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San Diego State vs. Colorado State Post-Game Quotes 2006 MWC Men's Basketball Quarterfinals
March 9, 2006 Recap | Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery
San Diego State
Question: Brandon, I just want to ask you a little bit about what you saw. It looked like you guys kind of took the fight out of Colorado State early tonight, much different than the other games. Is there anything that you saw happening that did that? Brandon Heath: We came out and set the tone with our defense and followed game plan and brought closure to it by rebounding the basketball. And I feel as long as we get stops, this team will be successful.
Question: Do you have anything to add, Marcus? Marcus Slaughter: No, he said it.
Question: Marcus, we already talked about your rebounding stretches. Was there something from your game plan that enabled you to do that or was it pursuing the basketball? What enabled you to have such success on the boards tonight? Marcus Slaughter: Rebounding is about heart. If you want the ball, you got to get it. I'm not a 7 footer like Jason Smith or the rest of them. I'm just a guy that wants to get the rebound. I fight hard to go get it. I have a passion for getting it. I do whatever I can to get the rebound.
Question: Brandon or Marcus, either one of you, it looked like you got Colorado State frustrated early Jason Smith was obviously frustrated and out of his game a little bit? Marcus Slaughter: Could you repeat the question for me.
Question: It seemed like you took Jason Smith out of his game early, he was getting very frustrated and not able to do the things maybe he's done against you guys in the past. Was that an intentional thing that kind of just happened in the game? Marcus Slaughter: We tried to play physical with them, double him. We know he likes to dribble in the post. Double, frustrate him, mix it up a little bit, double, not double. So he still played a good game, but I think we did a pretty good job on him.
Question: Did you guys get used to the new surroundings say the first five, ten minutes of the game? Marcus Slaughter: No, I think we, you know, coming into a tournament game, you still have a little jitters, you're a little nervous. If you're not nervous, then you're not really ready to play. We were ready to play. Once you get up and down the court, break a sweat, it's time to go out and fight. They had a game with TCU so they can get used to the arena and everything. But we've been here before, so we got it out pretty quick.
Question: There was some talk about NBA rims. Did you notice any difference? Brandon Heath: No, I mean, a goal is a goal. Either you're on the blacktop or the side of the gym. Ten feet, you got nets, backboards. It's all the same.
Question: CSU in the second half came, made a run and got pretty close. What did you talk about in the huddle to kind of pull away in the end? What did you do different? Brandon Heath: Well, CSU made a run. But we talked about if we don't score another point in this game, we can still win if we come down and get stops and bring closure to it with defense. That's pretty much what he talked about and that's pretty much what we did. THE MODERATOR: Guys, we'll let you two go. Thanks very much. Questions directed to Coach Fisher.
Question: Coach, how critical was that stretch where Colorado State got within 50 and 44, went on a 9/0 run? Coach Steve Fisher: There was no question we were rocked back on our heels when they cut it to six. And we were able to find a way to get the ball. Slaughter has a knack of rebounding the ball. And he did a great job with it. I don't know if any of what I talked early on, Matt Thomas, was involved in in that stretch. But we had a variety of players who made some plays to keep possession of the ball. We had a hard time we had a hard time making shots too. They're long. What looked like were going to be baskets inside, a lot of them were blocked shots. So I think it was as much them inside. We missed a lot of inside shots, but they're good, they're long. And then we missed some open shots. But they were flying at us. And we're a good shooting team. But I think you see a guy running at you, and you have one block, that creates some concern. When we were able to steady the ship after they cut it to 6 and get a basket, and I think it happened after a couple of extra chances, it was significant.
Question: Did it seem to you they lost their sense of urgency near the end, their walking the ball up court? Coach Steve Fisher: Are you talking about us?
