get ourselves a win (laughs). I mean and the other thing is we gotta learn how to play on the road, and win on the road. And this is a great environment to do that, playing against very good competition, and playing on the road. How do you win on the road? You know something, I know we can win at home. I got no problem with that. But how are we going to win on the road. Can we maintain our concentration and execute on the road like we do at home. And once we get that, then that's really what the challenge is for us, for these couple games. Q. They made a conscious effort to put pressure on you, make sure they had somebody on you. They knew you were going to have the ball. Could you feel it and did it affect you? TYRESE RICE: You look at Purdue's team, they have a great defensive team. You look at everything they played since their new coach has been there, and they've been pressuring everybody, so I can't say they put more focus on me individually on defense. Q. You've been in New York I'm sure but being here and doing it again and playing this team. What was the routine? Did it affect how you guys approached the game? TYRESE RICE: Not really, I mean last time I was here, we played Michigan State, and we lost by I think it was the exact same score we lost to them, but I mean I'm just trying to get away. I can't come in here and be 0-3 for my career at the Garden. Q. Young guys, how did they take it, playing a big, ranked team? TYRESE RICE: They wanted to play. Everybody was excited to play, and I just think that maybe their excitement, maybe us being overly excited might have affected us like with the mental part of the game, because I mean physically we played right with them. We were just as tough as them. They pushed us. We pushed back. It was just a couple mental breakdowns on defense that really hurt us. Q. What's the patience thing the coach keeps talking about? Is he talking to you about that about being patient? TYRESE RICE: Just think sometimes we get into a rush on offense. I mean like our offense is really methodical. It's really like you have to be patient, and you have to wait, like wait for your turn basically, and I just think he talks about internal clock or whatever, and he's just saying some people's is just a little too quick for offense and not patient enough. Q. Is it hard to keep patience where things happen when you get baskets in transition? TYRESE RICE: Yeah, it's tough but that's where your mental toughness has to come in. I mean you gotta understand that basketball is a game of runs and everybody is going to go on. Just like they went on their run we turned around and went on one too and we sped them up towards the end but we couldn't get the baskets we needed at the end of the game to make it a little closer. But other than that, that mental toughness that's what we need? Q. There was one point in the first half where you were on the bench and the teammates were struggling. They were missing the shot lock clock turning the ball over. What do you see as your role to bring these young guys together and get the offense clicking the way you want it to? TYRESE RICE: Just have to work at it. Like coach said, they play without me in practice. They played games without me before, so it's not like it's anything new. We just have to be prepared and be ready for me out of the game or in the game? Q. What do you think the problem is, when you talk about this internal clock and rushing, can you identify what causes that? Is it excitement, like you said or is it just not being mentally thinking about the next step in the offensive scheme? TYRESE RICE: I think the higher the defensive pressure, the faster your internal clock is. Like you could be standing there and if the guy's not really pressuring you, then you're going kind of slow, like you're going to be more patient. You're not going to be as quick to make a decision, but if a guy's in your face and he's up on you, you're thinking he's up on me. I gotta hurry up and make something happen. And I think that's what's going through our minds in the games and we gotta fix that. Q. What did it take to make your team successful? COACH AL SKINNER: We gotta get the mental part of the game. We got the talent. We got the players. We have all that. We just have to learn the game and play the game a little bit smarter, and I think we'll be fine. End of FastScripts |
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