	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2010

Doc Sadler

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Nebraska Â– 75
Missouri - 60

CHARLIE FISS: We're joined by Coach Sadler of the University of Nebraska and his two student-athletes, Ryan Anderson and Brandon Richardson. Congratulations on the victory. Your thoughts.
COACH SADLER: You know, it's obviously for the people that follow us know our season. It's been a tough season. But as I've said, from the toughest losses to the few wins that we've had, that this basketball team has continued to compete and show great character.
And I think for you all that's the first time that you've seen us play this year. We haven't won many games. But I don't think any of you that have watched us have left the game thinking that this team didn't at least play as hard as they could play.
Today we just made some plays and we shot the basketball well. We went into the ball game wanting to handle their press and not give enough second-shot opportunities. And then understanding, I think, that when we get the opportunity to get something against them, we either have to shoot a lay-up or we have to shoot a stand-still, three-point shot, and nothing in between.
And the last couple of days we've talked heavily about offensive execution, and I thought today, you know, it looks a lot better when you shoot the ball. But I thought for about 32 minutes it's about as good as we could execute offensively.
The last eight minutes, I think all of us, including myself, probably didn't do as good a job of coaching or executing in the last eight minutes, but we continued to play on the defensive end. So besides the two 3-pointers they hit on us on the defensive zone, I don't think we could have played much better on defense.
CHARLIE FISS: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Ryan, it seemed like when you guys are in the half court, you were kind of using their pressure against them. They got kind of scrambled. You guys got some nice backdoors and maybe got some open 3s. Was that part of it, knowing that they were going to try to even pressure you guys in the half court?
RYAN ANDERSON: Yeah, it goes along with what Coach said, executing offensively using our press releases on offense, people pressure us in certain positions, there's counters to pressure. And like you said, the backdoors, for example, is one of the counters to a lot of pressure they try to put on.
And pressure release. They pressured us and we executed offensively and got some layups.

Q. What did you guys take from your two previous games against Missouri, how did you adjust to them?
BRANDON RICHARDSON: The first two games we played against them we just didn't run offense. We watched film over and over. We had a low percentage of how many times we ran offense.
And in this game we really executed, really slowed the game down. And we made them play our game. And the outcome was good for us because we ran offense.
RYAN ANDERSON: Like he said, again, Missouri wants to play a fast-paced style, and one of the problems we had last game was we made shots early. Coach kept telling us you're making the shots but with the style they play, it kind of sucks you in and makes you think it's going to happen like that. You keep shooting those shots, they're not going in. They're going against your favor. So try to execute and take the shots the whole game this time. And, hopefully, tomorrow we can do it for 40 minutes not 32, 38.

Q. Brandon, can you think back to the Texas A&M game, I know it was a ways back. What do you remember about that game? And talk about getting the chance to play them again.
BRANDON RICHARDSON: Well, I remember, like, throughout the game we had, I don't know if it was winning or a close game, but like towards the end of the game we kind of got on our own pages. And we got away from the team concept, slowing the game down, and trying to throw the ball into the low post, because when the game is played inside/out, it's a very high percentage of you scoring the basketball.
So that's what we have to do tomorrow, and, hopefully, we can execute.

Q. Brandon, you talked about that three-point shot where you're fouled seemed to be one of the pivotal plays, kind of set the game apart. Did you feel that way? Kind of take us through that shot.
BRANDON RICHARDSON: Well, the credit goes to Brian Diaz. They committed two guys to him. And I was able -- he kicked it out, and I was able to make a shot. So like I said, it's no credit to me. If it wasn't for Jorge who was doubled, I wouldn't have been able to get that shot. So the credit goes to him?
CHARLIE FISS: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. Talk about the rebounding advantage. You were plus 16. Talk about being able to go against the Missouri team minus Justin Safford, one of their bigger guys.
COACH SADLER: They asked me that question yesterday. And I think all of us, to some point, aren't full strength, and obviously Justin adds a lot to their basketball team, and him not playing, I'm sure it's affected them.
But the rebounding situation is, I think, our perimeter defense was pretty good, and, therefore, they missed, you know, some shots and we were able to somewhat hold them down on offensive rebounds. And so that's probably where the disparity comes on the glass, because if you look at the offensive rebounds, they actually out re-bounded us 9 to 8. And that's probably because, you know, they missed more shots than we did.
So that's where the rebounding difference is probably at.

Q. If you would, could you talk about balance in your scoring offensively in general? You had four guys in double figures and four guys with at least three assists.
COACH SADLER: Again, I think a lot of it goes back to our players executing. And Nebraska, you know, we know a lot about offensive efficiency because of football. And I think our offensive efficiency was pretty good. And we're not going to make every shot. But we've got better shots, I think, and we stayed with our offense a little bit more than you normally do.
So that's probably why we shot the percentage that we shot. There's been some games that we probably had a lot better looks than we had today that we just didn't shoot it good. So maybe it's just the day and hopefully the day continues.

Q. It seemed like -- can you comment on the number of, like, 50/50 balls. Seemed like you got 90 percent of them.
COACH SADLER: Missouri's going to continue to play. You know, we gotta win. I mean, that's the only chance we got. And so if we're not going to get the 50/50 balls today, then we've got some serious issues. And not that I'm not saying that Missouri was looking forward or anything else, because I thought they played extremely hard.
But our guys, I think, understand that, you know, there's not much room between their back and that wall. And we've got to come out and give everything we've got and see what happens.

Q. Talk about Brandon's 4-point play there, considering when it came it was pretty significant.
COACH SADLER: I think it came in a stretch that we were struggling offensively. You know, with over eight minutes to go, you know, I used two time outs to tell our guys to continue to be aggressive, but we were being aggressive from the free throw line to the mid court instead of from the free throw to the basket.
And then we were getting ourselves into situations where he was either going to make or miss the shot. We missed a couple of opportunities on some backdoors that could have really helped us. But at that particular moment, obviously, I think they may have had cut it to 10, hadn't they, and when he hit the 4-point play? So I'm not very smart, but it's probably a pretty big play, yeah.
CHARLIE FISS: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297