Kansas State University Athletics
Martin Shoots Western Carolina To Victory
Dec 19, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2001
Kansas State Head Coach Jim Wooldridge
On the second half of the game...
"Just lack of skill raised its head again. No shot makers. No free-throw makers. Turnovers. Somebody has got to make a free throw. Somebody has got to make jump shots. We had a hard time starting the second half."
On if there was an overconfidence from the first half...
"I don't think so. I think more when they saw the score going the other way, they just didn't have enough ammunition to turn it back. We made some silly mistakes. Foul when the score is tied. We fouled at the 10-second line. You know, just things that were pretty surprising at times. Disappointing. Embarrassing. It basically just takes your heart away from you, but that's the reality of it. That's what we are right now."
On Western Carolina's defense...
"I'm not sure that if you could get by the turnovers, you know the shots we got, the free-throw attempts that we had via the offense, I'm not sure that if you charted every one of those and went back and looked at it play-by-play you would say that was a pretty good shot. We didn't get the ball inside enough. That was pretty apparent. If you make a few shots out there you could probably get that zone to extend a little bit more."
On what he said after the game...
"I didn't say anything. I don't think there is anything that needs to be said. I just told them we meet tomorrow. I went in the locker room and told them what time we were going to get together tomorrow and got them up. That was all that needed to be said. We didn't need to talk about the game. I think everybody knows that it was a disappointing result."
Western Carolina Head Coach Steve Shurina
On the game...
"The first thing I have to say is wow. I was not very happy at halftime. I think it is the first time since I have been a head coach that I never talked to our coaches, I just went right after our guys. I can't say what I said to them, but boy, they came out in the second half and just played. They out rebounded us by two in the first half, 20-10. We out rebounded them by two in the second half. We shoot 54 percent in the second half, they shoot 31 percent in the second half. It was an unbelievable effort they had."
On the first half...
"We had some keys before the game and one of the keys was go inside and get fouled. At one point, with about eight minutes left in the first half, they had no fouls. We wanted to beat them on the boards, and the other emphasis was don't allow any penetration, and they were just driving on us like crazy. I don't know what the focus was. We would draw up a play in the huddle and they wouldn't execute it. We would call a play, they wouldn't execute it. Thank goodness for Kevin Martin's 15 points in the first half, and they shot 4 for 9 in the first half from the foul line. There is no telling what the score would have been."
On the second half...
"Terrence (Woodyard) played pretty well. He just keeps getting that experience. I told the guys that we played without Willie (Freeman) for 18 minutes in the first half and we played without Cory Largent for most of the game, and yet we win on the road at Kansas State. I think that's pretty good."