Oklahoma State University Athletics
Oklahoma State - Northwestern State Post-Game Quotes
December 16, 2000 | Cowboy Basketball
Dec. 16, 2000
OSU Coach Eddie Sutton
"I think we had too many finals and missed too much sleep. In some areas we
played alright. I thought, overall, our defense was good with the exception
of the second half when we fouled too much. You hold a team to 33 percent
from the field, where you play good defense other than the second half where
you put them at the free throw line too early and too often. You can't turn
the ball over 23 times. I would say half of those were careless turnovers,
not the fact their defense was forcing the turnover.
"I thought we rebounded the ball well and I thought Maurice Baker continued to play well individually. Andre played very well, Fred played well and the rest of the guys, I thought, were a little inconsistent in their play."
On Andre Williams
"I think he is getting better. That is his second double-double in a row.
He's got to hit free throws. That was probably the other thing that was on
the negative side, our ability to hit free throws."
OKLAHOMA STATE PLAYERS
Forward Andre Williams
"We just came out flat in this game. I think we are playing to the level of
our competition and we can't keep doing that. I can't say that it was
finals, because I have gotten my rest. A lot of people have been done with
finals since Thursday, so I can't say that that is it."
"It is kind of hard to get up for a game when you look out and see a lot of empty seats. In Gallagher, there won't be any empty seats. It is always a help to have a crowd behind you."
"Just going in there and looking at it, it is totally different in there. There are more seats and the floor is kind of different with the new emblem. It is basically a new gym for us. A lot of us never played in there before, so it is going to be new for us."
Victor Williams
On the team's adjustments in the second half
"They are a very scrappy ballclub and they just seemed to be all over the
place. The first half we didn't play with any intensity or fire and that was
the difference. We came out in the second half and picked up the intensity.
If we don't play with intensity, then we can't do what we want to
accomplish."
On the effect the one week layoff had on the team
"The week off isn't really a good excuse. We know if we play like that, we
will get beat. We are just looking forward to next week and UALR."
On playing Tuesday night at home at Gallagher
"We are very excited to play in the new arena. I think it will lift us up
emotionally. This was our last game playing away from home and we are just
ready to play in the new arena."
Fredrik Jonzen
On the team's performance tonight
"I don't think we came out ready to play at all, not only in the first half
but even in the second half, even though we pulled away. We weren't mentally
ready to play this game, we have to play like we played in the second half
against Arkansas and build on that. Even though they (Northwestern State)
aren't as good as some of the teams we have played, we have to have that
same intensity we had against Arkansas every time out. We had 23 turnovers
and that is just not good basketball."
On the effect the one week layoff had on the team
"We haven't been practicing as much as usual because of finals, but we
shouldn't use that as an excuse, we still have to be ready to play every
night we have a game. I wouldn't blame it on that."
Northwestern State Coach Mike McConathy
On the Cowboys
"They're very good, and everything that they do, they do well. They're very
well coached, naturally, when a guy's been around the game as long as coach
Sutton."
On the Demons' effort
"I think that our kids' effort was tremendous. I think because we were
excited and played hard that at times we didn't react defensively to some
things that we needed to. We were wanting to get it done badly. I felt like
they tried to stay with them. What we were trying to do was keep them off
balance a little bit by switching our defense up. We did a pretty good job
with that. Of course, you're never satisfied when you get beat, but I think
that we did a good job and played hard and had a good showing."
On guarding Maurice Baker
"We didn't rotate as well as we needed to in certain situations where he
(Baker) came over, and we had some mix-ups on the way we were trying to
guard. He was in the middle of their press breaker, and we weren't doing a
good job of stepping up and stopping him. That caused a major problem. All
in all, we're just pleased with the effort. We've got to learn from it and
put it behind us and get ready to play Oral Roberts."
NORTHWESTERN(La.) STATE PLAYERS
Joshua Hancock
On his team's performance
"We played hard. We thought coming into the game we would be able to match
up with them, they just played a little bit harder. They (OSU) made it hard
for us to get into to our offense. They disrupted a lot of our plays and
that resulted in a lot of easy buckets for them."
