Post Game Quotes
12/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 14, 2008
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On Wake's 66-53 win over Wright State...
"I thought Harvey [Hale] really stepped up and played a big-time game for us when we needed him to. He deserves a lot of credit for that win. I thought he stepped up and shot the ball really well and guarded really well. Seventeen points in 18 minutes - pretty good job. I'm just really happy for him as a senior that he was able to come in and do that. The thing that was a little disappointing was our turnovers. Against Indiana we had 24 and tonight 22. Two of our last three games we've had 46 turnovers and that is what's hurting our offense because we are shooting the ball well. We just have to adjust and know that we can't take the ball into the lane when they're all packed in there like that. Good win for us. I'm happy for the kids. We just have to cut down on our turnovers. I thought we did a good job of offensive rebounding the ball. As few of the misses that we had, we got 13 of them back which is a big indicator of effort. But [I was] disappointed with the turnovers and a little bit disappointed at the end when we got sucked in on the penetration too much and they were kicking out for threes. But as we know, Brad [Brownell] does a terrific job. It was a good win for our kids."
On 3-point shooting...
"It's real important. We shot 7-of-13 from three so that's really good. And having Harvey [Hale] come in - he hit some really big shots for us that let us extend the lead. That's what they're giving us a little bit and we've been making them, so that's a good sign."
On Ishmael Smith's game and rehab...
"You can see him coming back more and more. You see he's been playing better and better and better. This is the first time that he's got to practice over an extended period. He had four practices before the game today so that was good for him. He made some great drives and kick-outs, which was what they were giving us. Harvey knocked a couple down and L.D. [Williams] got one right before the half so it was good. You could see him starting to come back into his own a little bit."
On Wright State...
"I think our kids were ready to play. I think we had great respect for Wright State. I know our coaching staff has great respect for Brad Brownell. He's a very good defensive coach. They do a terrific job of guarding you in the half court. They took us out of transition a little bit. I started talking about Wright State - this is the honest-to-goodness truth - when we put our schedule together. I told our kids in August, 'This is going to be a difficult game for us.' It was put together for TV, they were coming off a 21-win season, and they beat Butler last year 42-41, so we knew this was going to be a difficult game. I told our guys that in August."
Wright State Head Coach Brad Brownell
On his thoughts on the game...
"Wake played well and then took their foot off the accelerator a couple of times during the game. It took a little while to get our legs under us and really feel like we belong in the game. Once we made a couple baskets and got going, our kids relaxed and tried to play a little better. Wake's ability to switch through four and even five positions at times really caused us problems defensively. They cover so much ground because of their size and length. I didn't see as much of that on tape so we probably weren't as prepared for that."
On playing a top-ranked team...
"For whatever reason we've gotten off to slow starts in several games. We usually come out of halftimes and play pretty well. Tonight that was just not the case. The absolute worst thing that could happen did happen. There was a turnover and a dunk. We knew that Wake Forest is so good at transition. Their ability to run from end to end is outstanding and that's the difference in the levels. When you come up to the highest level and play these kinds of teams - the size certainly is a factor, but the ability to finish on the break is more than what we see on regular basis."
On what parts of the Wake Forest game Wright State was really focusing on containing...
"We certainly played off a couple of their players. We knew we needed to guard (Jeff) Teague from the three-point line and Harvey Hale although the stat line probably didn't look like that. You can't take away everything, you're asking a lot and something's going to give eventually and you hope it's not more than one thing. You are going to give on one or two things. We did a great job of defending the post. We made their post work. The real difference was just turnovers for points. We told our kids 'you can't do that because it's going to be a basket. Don't turn the ball over or it's going to be a dunk.'"
