Oklahoma State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
December 06, 2013 | Cowboy Basketball
Dec. 6, 2013
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Postgame Quotes
Oklahoma State vs South Carolina
Big 12/SEC Challenge
Friday, Dec. 6, 2013
OSU head coach Travis Ford
On tonight's win over South Carolina
"First, I'd just like to thank the crowd that came. It was a great crowd with the cold weather situation. It was loud in there, and I know our players really appreciate it. Hopefully they enjoyed it and had fun. Thanks to the students and everybody in Stillwater for coming out. It really made a difference for us. We appreciate them making the effort, because they had to make an effort to come tonight. There were a lot of positives, but also some negatives. We got off to a great start. We got off to a great start, defensively,against a really good team. I don't know if there have been many first-half defensive performances in this gym better than that. Holding them to 15 points in the first half was great. We didn't end the half the way we wanted, but we scored 39 points in the first half and held them to 15, so that's something to be proud of. In the second half, we tried to turn it off and on again. We let them score, and then we'd come back and get a little serious, then we'd score. We didn't play the way we wanted to for 40 minutes. We did a better job rebounding toward the end of the second half. I thought that Kamari Murphy gave us great minutes today. I thought that Le'Bryan Nash was good. I thought Michael Cobbins was good as well. I thought all of our fours and fives played well. For the most part, I'm very happy with the performance and the win."
On the play of Kamari Murphy and Michael Cobbins
"I've been happy with those guys. Kamari Murphy has really been doing a great job on the offensive glass. He understands where we're going to shoot and where he needs to be when we do shoot. That's very important. We've challenged Michael Cobbins over the last couple of days. We showed him where he is in the conference rebounding stats. Usually he's in the top five or six, but he wasn't in the top 25. I thought he did a really good job getting seven rebounds, three offensive. I'm really proud of how great our fours and fives have been playing. They've been holding down the fort for us. We didn't shoot the ball well from the guard spot, but when you rebound the ball offensively, that's good by the bigs."
On passing the ball
"I thought that we passed the ball well. South Carolina played different defenses on us. I thought we did a pretty good job of recognizing the defenses. I thought we shared the ball better than we have in the last two or three days. We've been working on it in practice the last two days. When you see your guys carry over what you've been working on in practice to the games, that's what you love to see. We've been working on finding the open man and understanding what we need to do next when coming off screens."
On Stevie Clark
"I thought he did a good job. He was a little rusty. I was happy with his performance. He handled the ball and played some good defense. We'll work him back in as we go along. He's an important part of our basketball team. As I told him after the game, that will continue to increase. He just needs to use every opportunity to learn, be humble and be part of the team, and I think he did that tonight."
OSU junior wing Le'Bryan Nash
On getting back in the win column
“It felt pretty good. I feel like we were always in the win column because we have more wins than losses, but it was a good bounce-back game for us. I wish we shot the ball better, but we got a good win against a good team. We were thankful for the crowd coming out, even with the weather. It was a good win for our basketball team.”
On getting a big lead early
“Just staying in the offense. We moved the ball well — we had 13 assists. Marcus (Smart) was passing well tonight. When South Carolina moved into a triangle-and-two, it was to our advantage. They kept focusing on Marcus, and we took advantage of it. We showed we have more scorers than just Marcus.
OSU junior forward Michael Cobbins
On bouncing back from the Memphis loss
“I feel like it was good for us to respond after a loss and really focus during practice since we got back from Florida. Everyone responded in the right way.”
On the defensive performance
“It was a team effort on the defensive end. Everyone was doing their job — whether they were on the ball or off the ball. The bigs were doing a great job helping each other out, and the guards locked down the perimeter.”
South Carolina head coach Frank Martin
Opening Statement
"They're (Oklahoma State) good and they came out and did exactly what I thought they would do, which is when you have a good team and they're experienced like they are, coming off a loss and they've been sitting around for four days with that loss in their stomach, they came out and punched us. And our guys didn't handle that well. We dug too big of a hole and then to get out of the hole, our youth raised its head. We had guys trying to do their own thing to get us back in the game and just played catch up the whole night and that doesn't work when you're playing a good team."
On the offensive struggles
"The first half. I felt like the second half, we actually tried to play the way we do. We had a great week of practice and I thought in the second half we tried to play more along the lines of the way we've played most of the year. Give them credit, they had everything to do with how we played in the first half. Our defense wasn't the problem, our problem was our offense in the first half. They jumped on us, they're good and they jumped on us and when we got down on offense, we had guys trying to do their own thing and you're not going to beat a good team doing your own thing. That's a youthful mistake that we made tonight and that leads to bad shots, bad turnovers and that leads to more layups, dunks and threes when you play a team that good."
On Oklahoma State
"That's all Oklahoma State, give them credit. They're good. I've told those kids, obviously I've been coaching against them since they were freshmen, and I told them to stay the course and stay together, you guys have a heck of a team and as a coach, that's the thing that you enjoy the most, and that's the beauty of college basketball when you see kids that come in as freshman, like Markel Brown, who is now a senior. He's not just a freshman athlete anymore, he's a really good basketball player. That means that they've gone through it, they've gotten better and they continue to move forward. Brian Williams, (Michael) Cobbins, all those guys, I've been watching and coaching against those guys, I was watching them on tape and I thought I was still coaching in the Big 12. But give those guys a lot of credit, they have a heck of a team, they're fun to watch and fun to prepare for."
On coaching against OSU's upperclassmen again
"Those kids have been playing, like my freshmen, I remember when they were like that. They were great kids and they were trying, but they were playing Kansas or even us at K-State, they played teams that had upperclassmen who had been through it for awhile and they had days where things didn't work out their way and usually that happened on the road more often than at home. But those kids are good, they're battle tested and they're ready to go win in any building at any time against anybody. As a coach, you see that and it's fun to watch."
