Oklahoma State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
March 01, 2014 | Cowboy Basketball
March 1, 2014
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Postgame Quotes
Oklahoma State vs Kansas
Saturday, March 1, 2014
OSU head coach Travis Ford
Opening Statement
"I'm very proud of the guys and the perseverance they showed. When we got down 10, I didn't feel too bad — I felt bad down 17 at half in Lawrence. I felt like we had a run in us. We were changing defenses and match-ups a lot. We were doing everything we could to hang in the game with the foul trouble we had. I'm very proud of how the guys responded to those changes. I thought we kept them off balance after they went on that run early in the second half. We got them to turn it over and we were able to turn that to dunks at the other end, which energized us and got the fans going. We had such an incredible crowd. It's a great win against a great basketball team, who had a chance to clinch the regular season title outright. We talked about not letting it happen on our court."
On Le'Bryan Nash's performance
"We thought they would double him a lot, and they started to. We planned on playing out of him in the post. He just felt it early, and when Le'Bryan starts feeling it, I know what to do next. We started doing some different things, but unfortunately he got in foul trouble in the first half. He had four blocks tonight, and I think he had four blocks all of last year. He told me he's our rim protector and I said not to get carried away, but he was incredible tonight."
On Marcus Smart's second-half tunraround
"Marcus struggled a lot, but then he made a lot of big plays. After the game, I told him he's a piece of work. You have to stick with him, because he's going to make plays. He's a competitor. That's what he did. He was huge down the stretch. We don't have much time to celebrate, but I'm so proud of him and all of our guys."
On the crowd's impact
"You can't measure what they did for us. They were incredible. It had a lot to do with the victory. When you have a crowd like that that's really into the game, it makes a difference. They were dying for something good to happen, and I told the guys to give them something to cheer about. At halftime, I told them how great it would feel to win this game, and to picture it, then to picture what they needed to do to get there. I told them if they wanted the fans to celebrate and rush the court, they were going to have to do something special. Getting down by 10 to the No. 1-ranked team in the RPI and pulling it off is special. A lot has been said about this basketball team. I don't know what will happen from here, but I'm very proud of them tonight."
OSU senior guard Markel Brown
On if he believes tonight's win will put the team in the NCAA Tournament
"Yeah, but we have Monday, and it's another big one. We definitely need it with it being on our home court. It can definitely put us in there, but tonight was a big win for this team. Moving forward, we're looking forward to Senior Night. Some of our last games in Gallagher-Iba are that night, and we need to get into the NCAA Tournament."
On how the team was able to come back from a 10-point deficit in the second half
"This is a team that never gives up, even if we're down 20. We're going to always fight, we're going to always have each other's backs and we're always going to go out there and give it our all. Tonight, we were clicking on all cylinders. We were passing the ball well, sharing the ball well, getting LB (Le'Bryan Nash) in his spots, getting Marcus (Smart) to the rim, and making our outside shots. That's what we are capable of doing every night. We were just poised out there on the court, and we took advantage of all the mistakes that Kansas made."
OSU junior wing Le'Bryan Nash
On how the team was able to come back from a 10-point deficit in the second half
"That's just our offense. Our offense goes through us three. We're three big-time scorers, and we just like making plays. The good thing about it is that we're all good passers as well, so we were also trying to get our teammates going and keep them in the game. The shots are going to come to us, so we were just trying to keep them going so they can stay in the game with us."
On the fans storming the court
"I liked it. It's great having fans like that who are going to always show their appreciation. Hopefully we can get another sellout crowd like that on Monday. It shows you that we need our fans. They really gave us a boost and helped us out a lot tonight. That's what we need. We need to get it from everywhere and from everybody. We need to make a run, but we've got Kansas State coming up next, and we need to worry about them right now."
OSU sophomore guard Marcus Smart
On being aggressive against Kansas' Joel Embiid
"First of all, I can understand why some guys don't want to attack him. He's an unbelievable shot-blocker, but I was always taught to attack the shot-blocker, attack his body and chop him down a little bit. Take his legs out from under him, and he becomes a little bit shorter. That's kind of what I did tonight."
On closing out such a meaningful game
"Our focus was different tonight. Losing those seven-straight games opened our eyes to a lot of things, with a majority of those being not closing out a lot of those games. We were extra-focused tonight. We knew we would have to close out the game down the stretch if it came down to it, especially if we wanted to win. I've got two of the best guards in the country, and they helped me on both ends, offensively and defensively.
On playing well in the second half after struggling throughout the first
"My teammates stayed in my ear and told me keep shooting, keep driving and to just do what I do. They told me let my defense create my offense, so that's what I was trying to do. I think I had four steals, so I got back to what I do, and I let my game come back to me in the second half."
KU head coach Bill Self
On the high amount of turnovers
“I think it was more us tonight than them. They did a good job of jumping up in passing lanes and things like that, but they were more poor plays than they were good plays. I thought they did a good job guarding us, don't get me wrong, but most of our turnovers I think were more self-inflicted than them pressuring us into making mistakes.”
On if OSU getting to the bonus early was a big factor
“Yeah, but we fouled. I'm not complaining about them getting in early, because we fouled. They were in the bonus in the first six or seven minutes of the second half. It's always tough. It takes away your aggressiveness whenever the other team is shooting free throws early. They're a good free-throw shooting team, as evidenced by them going 27-of-33 tonight.”
On if OSU looked like a team playing for its life at the end
“I thought they played really well the last 10 minutes of the game. The first half, I thought both defenses were pretty good. I thought neither team played very well, and it was pretty ugly. The second half, both teams made a few shots. Markel (Brown) jumped up and hit a couple, and then of course Marcus (Smart) made a couple. I don't want to get into what another team is, because I'm not an expert on other teams, but they played really hard and competed really hard the last 10 minutes or so.”
On if it surprises him how much Markel Brown has improved
“No. Not at all. I don't know if you've followed it, but Markel Brown has been a Jayhawk killer. Last year he made five threes against us at our place in the first half, and this year he made five threes against us. Today he gets 21. That doesn't surprise me at all. He's gotten better all the time. He's a good player. He could be a pro.”
KU sophomore forward Perry Ellis
On what happened down the stretch
"We stopped getting stops. We weren't playing good defense and that was the key to getting more stops."
On Marcus Smart
"He was competing and playing hard. He played really well tonight."
On what was the message after the last game
"He mentioned it, but we were more focused on this game. But it's over now, we have to go to the next game."
On if they felt like it slipped away
"Definitely, because we had them but we couldn't get any stops, but we had a lot of rebounds late in the game."
On if they were focused on winning the conference championship
"We just wanted to come in and not focus on that, but just focus on winning. We weren't focused on that."
KU freshman guard Wayne Selden, Jr.
On if they were concerned about turnovers building up
"We weren't concerned. We came out rebounding aggressively and attacking the way we should have. We just gave them the ball."
On what was the difference in the game
"We just weren't aggressive. We weren't getting stop, that was the biggest thing."
On Marcus Smart
"We knew he was going to come to play tonight and we didn't do the best job on him in the second half."
