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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: MILWAUKEEMarch 19, 2010James AndersonTravis FordMarshall MosesObi MuoneloKeiton PageMILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Georgia Tech - 64 DENNIS KRAUSE: Opening statement from Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford. COACH FORD: I give congratulations to Georgia Tech, a team that played very hard. They were able to go out and play very, very physical and very aggressive and we were not. We didn't go out -- and I thought we played on our heels a little bit too much. That's evident by the rebounding margin. They got to the foul line 12 more times, which is a sign of aggressiveness. And I just thought they were just a much more physical team than we were for most of the night. We got aggressive for a spurt in the first half where we got really aggressive and didn't play on our heels and really started playing forward, rather than playing backwards. But that was about the only time, even though we did get a little lead in the second half. I think that was about the only time we really played the way we normally play. And you have to give Georgia Tech a lot of the credit. They were a much more physical team than I had seen on tape. Very physical, very aggressive team. They were able to take us out of some of our offensive things, being very aggressive. And, again, they turned us over eight times in the second half, which was not good for us. We only turned it over three times. But I'm proud of our basketball team. Had a good year to be able to make it to the NCAA tournament with a very young team. We won a lot of great games this year. Very proud of these guys. Obviously wish we could have moved on. But it just wasn't our day. DENNIS KRAUSE: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. James, it seemed like they did a good job of crowding you, not letting you get the ball where you wanted to get it initially. Was that why you were somewhat stifled scoring in terms of what you normally do, of where you were getting your touches at? JAMES ANDERSON: I think that coach had a great game plan for me, but I just didn't want to rush no shots that would hurt our team. I just felt like I couldn't get it off fast enough. They kept trying to crowd me. Every time I drove, they kind of shadowed me. And I just didn't want to rush no shots for our team. Q. Keiton, you hit two or three shots real early and then got very few shots the rest of the game. Can you talk about what Georgia Tech did to slow you down after that early flurry? KEITON PAGE: Yeah, a little bit from what coach said, I think they just stepped up their defense the second half and played really aggressive with us, including James, like he was talking about, they overplayed on screens, tried to beat you to the ball. And they were playing me aggressive the second half. Q. Coach talked a little bit about the match-up situations, I was wondering if each of the players could comment on what match-up you were looking at and what kind of problems it presented for you during the game. MARSHALL MOSES: Well, we know they had some bigger guys, some big, talented guys. And I wouldn't really say we thought it would be a problem, but we knew they were great players and that the inside game was the key to Georgia Tech basketball. And so that was one for me, Matt and the rest of the post guards. KEITON PAGE: Like Marshall said, they had a great inside game tonight. But we talked about it before the week, before we played them, that a lot of teams, their guards are overshadowed by their big men. We tried not to let that come into play tonight. They had a complete team, guard and post play. And Georgia Tech played good tonight. Q. 27 percent from 3-point range, obviously you guys are a better 3-point shooting team. Was it just an off night shooting, or was it something they did? OBI MUONELO: It was just an off night shooting. I didn't think we had good looks. We got out of our offense. I thought we could be a little more aggressive driving the ball. And when we did drive it, keeping the ball tight. But they stripped us a lot. We got open looks, and we just didn't knock them down like we usually do. Q. James, the whole defense seemed to come into a snapshot in the last minute when you dribbled into three defenders tried to pass out. Could you take us through what happened and how it came about that you got in that predicament? JAMES ANDERSON: Could you repeat that? Q. When you were dribbling in the last minute and three guys covered you, they surrounded you, you tried to pass out, turned it over, could you take us through that predicament, how that happened, how you got to that position and what occurred? JAMES ANDERSON: It was just a play that we had ran. I tried to get to the basket and get a foul, and obviously I didn't get it. So I tried to kick it back out, and they didn't call the foul and they went the other way and got a foul. So that was pretty much it. There wasn't nothing special. I just tried to draw a contact and get a foul. Q. James, your last game as a Cowboy, reflect back on your career, what this team has meant to you this junior season you've had for OSU? JAMES ANDERSON: It was a great season for our team, and starting from the beginning of the season we had a lot of goals that we wanted to accomplish, and we reached most of them. We had a winning record and being a young team a lot of people didn't think that we were going to survive in the Big 12. And we showed everybody wrong, and our whole goal was to make it to the NCAA tournament. Obviously we wanted to make a run. But it didn't happen like that today. Q. How about personal goals? I know it's tough for you. JAMES ANDERSON: I mean, all the goals that I choose individual-wise, I give credit to all my teammates for making me better in practice and just doing what they do to get me the ball and position me to score in the games. And all the goals that comes to myself I just share it with them. Q. Coach mentioned that he was surprised with the physicality that he saw on the floor versus what he saw on tape. And you guys played against K-State, Kansas, Texas. Were you surprised with how physical they were? MARSHALL MOSES: No, not personally, I wasn't. By watching the tape I could tell they were pretty physical guys. And they were some of the best I had seen all year, just watching the film and ducking in, continuing to post, keeping guys on their back, things like that. So I knew from the tip-off that it was going to be a war down there as far as battling with the big guys down low. Q. Obi and James, you guys actually outscored them by 2 in the paint tonight. When you know that, how extra frustrating is it that you weren't able to get it down outside like normal? OBI MUONELO: It was very frustrating, especially