Oklahoma State University Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
February 22, 2009 | Cowboy Wrestling
Oklahoma State Wrestling vs. Oklahoma
Feb. 22, 2009 :: Gallagher-Iba Arena
Post-Game Quotes
Oklahoma State Coach John Smith
Opening Statement
"It's good to get back on the winning side. It's a match that can do a lot for us as far as confidence and winning close battles. I thought we did a good job winning the close matches. I think we have to be a little bit more patient with both programs right now, especially mine, with guys trying to find their way a little bit. I think the wrestling is going to get a lot better in the future. I think as we get some experience in our program we're looking to entertain a little bit more than what we did today, but it was nice to get the win and it was nice that we won the close matches."
On Seniors Brandon Mason and Newly McSpadden's overtime victories:
"They'll remember it. It's important that you have a positive memory on your way out, even if you don't like necessarily the way you wrestled."
On Senior Newly McSpadden:
"He's inspired us since he moved up to 174. He's fighting off a lot of power and a lot of strength there and I'm not sure that he's not a great example of what we're looking for in the fight and the attitude of finding ways to win. He's chipped away at a lot of guys at this weight and he's been very competitive with some of the better guys in the country at this weight, and that's what it's going to take from him. People should look at him and see he's an inspiration and he's definitely what we're looking for."
On Oklahoma's forfeit at 125 pounds
"You don't like to see it but I can tell you that's not what they want. It's not what anybody wants either. I'm sure their staff did everything they could to create a scenario to put a body out there."
On three overtime victories
"We executed when it was very critical. Jamal Parks was an overtime rideout who has struggled riding all year and finds himself in a position that a 30-second rideout will get his hand raised and he executed at a critical time. If you look at Brandon Mason, he didn't touch the leg the whole seven minutes of the match, and in a one-minute overtime he executed a nice single leg and scored the points, and obviously it was the same with Newly McSpadden."
165-Pounder Brandon Mason
On the dual
"It was nice to get the win individually and as a team."
On wrestling his final match at home
"This was my last dual in Gallagher-Iba Arena and I got a little emotional and I let it affect me a little bit. My mind was kind of wandering a little bit. There's so much history here and to be able to wrestle here for four years and this be your last dual, it's kind of... I got emotional."
On the team's confidence level
"We feed off each other and I would like to think we've gotten tough this year. We've gone through a lot of adversity. We've gone through the flames kind of, and it's made us stronger. I think our minds are in the right spot."
174-Pounder Newly McSpadden
On the dual
"It was a good win to lead into the Big 12 Tournament. It shows through certain people you can see that our work ethic has paid off."
On moving to 174 pounds
"I get to focus on getting better in practice and focus on my intensity level instead of worrying about 'what am I going to eat tonight' or what my weight is. It just makes my whole attitude better."
On the team's confidence level
"I think the team realized that Coach Smith knows what he's doing and start believing in what he's had us do. Even with the forfeit at 125, we beat them good and hopefully the whole team realizes that we're going in the right direction."
Oklahoma Coach Jack Spates
On the match overall On everyone's matches On Joey Fio forfeiting at 125 pounds 141-Pounder Seth Vernon About his match On watching everyone's match On being down 6 points before matches started 149-Pounder Kyle Terry On being down 6 points before matches started
“I feel like in a battle of bad wrestling, we got whomped. We are very disappointed. We've had a tremendous year and came into the season as not a real strong team. Ranked real low at 20th, which was our best ranking I believe. And we've made steady progress, we got three losses prior to this match and all of them proud losses, ones that you hate to lose. But we came and we wrestled and gave ourselves a chance to win. And that certainly didn't happen today. We had every opportunity, if you look at the matches, so many of them were close, we just didn't do enough. And you can hear the frustration in the crowd, we all wanted to see more wrestling. You'd think that from watching the match we don't work on set ups, we don't work on control on top, we don't do sprints and buddy carries and the things that you need to do to be in top shape and push the action. But the bottom line is; it's one match and we'll put it behind us, we'll shake it off and fight back and we'll be better.”
“I share the frustration of the fans. If they saw how hard we work, if they saw how we push our guys and challenge our guys, and if they saw the work that our guys do, they would be very puzzled. Wrestling is a tough sport. There's no one to pass off to, not hiding behind a helmet. It's just you out there and a lot of times emotions take over. And sadly, you have performances like this, which I don't think is very characteristic of us but we've been down before. We were down last year and we fought back valiantly and we're going to fight back from this.”
“All I can tell you is this. We took disciplinary actions in conjunction with our director of student life. It was his decision and my decision. We fully concurred. And that's it. It was a right decision. Anybody that comes into a Bedlam match not wanting to have everything they have to win is out of his mind. I may be out of my mind but not in this case. It was a young man who made a mistake and he has to learn these lessons. We've struggled in the past sometimes by not making decisions like that. And there's a line that has to be drawn. He will be back for the Big 12.”
“I think part of it was that I knew what he was going to do and he knew what I was going to do. But I feel like I let down our coaching staff and the teammates that actually showed up to win. I didn't go out there to just wrestle, I went out with a strategy but I thought too much. I should have opened up and wrestled. We work harder than the way I wrestled out there. I think I'd rather it happen here than at Big 12 but Jamal Parks is an outstanding wrestler and he's also one of my best buddies. So I guess if a loss is going to come, I'd rather it be him. I plan on making a lot of changes.”
“I felt like I was watching paint dry. It made me reflect on my own match and think ‘man is this what it looked like when I was wrestling?' Because when you are out there wrestling you have a strategy and you're thinking you want to put yourself in a position to win but whenever you're not out on the mat, you know they are thinking the same thing but at that point you don't even care. Just somebody do something.”
“If anybody on our team tries to use that as an excuse, it's exactly that. If anything it takes a lot of the pressure off of us. When you're coming in and starting at six down, you go out there and just wrestle. The whole ‘match is on my shoulders' thing is kind of a little bit out the window and you just get to wrestle, and that's what we didn't do.”
“We knew that coming in. We had already talked about it. We knew what we had to do. And in my case I was looking for bonus coming in. We knew we were going to be behind and we had to make up for it. It wasn't deflating on our confidence at all.”