Question: CSU, they looked a little tired at the end. Coach Steve Fisher: You know, I think you get tired mentally when you don't score. They weren't tired when they cut that thing to 6 points. And same thing with us. We got a little frustrated when they made back to back stops and scored back to back baskets. And I thought no disrespect to Kelly they fought hard for the majority of the game. What our goal was, was to, one, don't let them get run outs for baskets. And we did a pretty good job of that. When we turned it over, they got chances to run. But this was the best we've been at getting five people to run the floor and not letting them drive it for easy looks going the other way. And then we were better prepared for some play calls this time. We knew what they were trying to do, and we did a lot of better job of defending their ball screen play. They ate us alive at Colorado State with those ball screen plays, whether it was pick and pop, or whether it was Lewis turning it in. And it was usually Slaughter. But Slaughter is hedging and not losing contact. And Richie and Matt did a pretty good job at not giving him an angle to get in. But I don't know that they were walking it up. Maybe they were a little. When I look at the tape, I'll say maybe with a couple of minutes to go they slowed down. But when you don't score, it's hard. It's hard to continue to regenerate.
Question: Coach, with 22 wins and the way you've been playing of late, I think four in a row, four wins in a row, how are you feeling? Do you feel any better today about your NCAA prospects than you did before the game? Coach Steve Fisher: Yeah, because we're still playing. I feel better that we're playing. Our goal is to play on Saturday. So that means we're going to have to beat whoever plays in the second game. We came here to win the tournament, just like nine other or nine teams did. There won't be nine left after tomorrow. And our goal is to win this next game. And we don't want to have to worry about somebody else. We want to get an automatic entry. And that only comes with winning, and that's what we're hoping to do.
Question: How concerned were you with Heath early when he took the elbow? Did you figure he may miss the rest of the game when you came on the floor? Also how much have you talked to these guys you're the favorite here, and sometimes conference crowds tend to gang up on the favorites? Coach Steve Fisher: I was a little worried because Brandon rarely gets hurt and he never embellishes when he gets hurt. I was concerned it might be a blow to the head. But he was fine, as we all saw. And you would have had a hard time getting him out even if he wasn't fine. And I think that we've tried to embrace the fact that we were the favorite to win the conference. We hadn't been there before in that setting. That should help us as we play in this tournament. We expect to win, so for others to say, Well, you're supposed to win. What are you going to do if you don't win? They've done a nice job at not worrying about that.
Colorado State
Question: Jason, it looked like they were talking a lot about mixing different defenses on you and doing different types of doubles and stuff like that. It looked like it was changing things and got you a little out of your game early. Was there anything in particular they were doing? Jason Smith: It was pretty much a normal double team. It was partly on my fault. I didn't handle it very well. I just got to get better on that in the off season.
Question: Michael, obviously a big game for you today. Was there something in their defense that allowed you to exploit that or what was it that allowed you to have a big performance today? Michael Harrison: Well, Jason, he draws so much attention on defense, it kind of allows me to get a lot of one on one opportunities, use my quickness and my ability to get an easy basket. So I kind of just feed off defense, how the defense is playing. Jason, I kind of feed off that and take advantage of my opportunities.
Question: Jason or Michael, the coach mentioned being shorthanded. How much of a difference was it not having Stu Creason? Jason Smith: It meant the world. Stuart is an influential player on our team. He helps Mike and myself out, giving us a break, but he also produces on offense. He's a great defensive player and we missed him today. Michael Harrison: Yes, he's a big body. He's always cleaning up the glass. And we got hurt on the glass today. We could have used him there. He's a powerful force inside. We missed him a lot today because he does a lot of good things. He's also really emotional. He talks to the players, he keeps everybody up. We still got that part, but we really missed him on the court.
Question: Both Michael and Jason, when you look back, how will you remember this season? Jason Smith: We had a great start coming out of the gates, kind of coming into conference. We lost lost or wind out of our sails and we could never regain it. Michael Harrison: We know we have to grow up fast. Had a lot of new guys on the team. We didn't know what conference play was going to be like, how much more intense it was going to be. When we look back, we have to know we got to step it up play harder and just grow up faster. From the freshmen to the seniors, everybody has to contribute.