as good a shooting team as we've been all year. Like I said, again, we had open looks. They just didn't fall tonight. You can't really do nothing about that. The ball didn't bounce our way. DENNIS KRAUSE: Thank you. Questions for Coach Ford, please. Q. We talked to Coach Hewitt about this. He had never been through anything like this. They didn't get a field goal the final 8:19. Basically win this game with defensive rebounds. Talk about that. COACH FORD: They shot from the free throw line. It was unbelievable how they shot the ball, absolutely. And that's how you win games this time of year. You go out, do some things that you normally don't do. You give a special effort. That's definitely a special effort when you're able to go to the foul line 25 times and you make 24 of them. That's tough to overcome. Then we get outrebounded the way we did. So they made -- especially the statistical categories, everything, they made -- everything's in their favor. There's a reason they won this game. They just played better than we did today. They were more aggressive. And they were able to just be very aggressive against us. And every time I thought we'd make a play a good play or at crucial times, they would call a foul on us at very crucial times. And they would go to the foul line and make the play. Q. Can you talk a little bit about what happened with James tonight, uncharacteristic for him; didn't hit a 3-point, 3 of 12? Were they doing something on him? COACH FORD: They were jumping out on him with two people pretty much every time he touched it. They were doing a great job pushing him towards either the sideline or half court and just was very, very aggressive with him, very aggressive with him. You saw some of the same plays I saw. That had a lot to do with it. They were just very aggressive on him. Q. You never want to lose, but sort of a bad way for James to go out, to play one of his poorer games, just sort of the disappointment in that he didn't really display how good of a player he is. COACH FORD: We know we're having a tough time winning when James and Obi both don't play their better games. But James has done so much for this basketball program, for this team, and he's had a great, great year. I don't think that this game will overshadow at all the year that he's had. James is a great person, a great player. He just had one of those games. It just happened to be tonight. Just one of those games. And he's got a lot of great basketball ahead of him. Q. What goes through your mind: James has three fouls, there's a break-away. He chases after it. You know he's probably going to get aggressive because that's probably just his nature and he picks up the fourth foul. What are you thinking at that point? COACH FORD: I don't think -- the first half I was more concerned when he got his second foul than I was later in the game. But we were able to stretch it out a little bit when James was on the bench. Some guys made some real hustle plays. But I didn't think the second half his fouls hurt us, him getting in foul trouble never affected his game or the team that much in the second half. Again, we just played on our heels a little too much against a very good, big, physical basketball team. Q. Travis, you talked about when he set out the last six minutes while he was on the bench you stretched the lead. What were you doing those last six minutes to sort of give yourself a little pad? COACH FORD: There was a timeout right in there. I told our team to loosen up, start making some plays and gamble a little bit. I thought we were playing tentative, I thought we were playing hard, but we weren't playing to make plays. We weren't playing to get steals. I thought we were just playing on our heels. And our guys started making some plays diving and getting some loose balls and deflections, some steals. And that was pretty much our best spurt of the game, even though we made -- got a little bit of a lead in the second half. I still never thought we played with that aggressiveness for the second half. Q. Can you be a professor here a moment. Can you give yourself in your second year a grade for this very young team, what they accomplished, beating the number one team in the nation by one point, beating Kansas State there in Manhattan. Give us a grade for the season. COACH FORD: I'm proud of this team. It's hard to give a grade, other than I think we probably achieved a little more than maybe people thought when you look at 22 games and making the NCAA tournament in the toughest league in the country, beating Kansas, beating Kansas State and we go to Vegas and win a tournament. You know, we beat some really good teams this year and had a great record at home. And we accomplished a lot. I'm very proud of this basketball team. I'm very proud of how hard they played night in, night out, how well they executed on scouting reports. They stayed focused for the most part. We had adversity set in at different times and we handled that pretty well. So overall very proud of this team, very, very proud of this team. I don't know about a grade but just very proud of it. Very, very proud of how hard they played and how they represented ourselves and I wish I could give you a grade. I don't know. You can give us a grade. Q. How about you for yourself? COACH FORD: I'm proud of the team. We played hard. I'm lucky to be a part of this team and the university. You can decide that. Q. A-. COACH FORD: I'll take it. Q. You just talked about the end of the first half. It seemed after a slow start you actually got the momentum and maybe control of the game. What was the point in the second half where it sort of switched back? Did they do something? COACH FORD: Well, the 3 and then they got fouled, really caught them up very, very quickly. Four-point play will get you back very, very quickly when you've got an eight-point or six-point lead, whatever we had at that time. And you guys have seen us play. We've got to score more than 59 points. And I've avoided it as much as I can because you don't want to give the opponents too much. We had to make 3s. This team had to make shots in order to win. We're a team that's dependent on the 3-point shot. No question. And when you go 6 of 22, get outrebounded by whatever that number is, you know, and to still have a chance, wow, you know. If you told me these numbers before we started the game, I'd say we had gotten blown out. But we just didn't -- again, you've seen us play. We never got in enough spurts. We never got into a flow. We never got into -- even when we had a lead, I didn't think we were into a flow. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And Georgia Tech played very aggressive. Played very well. DENNIS KRAUSE: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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