Oklahoma State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes vs. UTA
December 22, 2007 | Cowboy Basketball
Oklahoma State Cowboy Basketball
Postgame Quotes vs. Texas-Arlington
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Head Coach Sean Sutton
On team's character
“It's something we stressed over and over the last couple days: character, pride and confidence. Our team has lost some confidence and it showed early in the game. We showed some character in the last three or four minutes on a night where we did not shoot the ball well at all. We found a way to be a solid team against a Big 12-caliber team. That has a chance to win their league. Hopefully this will help our guys confidence.
“Marcus (Dove) came up with some huge plays on the defensive end. He did the best job this season of being a vocal leader on the court. He also did a great job at the timeouts talking to the guys. This team has to have somebody and he's the one guy who has been on this team five years, he's been to the Final Four and the Sweet Sixteen, and he's the guy who has to do it.”
On Marcus Dove
“I didn't think he would play. He didn't go through shoot around this morning and he didn't practice yesterday. I wasn't sure he was going to play until they came back in after warm-ups and he said he wanted to try and that showed a lot of toughness on his part. He battled through.
“It's not in his personality to be a vocal guy. He's such a laid back person but I think he knows that for us to have a good season he has to do it. I thought tonight was the best job he's done all year.”
On James Anderson
“He's going through some growing pains right now. Pittsburgh did a good job on him and ORU did an even better job the other night. He had a lot of clean looks, as did Terrel (Harris), and those two guys aren't going to shoot 2-for-15 from the three point line very often. I think James is shooting the ball a little bit flat. Everything he's shooting is falling short so he needs to raise his shot up. He was able to get to the free-throw line about seven times.”
Junior Byron Eaton
On Friday's practice
“We just got back to the practice court and got a lot of shots up. We didn't do a good job of shooting the night before. We just wanted to get some shots up and get ready for UTA. We knew that they were a three-point shooting team and we just wanted to get ready for them. We wanted to get the last game out of our minds and get ready for the next one.”
On what the win means to the team
“It is very big for Coach Sean (Sutton) and for us as a team. They came in 9-1, and we just showed that we could beat a team with some wins. I think it was good for us to bounce back from that loss we took the other night and go into the break on a good note.”
On the character that his team showed
“This season, we've let some big leads slip away and we have had to fight back. We have seen how it is when a team is trying to fight back and they are almost there. (Texas-Arlington) even went up by a few points as well. It showed a lot from my team to fight back.'
Senior Marcus Dove
On making some key defensive plays down the stretch
“I just wanted to make plays any way that I could. I got a chance to get a couple deflections off my man. They were driving and kicking a lot so I just tried to stay in the passing lanes and, thankfully I got a few deflections and got a couple steals.”
On what the win means to the team
“It would have been pretty bad going into the break below .500, but we won the game. We came in here and showed character. That was our main focus and our word for the day was 'character'. We bounced back from a bad loss and got a win.”
Freshman Ibrahima Thomas
On the character that his team showed
“We knew how bad out loss against ORU was and today we just came together as a team. During the scouting report, Coach Ferguson talked about character. I think everybody showed that today and that is what led us to this win.”
