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DICK'S SPORTING GOODS NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 23, 2011Travis FordNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: Coach is going to make an opening statement. TRAVIS FORD: Give Stanford credit, they pretty much outplayed us in every aspect. We're a young team that looked young that played very, very inexperienced on this stage. But a lot of lessons learned from our basketball team. A lot of things that we obviously can learn coming out of this game. But give Stanford a lot of credit. I thought they played extremely well. They shot the ball well. They passed the ball well. They did a lot of good things. So it was more about them than us. They did a lot of good stuff. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Coach, the points off turnovers, is that a result of them playing more aggressive D and cutting off the lanes? TRAVIS FORD: It's something we had seen on tape. We talked about that‑‑ we showed our guys on video how well the Stanford gets in the passing lanes and makes steals, especially Owens. Owens does it all the time. And it's just our‑‑ being a young basketball team, they don't‑‑ we're not picking up things very quickly. So all these things are great experience. Sometime you have to learn the hard way. We're learning a lesson the hard way tonight, because we're obviously not very pleased, not very happy with ourselves right now. But sometimes you have to learn the hard way. Q. The second chance points, the same thing? TRAVIS FORD: Yes, you go down the aisle. From rebounding percentages to, you know, they had 16 assists. They played well. They looked like the more experienced team. Their main players really stepped up and played well. Owens and Bright were really, really good. They dominated us in several areas. You just look at the line at the bottom between points in the paint, points off turnovers, second chance points, fast‑break points. Everything is in their favor. They deserved it. Q. You mentioned with all the freshmen, inexperienced and coming into the Garden like this, how much does the venue play into it with freshmen guys? TRAVIS FORD: I think it does a little bit. I think it was more the competition than Madison Square Garden. But they are young. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way. You have to‑‑ I say sometimes you do learn‑‑ sometimes you have to learn‑‑ we tell these guys all the time certain things. They're used to being told how great they are and there's‑‑ that's just coach being‑‑ you know, you need this to happen and put guys in their place and make them understand this is‑‑ you're not going to be able to coast through and make it. You hate to learn this way, but sometimes it's necessary. Q. You had to go small early on with Olukemi picking up so many fouls. TRAVIS FORD: Yes, we usually count on him. We got zip from him tonight. He got in foul trouble so quickly. Wasn't able to do much at all. He's an experienced player. Much less a good player. He's at least one guy who has been in this environment a little bit. Then we had to go small, to go young. We had three to four freshmen out there several times when you look at‑‑ we would have Nash and Cobbins and Brian Williams and C.J. Guerrero out there. That's four freshmen. But I don't want to keep using that as an excuse. I told those‑‑ being a freshmen doesn't excuse some of the things we did as far as not competing the way we wanted to. Again, you have to learn the hard way. Hopefully they will. Q. I don't know if you addressed this earlier, how emotionally tough was this? And did you feel in the second half maybe there was a lack of focus? TRAVIS FORD: No, I don't want to make any excuses on that. They deserve better than that. Our guys, you know, we just could never turn it on. We never really ever ‑‑ we were hanging in there at the beginning. Even when we were hanging in there in the beginning I knew we weren't playing well and with the spark we need to play. As inexperienced as we are, we better play kind of just all out. Almost like a recklessness at least. Maybe throw it in the stands 25 times. I can handle that. Run around, throw the ball, don't run the offense correctly, that's fine. While you're doing that, at least play with a little reckless abandon. Play hard and compete. At least do that. No, it's been a long week, but I think our guys were ready to go. Q. Coach, (Keiton) Page gave you some good energy. TRAVIS FORD: He did. I wasn't going to complain. Might as well give him a shot. J.P., when he got two fouls, I knew we might gave him a chance. He got in there. Towards the end he was hobbled. I was thinking about putting him back in. He gave us a little bit of adrenaline. Gave us a little bit of energy. Make a couple of threes and then it caught up to him. Q. Do you think he might be able to go more for you guys Friday? TRAVIS FORD: It's hard to say. I would initially say I doubt it. Because I wouldn't encourage with his last couple of minutes that he played. He looked much more hobbled than he did earlier in the game. That's not encouraging. We had Fred Gulley go down tonight too. And he's a veteran player for us. That's not good. Q. What's the update‑‑ TRAVIS FORD: It's his shoulder. He's had two shoulder surgeries. It popped out again on him. Q. What are the plans tomorrow to play one of these two guys? How do you turn them back so quick? TRAVIS FORD: I don't know. Obviously we want to win and we want to compete and do some things, but we need to figure out how to get better. We need to get better quickly, compete more and grow up quickly. That's my main focus now. Not necessarily who is going to be playing more. Whoever is in there, let's get better. It may not go our way, but let's get better and compete and figure this thing out. THE MODERATOR: Last question? TRAVIS FORD: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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