Kansas State Head Coach Quotes
Dec 03, 2005 | General
On tonight’s game ...
“I just didn’t like tonight. We let ourselves repeat the same mistakes over and over and I think we haven’t seen that from this group. We’ve seen better adjustments, we’ve seen responses to challenges and I think that’s a little bit of a mental thing. I think that competing and bringing a mental accountability that up until this point our basketball team has been real responsible to. I thought we did it at an average level the first half, and we addressed it at halftime, and an average level the first ten minutes of the second half. But after that, we didn’t get it done. We just mentally and physically failed ourselves there. I think it’s just learning how hard you have to compete in the game mentally the full 40 (minutes). So that’s the thing we have to learn from that tonight is the first night that we allowed ourselves to repeat the same mistakes on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor over and over and over for a period long enough to allow the game to swing and to change.”
On how returning players performed...
“Well I didn’t feel like we got real strong games from anyone on the roster tonight with the exception of JoAnn (Hamlin). I thought JoAnn was steady, but I thought we were sporadic at all other phases of the game. We had good moments and we had unfocused moments. We tried to play our combinations a little bit longer tonight together, but we just couldn’t find the intensity that we needed with five on the floor all at one time tonight. So as it relates to our returners, we were okay, but we weren’t good enough. I would say that generally speaking across the board, I wouldn’t put that responsibility on anyone’s shoulders. I felt like it was a team demeanor. I thought Jessica (McFarland) was a productive force tonight but our rebounding numbers were just left wanting. We found players be maybe be effective in one aspect of the game but not in the three or the four that you have to put together to get your team a win.”
On using players off the bench in the second half...
“I think we were just again looking for situations where we might be able to make a bigger impact defensively. We were looking for ways to stop the bleeding on the defensive end of the floor. JoAnn was in a bit of foul trouble and I think my preoccupation really was trying to defend at a higher level.”
On the overall scoring from the bench...
“I didn’t feel like we got the overall efficiency from our bench that we typically do, meaning we got some point production, but for the last 13 minutes, we didn’t execute. I think it’s important in understanding that staying disciplined, executing and scoring all of those things go together. We did get good production, those 34 points were half of our scoring and we’ve been getting that, but we didn’t get them stopped. That alone demonstrates how important the defensive aspect of the floor is. We let that team shoot 53-percent in the second half and anybody is going to be successful if you let them make one out of every two baskets. So, we had good point production from the bench, but not a good enough job defensively and on the boards.”
On how fans are reacting to such a new, young team...
“I thought we had a fabulous crowd tonight for a non-conference game with a basketball team that is kind of reintroducing itself to the
