Oklahoma State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes vs Oklahoma Baptist
November 06, 2011 | Cowboy Basketball
Nov. 6, 2011
Oklahoma State Cowboy Basketball
Postgame Quotes vs Oklahoma Baptist
Sunday, November 6, 2011
OSU head coach Travis Ford
Opening Statement
"This was a good game for us to play. Hopefully we can learn a lot from it because there is so much to learn from this basketball game today. Give Oklahoma Baptist credit, they were a much more physical basketball team today than we were. They are a team you can tell has been practicing for a while, but our team faced some adversity tonight. We weren't able to come out and score 105 points tonight and have everything go well for you and understand that when it's going to be a grind-it-out type game, you have to take care of the basketball and take good shots. You can't spend all night playing defense, and tonight we broke our offense down. We took quick, bad shots a lot and then turned the ball over a lot. So offensively, it was a very poor performance. Our offense put way too much pressure on our defense. Our defense is a great half-court defense right now, it is really good. But it doesn't look great all the time because we are turning the ball over and taking bad shots."
On how the team can improve after today's game
"Once we understand the balance of the offense complimenting the defense, we will have a better ball club. We're still trying to figure that out, and we're not playing the type of team basketball that we want. The guys are figuring things out, it's great to learn."
On the difference in today's exhibition compared to the previous exhibition
"I knew this would be a tougher game, coming off the last one. This is a good ball club we played tonight; they are going to win a lot of games at their level. And nothing against Oklahoma Baptist, but there's probably not another team on our schedule that we could have beat tonight. We just didn't play very well at all."
On the little things that the team needs to fix
"There's a lot of little things, and a lot of big things that need to be fixed. We're not blocking out, and we just think that we are going to out jump everybody. There's going to be more physical and more athletic teams. We're averaging 16 and a half turnovers in our first two exhibition games, and that's not going to cut it. It puts too much pressure on our defense. Shot selection, screening, you can go down the line, there's a lot of work to do."
OSU senior guard Keiton Page
On what Coach Ford said in the locker room after the game
"He talked to us a lot in there. We got outplayed in a lot of aspects of the game, which we did. We all see that. Just gotta cut out the negatives. We had too many negatives tonight, didn't rebound well enough, broke down the offense too much, turned it over too much, forced shots up when we shouldn't have. We're just fortunate it's early in the season, and give credit to OBU, they played well tonight. But, we're just fortunate it's early in the season. We've got time to correct the mistakes we're making right now."
On struggles with trying to find right combinations of players
"That could be a little of it. Like I said, it's early and we know how exhibitions go. Trying to get everybody in there, get combinations in. See who's playing well with each other, see who plays well with others. Yeah, right now, a lot of guys are getting ran in and out of there, and sometimes it's hard to get in the flow of the game, but tonight I think it just went back down to doing the little things. It doesn't matter who was out there on the court, we just didn't do the intangibles. Didn't rebound, like I said, just didn't do the little things that OBU was doing tonight."
On how the defense played
"That's one thing that helped us out tonight that kept us in the game, was our defense was pretty conistent, especially half-court defense. That's something we're trying to pride ourselves on right now, and make our identity. Just pressuring teams into turnovers, so fortunately that was one thing that we did rely on tonight and it was pretty decent for us, our halfcourt defense and our halfcourt pressure."
OSU junior guard/forward Jéan-Paul Olukemi
On if this game feels like a win
"Not really, because I know what's upcoming for us, and playing like this is not gonna cut it. If anything, we're gonna get embarrassed. We're not trying to go down that road. We have high expectations for ourselves, so a game like that today, I felt like we should've just came out and just really executed (our) offense, and (taken) good care of the ball, and (taken) good shots."
On depth of the team and difficulty of not starting for some players
"If you let that affect us, it's just gonna have a bad effect on the team. People are gonna get bad attitudes and not stay focused on the main goal. If everybody just keeps a level head and brings the same intensity, as long as you get in the game, and you contribute, and you stay positive in the game, then good things will happen for you and your time will increase. If everybody just comes in and (doesn't) worry about who starts and who's playing the most minutes and just gets in there and says 'I'm playing 5, or 10, or 15. I'm gonna dive, block, and rebound ... I'll have no negatives while I'm in here,' then the sky is the limit."
OBU head coach Doug Tolin
On how the team competed
"I was proud of our guys and I thought we really competed. We made it a good effort. They have a chance to be a good basketball team at Oklahoma State. It was a thrill for our kids and us to be a part of that. Hopefully we'll learn from it and get better. That's what it's about at this time of year, is improvement for all teams."
On what he saw from Oklahoma state
"Athleticsm. The size that they have. We're undersized, but they have the size that looks like a Big 12 basketball team. I understand they're young, but when the right guy shoots, they can really shoot the ball. They're long, athletic and can really defend. They have a lot of depth. Our postmen kept wearing down and they just kept putting more guys in there, and it just got tougher as we went along."
On forcing Oklahoma State into turnovers
"We try all that we can to disrupt people and make it tough on them. That's probably attributed to their youth at this point. I think it is just early in the year, but I hope we can defend and guard people in our league a little bit."
On how OBU played on offense
"We weren't very good on offense today. We didn't handle the basketball very well. When we did, I thought we got pretty good shots. I thought we were better in the second half, but 16 turnovers in the first half is way too many, and 24 for the game is way too many."
