Oklahoma State University Athletics
Iowa State Postgame Quotes
February 06, 2016 | Cowboy Basketball
OSU head coach Travis Ford
Opening statement:Â
"The way we started the second half defensively wasn't good at all. We gave up a lot of lay-ups. In the first ten minutes of the half, they shot ten percent and in the second they shot 75 percent. They made a bunch of threes on us in the first half, then once we tightened up on the shooters a little bit they started to drive by us. Our defense got spread out and that led to a lot of lay-ups to start the second half. We rebounded pretty well the whole game, but we gave up some big second chance opportunities under the five minute mark. That inexperience keeps showing on our part and we've been talking about that to the team and showing them on film. We had a few wasted possessions offensively, where we just didn't get anything out of them. We got caught underneath the basket twice and that's just bad plays. But we got down 10 or 11 and we came back and took the lead again, so I'm proud of the effort. I told our guys I'm very proud of their effort and competitiveness. I thought they really competed, we just didn't have enough against a top-15 team in the country. We played good, but we didn't play great and against a team like Iowa State you have to put together a great game and right now with the situation we're in it's hard to beat a team like that."
On Jeffery Carroll's play:Â
"We started seeing the offense open up the whole game, until we got down. Then we started picking up a little bit. Jeff made some very nice one-on-one moves that set up for a couple threes. And then we started getting stops and started to score. We kind of found our second wind defensively because as active as we were in the first half, the first eight minutes of the second half we looked like zombies out there. I don't know what it was, but then we woke back up and got extremely active again and started making it hard on them. It's tough to give one of the top-15 teams in America a 13 point lead in the second half and come all the way back. There big players made big plays but we're are proud of the effort and proud of the competitiveness of our team."
On teams adjusting their defense to Leyton Hammonds in the second half:Â
"No, not really. He got his 12 points in the first, so you start to play a little more attention to him. They did a good job on him. He got decent looks that just didn't fall. We were just talking about that we need to get consistency from everybody for two halves, we just can't be a one half team. Our second halves the last couple games have let us down a little bit, but we played really good stretches of basketball. It's just hard in this league. Our guys competed against a great team today. We've had a lot happen to us the last couple of days and throughout the year. We really just prepared for this game in one day and tried to move guys around, but we have to get a few guys in different positions and trying different things. I appreciate how the guys responded because coming off of a tough game late Wednesday night is hard. And we were worried about how we would come out of the gates and I'm proud of our guys' effort and their competitiveness. We just got to start finishing games off."
On facing TCU on the road on Monday:Â
"Yeah, it's going to be tough on the road. We will prepare and head on over there. Our team just needs to stick together as we piece this thing together."
OSU guard Jeffrey CarrollÂ
On coming up short:
"It's frustrating," Carroll said. "We chipped and clawed all the way back after being down in the second half. It's tough but we've just got to mentally stay locked in for the full 40 minutes."
On multiple close losses this season:
"It's a little frustrating, but we're learning from it," Carroll said. "We'll never stay down about it because Coach Ford always preaches 'on to the next play' because we can't do anything about it now. We can't go back and change anything now. It's just moving on to the next play and staying positive the whole time."
On moving on to the next game:
"It just starts tomorrow in practice," Carroll said. "Like I said earlier, we have to move on to the next game. We can't stay down because we lost this game. We just to worry about winning our next game."
On finding an offensive rhythm in the second half:
"Ball movement was working for us," Carroll said. "Tyree Griffin was driving in the lanes and kicking the ball out. We got down for a little bit and we just had to kick it in gear and come back."
OSU forward Leyton Hammonds
On learning to play without Jawun Evans:
"I don't know the extent of his injury and how long he's going to be out, but we're just going to take it day-by-day with him," Hammonds said. "If that ends up being the situation then we're just going to have to adjust. We're going to see how hard it is to play through adversity and this will be another challenge for us."
On playing through adversity:
"Personally, it's just trusting in God and I feel like as a team we do that, too," Hammonds said. "We've just got to trust in our coaching staff. My brother right next to me [Jeffrey Carroll], we lean on each other. When another brother is down we help them up. We're the definition of a team. Nobody is going to lead us in scoring every game and we don't have that one guy we can go to who can get us a bucket."
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Iowa State forward Georges Niang
On Himself and Monte Morris late game:Â
"I think it's his competitive nature and obviously play-calling to put us in the right position. We needed to go get a bucket our numbers get called and we have to get a bucket. The real unsung play of the game was when Monte went the length of the floor and went up through traffic to score and I think to be that alert and to be able to do that with toughness speaks volumes about him."
Iowa State guard Monte MorrisÂ
On the first half:
"I think it was big for us - just adjusting. Like George was saying, he was playing the five down there and you have to get comfortable down there. We talked big about spacing at halftime and that was a big emphasis that we put in after halftime and we came out and were able to get the job done."
On the second half:Â
"The ref came up to me and asked me if we were awake, like if we got out of the bed on the right side, but I think it was flow Trusting each other and ball movement. With ball movement we're the toughest team in the country to play with the offensive playmakers we have, so I think that was major key."
Iowa Stae Head Coach Steve Prohm
On adjusting after the first half:
"It was an ugly first 10 minutes. But you'll watch the tape and George had a couple of threes that you can live with, Monte had a 17-foot pull-up that you can live with, but the last two days is the first time when we really put emphasis on George playing the five, Deonte at the four for a majority of the minutes and so our rhythm wasn't very good. The tempo of the game wasn't really good for us, but thank goodness we only gave up 12 points, so we were able to get back. When it was two at half I was really ecstatic inside, but then had to explain the frustrations of we have to get better on offense."
