Oklahoma State University Athletics
Oklahoma State Postgame Quotes vs. Texas
January 05, 2002 | Cowboy Basketball
Jan. 5, 2002
OSU Men's Basketball
vs. Texas
Jan. 5, 2002
Postgame Quotes
OSU Coach Eddie Sutton
"You can look at our offense and see that we shot 33 percent. I think it's very evident that Maurice (Baker) carries a big load offensively for us. Our guys got out of rhythm and really didn't do the things that we kept telling them to do. We told them to get the ball inside. We like to take threes, but we don't like to take as many as we took tonight. When you look at the shots that Melvin (Sanders), Cheyne (Gadson) and Victor (Williams) took, I think they were 12 for 43. Most of those were perimeter shots. You don't win basketball games against a good team by taking that many perimeter shots. I think our front line only took 13 shots. We just didn't do a very good job of running our offense and getting the ball inside then kicking it back out if the shot was there. That was disappointing.
"I thought we boarded with them. That had been a big concern because they are a good offensive rebounding team. We did a better job there, and we only turned it over eight times. I had given the team a goal of not turning the ball over 10 times. They met that.
"You have to give Texas a lot of credit. They hit some big shots and some big treys. We've taken great pride in our three-point defense. Tonight we did not do a very good job of covering the arc. They got too many wide open looks."
On the Cowboy's free throwing shooting
"I told our players that it's harder to play from behind because you have to exhaust so much energy. Finally we had a chance to go ahead, and Melvin hit one out of three free throws. Maurice missed three. I think Victor missed two in the second half. Terrance (Crawford) missed two. Texas was hitting their free throws. I think it's very discouraging. When you can't hit free throws late in the game, you're asking for problems. A mistake late is magnified because you don't have time on your side to recover. Missed shots and turnovers become very damaging."
On Maurice Baker
"He went out and shot the ball yesterday and told me that he was going to play today. The trainer said it wouldn't hurt him to play, but he'd be in pain. When he went out to warm-up he was in great pain, and I told him not to play. At half time the trainer came to me and told me Maurice wanted to play. I think you could see he was very gimpy out there. Defensively, he was having a difficult time covering anybody we put him on."
Oklahoma State Forward Fredrik J?nz?n
"We got abused today. They out-toughed us in every position. We have to come out and get ready to play. It is pretty embarrassing to lose like this at your home court. We can't play like this in the Big 12 or we will get beat."
Oklahoma State Forward Andre Williams
"We've got to get a lot tougher. We can't come out and play soft. They (Texas) lost there best player and we came in thinking that we could come in and win. They came in and outplayed us and got the victory."
Oklahoma State Guard Victor Williams
On playing without Maurice Baker in the game
"It was very hard for this team with so much evolved around him, and with him not out there it definitely put a damper on our offense."
On playing bad against Texas
"There really isn't an explanation on today's game, they just physically beat us. We didn't do well containing their guards, they got some shots that they shouldn't have gotten. In the last eight minutes of the game they physically kicked our tails."
Oklahoma State Guard Cheyne Gadson
On playing without Maurice Baker
"A lot of things are orchestrated around Mo (Baker) and with him not out there it's hard for other people to step up their games. We tried our best but I guess we didn't succeed as well as we tried. I thought that he was going to surprise us today and come out and play. He kept telling us not to worry about it. I thought that he would break out in the first half and try to play, but I guess he really was hurt."
On the poor post production
"It was partly the guards fault for not getting the ball inside. It is also some of the posts fault for not getting open."
Texas Coach Rick Barnes
"I think our biggest problem the whole year is that we have no continuity in our team. It hurts not having Chris Owens. We mixed things up out there tonight. If we play forty minutes, we can be as good as the next team. Yesterday, we had maybe one of the best practices all year. I think it is a whole lot harder when you lose a post player opposed to a guard. Especially when you count on the guy. We count on Chris Owens, but tonight I believed we had balance. I think Oklahoma State is a great team. "
On Maurice Baker
"I think Mo Baker is one of the best players in the league, maybe even player of the year. If he played we were going to push him and guard him."
On defense
"We knocked down shots when we had to. We played more zone than we have all year. I think Oklahoma State is one of the hardest teams to defend because they run a lot of screens and a lot of different things. We played 40 minutes of phenomenal defense. When we had to make the plays, we did."
On losing Chris Owens
"When you lose a guy like Chris Owens for the year, you can't feel sorry for yourself. We had to move on."
Texas guard Royal Ivey
On his team's play at the end of the game
"We had to stay together. Everybody says we've got our backs to the wall, but I don't feel that way, I just feel that somebody has to step up, and everybody stepped up today. Everybody stayed together, the crowd was real intense and they got into it, and we just stayed together and pulled a win out."
Texas guard Brandon Mouton
On his team's success against OSU
"Staying together most definitely, we work as a team, we just tried to stay focused, play hard, and play together."
On Chris Owens being injured, and how the team has reacted
"This just shows people that we still have players, and we know how to win. We're just going to come out and we're going to play hard every night, and just see what happens from there."
