Quotes vs. Arizona
01/09/15 | Men's Basketball
Head Coach—Dana Altman
On overall game…
“Our ball movement was not good tonight. The physicality of the game got to us. We got out-rebounded terribly. Their athleticism really hurt us there. We got out of wack and had a lot of bad offensive possessions. I thought when we were only down five at half I thought we could make some adjustments, but we came out and had some bad turnovers and possessions. We could never get that run that we'd hoped for.”
On not hitting outside shots…
“We are going to have to hit some threes. We came back from the eight-point deficit last year, we went 10-of-18 for threes. We did have some looks. I thought we took some quick ones in the first half…we got out of rhythm again. There were some looks in the second half that could have got a run going.”
On Jordan Bell…
“He battled at little bit. There were a couple possessions where he wasn't quite ready to play and he gets the big dunk and celebrates and they run it right back down on us. That's a freshman mistake. Joe (Young) gets a bad technical. Those are things we can't have. We are trying to be a top 10 team and you can't beat yourself. We sure didn't help ourselves in a lot of cases.”
Oregon Guard, Freshman - Casey Benson
On the loss…
“Some of the time offensively we got a little stagnant tonight. There are some areas where we beat ourselves a bit, as far as turnovers and such. We got out-rebounded as well. We wanted to come in and beat them on the boards, and we knew it would be a team effort so getting out-rebounded like that obviously beat ourselves.”
On T.J. McConnell…
“He played really, really well tonight. He made shots. Give them credit, obviously, but I should have done a better job.”
On the second half…
“We needed to come out with some energy in the second half. They ended up getting some offensive rebounds and they scored some baskets to kind of extend their lead a little bit and we never got back over the hump. We've just got to come out with more energy in the second half and take it to them instead of getting back on our heels.”
On Jordan Bell…
“Jordan was just really active with his hands, obviously a great shot blocker. We just have to continue to be active, obviously we're not the biggest team so using our hands and being physical is what we have to do in conference play. We have to be the aggressor.”
Arizona Head Coach - Sean Miller
On the win…
“This is a hard place to play, obviously a fantastic arena, tough crowd, but most importantly a very good team. Obviously Dana is a great coach, I go back beyond Arizona-Oregon with him when he was at Creighton and I was at Xavier. And I really mean it; what he has done to replenish his roster and how much he is getting out of this year's team, losing so many key players, it's really amazing. They are going to win a lot of basketball games. We beat a good team tonight.”
On TJ McConnell's performance…
“He is capable, he has that personality that is so unselfish, sometimes he can be tentative with his shot, and we are a better team when he is aggressive. He had a couple really good pull-ups and drives.”
On getting to the line in the second half..
“They (Oregon) really extended their pressure, and the further on defense you extend your pressure, the more vulnerable you are to drives and post ups. I thought our players did a good job kind of taking what Oregon gave them.”
“We're a better free throw shooting team than we've shown for most of this year, and we talked a lot over the break (about it). I thought we put a renewed focus on that, and it was good for us to make them.”