Question: How significant was that stretch? It's 50/44. You couldn't get a rebound and they went on that 9/0 run? Coach Dale Layer: The offensive rebounds were the back breaker. They seemingly got two and three shots every time they were at their end of the floor. And I thought our initial defensive effort was close to as good as we could play defensively, considering not having either Michael or Stuart there, and Chris Harris has the flu so he couldn't play. But, yeah, we couldn't finish plays. And, you know, you got to give Slaughter great credit. I thought he was the guy that got most of those. But it was a team offensive rebounding performance, and you know, its you can't give them that many more possessions.
Question: Early on the technical foul, was that just frustration coming out or was there something that you saw that you were really, really upset about and you needed to make a point? Coach Dale Layer: I was trying to protect our team, and I didn't think they were getting adequate protection from the folks who were supposed to do that.
Question: Coach Layer, it seems like a lot of the outside shots didn't seem like they were falling for you. How big was that, considering how they were being with your players on the inside? Coach Dale Layer: We shot 4 for 11. I mean that's average. But certainly if a couple of those would have gone down, it would have made a big difference. They were certainly collapsing on Jason the whole night. And, you know, we weren't able to take advantage of that. Had a few open looks. We just didn't get a lot of them to go down.
Question: When did you know that Stuart couldn't play today? I saw him walking after practice. He seemed to be fine. Coach Dale Layer: He hasn't practiced for a month. But it's day to day. You know, he might have been able to play tomorrow. Our typical, you know, break. But he's got a stress reaction, same thing that kept him out the first seven or eight games. And honestly, I didn't know until, oh, what time the game start, 12:05, maybe 11:47.
Question: Same question I asked the players. When you look back, how will you assess and remember this season? Coach Dale Layer: Oh, you know, very mixed emotions. Rollercoaster. We probably won some games that we might not should have early, and we probably lost some games that we should have won late. You know, you look around at this team, and Jason played last year in this tournament. Sean played last year in this tournament. That's it from tonight's team. You know, we missed Michael Morris. We missed Stuart. There were times this year that we were new and we were you know, we were changing a lot of things from a year ago. We all learned. I thought, you know, if you look at if you look at our team, our RPI's up our, Sagarin is up, our wins are up, we got five starters back. If you compare that to 365 days ago, you would say we made a lot of improvements. Is that enough? No. Are we disappointed? Absolutely. Could we have done better? Should we have done better? Certainly. But I think there aren't many people that are going to return five starters. We have 8 of our top 10 back, and we've made a nice jump, not where we wanted to be. I think the expectations were very high going into the league. And we didn't probably take advantage of that. And whether that's, as they said, you know, guys who hadn't been around the block enough, you can blame coaching, you can blame playing, you can blame inexperience, but we made some nice steps. Not where we want to be yet.
Question: Is there sometimes a sense from what you were just saying maybe you had almost too much early success, that maybe wining some of those games early took some of the fire out or some of the other things that maybe would have helped you build on a conference season? Coach Dale Layer: It's hard to reflect after such an emotional few days here. But, you know, when went to Hawaii. We were tired coming out of Hawaii. As a coach, you go, Do you want to give them an experience? Yeah. Do you think it's the best thing to do going into conference? Well, we scheduled that two years ago and we didn't realize we were going to be four out of five on the road to start the conference. Those two things probably took a little wind out of our sails. You can say that's bad scheduling by the head coach. Our players would say, Boy, it was nice to go to Hawaii. Probably 10 of the 15 had never been there. Did it take a toll on our team? Probably so. Four out of five on the road, nobody else had to deal with, yeah, it was probably a bad break. Five of our opponents having a week off to prepare, yeah, it's probably a bad break. Oh, well, what can you do? You have to fight through it. I think this team consistently fought through things where lesser men may not have. So, these are guys I'll live with, fight with, be proud of. Both of our seniors are graduating. They're both reserve players. They made significant contributions. But in all, we're in a lot better shape right now than the same questions you asked me a year ago. Is that enough? Nah. Are we frustrated and disappointed? Sure. But I think this was a year to build upon. |
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