Georgetown Postgame Quotes

Oklahoma State Head Coach Brad Underwood Opening Statement:

"Got off to a very slow start. Was very, very pleased. I made kind of a line shift adjustment and took four starters out. Then we really got an unbelievable lift from our freshmen.

I'm very high on this freshman class. I thought Brandon Averette, Thomas Dziagwa those two guys in particular were fantastic, and pushed tempo. But more importantly we got it going defensively. That helped get us on a run.

When I think of Georgetown, I think of elite defense. And to put 97 on them, I'm shocked that we were able to do that. I'm very pleased with our performance, in a night where Jawun was not stellar, by his standards.

It was very, very good to see our bench and our other guys get going. You know, tough shooting night for Phil again, but, again, our other guys were very good.

I thought Lucas N'Guessan, to start the second half, two offensive rebounds, a couple of put-back baskets, really got things going there in the second half for us."

On 19 steals and outscoring Georgetown by 30 points off turnovers:

"Well, there are two stats I look at. And one is field goal attempts. 71-47. That's a good number for us. We try to be -- we try to be on the plus of that as well. We only had 12 offensive rebounds, which is a little lower than I like.

But when you force one of the top teams in America into 28 turnovers, we're going to give up a layup or two every now and then. That was, those differences were great. I think we had 18 steals the first night. I don't know what it was last night. It wasn't very good.

But for the most part, yeah, very, very pleased. We're getting better defensively. We're still making too many silly fouls, but we'll clean that up."

On what bothered him the most about that start, and what he said to them:

"We didn't guard anybody. We didn't do anything we talked about. We were flat emotionally. We played with -- I don't know if it was fatigue. I don't think so. There was just no energy, and the one thing I know I'm going to get from my bench is energy.

I left Jawun in, and, man, the tempo was slow. Jawun wasn't himself pushing the ball. I thought Brandon really set the tempo for us offensively. He had a couple of drives where he went 94 feet.

Then Thomas Dziagwa, a guy I've got to find minutes for because he's a tremendous shooter. Those two freshmen guards got us going."

On how good the team can be and how this tournament will help them get on a flow into March:

"Well, my opinion, Carolina is the best team in the country, and we got throttled pretty good by them.

I think the one thing that we know is we played three good basketball teams in three consecutive days. If nothing else, we now know what we have to go home and work at getting better at.

We're still a long ways -- we're ultimately still trying to lay and establish our culture. I'm six and a half, seven months into this thing, and that's why I'm proud today. But execution-wise, in our half-court offense and our spread stuff, you saw a little bit of it late. It's probably the best we've run it.

We've got to get the ball moving better. We've got to get better flow. We'll continue to work on those things. Then probably our biggest challenge right now is keeping our front-court guys out of foul trouble."

Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III:

On turnovers:

"Yeah, it was. You know, yesterday rebounding was the story of the game. You know, we did a little better job with that today. And today was turnovers. I mean, that's what they do. They make you do that.

We had to handle it better and we didn't."

On the cause of turnovers:

"It was a combination of a lot of things. I could be wrong about this -- I have to go back and watch the film -- but I don't think most of it was us getting sped up. We made poor decisions. We dribbled into areas and picked up the ball where you shouldn't dribble into areas and picked up the ball.

And so we have -- and in no way I'm not -- this is not me making excuses, but we had some guys out there that were in that situation for the first time, the first time, either a freshman, or it was their first time with us.

And so it's a learning experience for them. I don't want to be flippant, pass it off as that. But, as I said, if we can take today's game, if we can take yesterday's game and if we can learn from it and not make the same mistakes as the year goes on, then this was beneficial for us. Sitting here right now doesn't feel that way. But they do a good job of turning it over.

We did not do a good job of protecting the ball. We did not do a good job of keeping our dribble, maintaining our dribble. Once you pick it up, you're dead.

And so it's one thing to talk about that in practice, show them film, but it's another thing when you face it. Now we've faced it. And not too many people do it as well as they do. And so hopefully we're better the next time we see it."

Oklahoma State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Brandon Averette

Thomas Dziagwa

Lucas N'Guessan

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