Oklahoma State University Athletics
Texas Tech Postgame Quotes
February 20, 2016 | Cowboy Basketball
Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford
On tonight's performance:
"We just didn't defend this game. Our defense really let us down. We had losing numbers, defensively from percentages to points they scored. They shot 30 free throws and we shot eight. Defensively it wasn't good at all. We're just so caught up right now with having to shoot so many jump shots."
On Tyree Griffin:
"We're a very wounded team overall right now. That's just the facts, not excuses. We've got a lot of injuries. Mitch is out there playing with one hand, Tyree is playing on one foot and Leyton is doing the best he can. Our defense just wasn't good, though."
On Texas Tech's defense:
"I thought we did a great job with kicking it out. That was the game plan. We thought they might double us up in the post. We wanted to go inside-out a lot more in the second half than we did in the first half. Offense was not the problem at all. We are who we are offensively. We've hung our hat on our defense all year long and we just didn't guard anybody tonight. Our defense let us down tonight."
On the team's morale:
"They're down right now. I told them that they have two choices. They can either hang their heads and walk around as if you lost your puppy dog and feel sorry for yourself or you can throw your shoulders back, grit your teeth and come out with some fight. Those are the two options you have. Which door are you going to walk through? When adversity sets in, you have choices to make. You can either come out ready to defend, fight, crawl, scratch and do whatever you've got to do or you can sit around and feel sorry for yourself."
OSU junior forward Leyton Hammonds
On three-point shooting:
"It was just something happened," Hammonds said. "We were settling at first at the beginning of the game. I think we made an emphasis on trying to get inside, but I guess it was just adjusting to the game."
On Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford's message after the game:
"We can't hang our heads on this," Hammonds said. "We've got a really important game on Wednesday, so we've got to be prepared and have a short memory."
On moving past losses:
"I feel like we're able to put them behind us," Hammonds said. "We've just got to try to be more focused on the game plan and executing during the game. I just feel like if we can do that we're be more successful."
OSU senior guard Jeff Newberry
On when the game got away from them in the second half:
"We gave up 40-plus points in the second half," Newberry said. "When you let anybody come onto your home court and do that then you see the result you're going to get. I don't know at which point it got away. It was close for the majority of the game. You've just got to grit your teeth and defend at the end of the game and we didn't go that. They came out and hit some big threes. We've got to play a full possession and we didn't do that."
On what makes Texas Tech's Toddrick Gotcher difficult to defend:
"Select communication, really," Newberry said. "He's a great player, but if you let anybody get bird-eye looks like we gave him, there's a lot of great shooters in this league and he's one of them, so he's capable of hitting that shot. That's just what he's known for. He's known for hitting threes and for hitting shots at critical times. He's a leader and he's a senior. We just lost him in transition and let him get going. He hit some big shots for them and he got them going."
On still believing in each other:
"We're all we got and the end of the day, so we're always going to stick together," Newberry said. "We're not going to sit and sulk about game after game. We're going to go out there and give 100 percent. We know that if we do that, whatever the outcome is, that's what it is and we're going to move on to the next game and we're not going to sit and sulk. It's me and his [Leyton Hammonds] to make sure nobody does do that. We just have to execute. We can't blame it on one person. We just have to believe in each other, come out the next game and execute. We can't keep letting the same thing happen. That's how we look at it after every game."
Texas Tech head coach Tubby Smith
 On tonight's performance:
 "We feel like we played a good game, really grinded it out. We came here knowing Oklahoma State would play extremely hard. It was a momentum builder for us, we have been coming off of some big wins in the Big 12. We continued validating those wins by getting a win tonight. It was certainly an outstanding accomplishment by these young men."
On going into this game expecting to win:
 "We needed to validate our wins by coming in and executing. The leadership that we have on this team, such as Toddrick, makes all the difference. Our execution and our defense has really been key. Oklahoma State really shot the lights out, so defense was crucial tonight."
On his relationship with Travis:
 "I go way back with Travis. He was on the team at Kentucky when I was here as assistant coach. I know he's going through a tough time lately, and I understand because we've been through this before at Tech."
Texas Tech guard Toddrick Gotcher Â
On validating the teams wins from this game:
 "The team really needed to stay focused tonight because we knew coming here that we haven't won here in twelve years in a row. We had to have the mindset of wanting to change that. Practicing hard every day and coming out and playing aggressive was what we needed to do."
On his performance:
 "I think my teammates put me in a good position. We constantly moved the ball around, and worked together really well."
On his career high (24):
 "The closest to feeling like I did tonight was actually against Oklahoma State, at home. I try to come out with the same mindset every game. We think that way together as a team, that's how we win."
Texas Tech forward Matthew Temple:
 On the team's performance:
"I think we did a really good job on getting rebounds because guys were hitting their assignments and boxing their guy out. We played very aggressively and rebounded even more in the second half."
