Oregon vs. Long Beach State Post-Game Quotes
12/19/15 | Men's Basketball
Dana Altman – Oregon Head Coach
On the team's performance tonight…
“We weren't very focused that first half. (Travis) Hammonds got going and we just lost him. Zone, man it didn't matter. We should be able to recognize when someone is getting five or six threes on you in a half, so I was disappointed in that. But after a slow start in the second half the last 18 minutes I thought we played really hard and really well. There were times when we weren't focused for long periods of time, especially in that first half. You can't do that against good teams."
On the end of the game…
“I thought our ball movement was good. (We) only had three turnovers in the second half after having eight in the first. I thought we did a better job making plays for teammates. I thought we got what we wanted on most possessions and guys were able to finish.”
On Tyler Dorsey and Dillon Brooks' offensive impact in the second half…
“I thought it was our whole team. When you get six guys in double figures, that's pretty balanced. I thought Dwayne gave us a big lift on the front end of the press. Chris gave us a big lift with his rebounding in the second half. And that was the best we shot free throws, 22-24, guys were able to finish those. Those are important and the rebounding advantage was big.”
On how to instill that sense of being focused going into conference play…
“That's leadership. Our coaching staff kind of prides ourselves on our consistency and preparing for each game. My tone doesn't change with any game. With every game we have to get better. But I could sense at shoot around today that we weren't really focused and it carried over to the game.”
Dwayne Benjamin- Senior, Forward
On the team's defensive performance…
“We just weren't focused enough. We lost the two shooters, and they were the only ones to score really. We weren't really focused, but we went into halftime and really made the adjustment.
On the halftime adjustments…
“It was focus in defense. We were scoring points, and they were scoring right back. That's not how we want to play. We needed to push out on their shooters and make them drive on us… we just wanted to be more aggressive on the defensive end.”
On what they learned as a team tonight…
“We can't go into game that slow at the beginning. So we talked about picking up the intensity like we had it when we were down six in the second half.”
Chris Boucher- Senior, Forward
On aggressiveness…
“I think it was coach saying that we weren't fighting, and that they were more aggressive than us. So I tried to bring energy out in the second half, and tried to help the team by rebounding and blocking shots.”
On comfort level…
“I think I just have to realize what my role is on the team. Rebounding, I can do a lot of work there, and scoring is just secondary. My main role is to get rebounds and to block shots, and if scoring is there I will do that too.”
Dan Monson – Long Beach State Head Coach
On the rough stretch in the second half…
“I just think we've got to learn to trust each other. This is only the second game that's gotten away from us all year. This one, you're up six with 15 to go. When we hit adversity, we've got to continue to get back and do what we do instead of trying to do too much. They do a great job, once they get somebody rattled, of speeding them up and making them go off on their own. That's what we did too much today.”
On the big night from Travis Hammonds…
“What's disappointing is that we wasted a great effort by one guy to keep us in there until we could get other guys into a flow. We just put too much effort on our offense. To give up 52 points in the last 15 minutes is unacceptable. We just don't trust each other. We had eight straight fouls in that stretch between 17 minutes and 12 minutes to go in the first half. You just can't bail people out when you have them down and you have them frustrated. We let them get to the line by fouling. We let them get some offensive boards. We over-helped too much and gave up some good looks, but that's what they do. You've got to give Oregon credit. That's how they play. They play to turn you over and get points off their defense, and they were able to do that in the last 15 minutes.”
