Nov. 15, 2008

Recap | Box Score

Opening Statement
Obviously, we're disappointed we lost the game. When you play, there's always going to be somebody who is happy and somebody who is sad. I was very pleased with our team. It came down to a stretch in the middle of the second half when we didn't get quality offensive possessions where we had a chance to go from an eight to 10 point lead to a 12, 14 or 16 point lead. We got stops, we'd come down and fumble it out of bounds a couple of times. They made some good athletic plays and it looked like we had layups and they would knock them away. We ran a couple of plays where we were wide open and freshmen would bobble it out of bounds, on two occasions. Which, that's part of the learning experience. That's what November games are about. So, it's disappointing that we lost, but you know, we played pretty good. I really like our defense. I think our defense is really good. I think we completely bamboozled them. If that's not a word, I don't know what the right word is. They really struggled with what we were doing. They rebounded well the first few possessions, then we figured out their rebounding. Then, in the second half, they made some tough shots, then we got stops again. Then, down the stretch, they got rebounds. To be blatantly honest with you, if Derick Nelson is playing, they probably won't get those rebounds. You lose your leading rebounder and leading scorer the day before you play, you only have one day to prepare. It screwed up our rotation and things like that. He's a great rebounder and I think that would have made a big difference down the stretch. Also, when we had some struggle scoring there, he's a guy that gets to the free throw line a lot, and those are times he probably would have helped us. All coaches want to think about what could have been instead of what is. What is, is that he can't play and can't play for awhile. We're going to have to get over it.

What happened with Derick Nelson?
He broke a bone in his foot in practice Thursday. He's our leading scorer and leading rebounder. If he'd had played, it would have been interesting because other than the hair, he and [J'Nathan] Bolluck are twins. They look like each other. Bullock's got hair he doesn't. They're the same kind of player. He's left-handed.

Strategy
We wanted to make sure that when they dribbled and drove the ball, we had two people there. We wanted to make other people beat us with the jump shot. I think we did a great job of that. I really do. I think we did a great job.

Team responding to losing Nelson and still coming out and performing like they did
I think it was great. What it does is that it screws up our rotation. We have Cushingberry, Samuels and Maynard, who are all freshmen. Now, they've got to play. Before, with Nelson, I could put them out there and if we were doing good, I'd keep them in and if they weren't doing good, I'd yell at them and take them out, teach them how to play. That's what you with freshmen. But now, I have to play them. We had some nervous moments out there in the second half. Like Maynard, I left him out there with four fouls and he went out and committed the exact same foul on his fifth. For me, that's good. I want to win, but that's good because that's how kids learn. I could yell and scream at them all I want, but they're not going to learn. They're going to learn from making a mistake, so you got to play them. I don't think we'll see him do that again. Unfortunately, those two turnovers cost us. We had the lead the lead at the time and we could have expanded it.

Comment on the play of D'Aundray Brown
I think he did a nice job of getting shots off those other kids. While we were in position to stop the other kids, he got himself into good position. He made some tough shots in the second half, like those high floaters they made. That 6-11 kid [Keith Benson] I got can get up. He's got to shoot that ball up in the air. He did and he made them. That's why I think they're a good team, because good teams find ways to win games at home. He came through for them and found a way. I don't think he'll score like that again that much more, but you never know. He made some tough shots.

Share what you did defensively
It's a 1-1-3. It's a match up zone and it's designed to have two guys on a dribble driver. We think that's the way to stop this team because they drive the ball so well. I think their shooting is suspect. I think if they had an Achilles' heel, it's their perimeter shooting. The one guy who can really shoot, at least based on last year, is [Cedric] Jackson. He was 0-6 tonight, but we always had somebody on him and dared some of those other guys to shoot.

Talk about Keith Benson's performance
We didn't get him the ball enough. We've got to get him the ball more. He's still playing in spurts, though. He's still just a sophomore. He's got to get stronger still. He's got to get way stronger, but he's much bigger and stronger than what he was last year. But, he still can't play more than four or five minutes at a time. He's 6-11 and had 10 foot-long arms and that's part of the maturing process. If he looked like Greg Oden, he wouldn't be at Oakland. He'd probably be at Ohio State.

Talk about how you and Gary Waters are similar. Is there a philosophical similarity?
If Nelson were out there, you would have thought we were mirror images, because those two look so much alike. You win championships with defense and rebounding. We had 47 rebounds, they had 43. We missed more shots than they did. I was surprised to see we hit more offensive rebounds than they did because it looked to me while I was watching that that's what was killing us, offensive rebounds. I think we have very similar philosophies and I think the real philosophy is that we both like to win. And you win by stopping the other guy.

JJ's shot with 25 seconds to go
I don't remember CSU getting another possession, but I remember him not running the play that I wanted him to run. I don't like that. I think what happened is that I called time out and told them, 'Again, we're going to run a play. And again, we haven't practiced with that group of guys that are out there because Nelson all preseason was there.' Now, instead of just calling a play and remind everybody to run it with 10 seconds left in the half. I'm saying, 'You do this, you do that, you know what you're doing?' And when we broke the huddle, I forgot to say, 'Let's go at the 10 second mark.' He's too good of a player. Through the wars, he should have known that. I was so mad at him. And the other reason I got made at him was because I wanted those freshmen to see I will jump on him, too, because I jump on them.

What can you use tonight against Oregon and Syracuse?
I think what I talked to my team about in the locker room was valuing the basketball with 12-13 minutes to go in the game. Every possession has something to do with it. Then we talked about effort on the floor down the stretch. We were tired and again, we got tired because a guy that plays 35 minutes wasn't in there. We'll get used to that. Three games from now, I probably won't even be talking about Derick. I'm just saying, those were the issues tonight. No way [Erik] Kangas should play 34 minutes a night. He's a 25-26 minute man and he was in the game late. Bullock got a ball off the floor in his area late in the game. We were ahead by three and Cleveland State missed it. The ball rolled around and Kangas just kind of looked at it and he beat him to it. I think he was just tired. We're going to learn, I'm going to learn, rotations better and get them the right minutes. Then, they're going to learn to value the basketball . We have to score. We can't just get a 12 point lead and say, 'Okay, we'll hold on.' No, we keep getting solid possessions . The ball got thrown around a lot for about a four minute period in the second half where we batted it and they batted it. Then, we had it and they had it and that was typical of an early season game.

Looking at percentages, would you judge this to be a good early season game for both teams?
Johnathon Jones will never go 2-16 again. It's good for us, because we went into a league that's very good and the team's picked to win it. Into their gym, their officials, their court, their balls, with the rims way too tight, all the things they do here because they don't shoot it real well. And we went in and we competed and we could have won the game. It's disappointing that we didn't win, but it's like I told them on February 1st, we won't even remember this game. Nobody's going to go back and say, "If only we had beaten Cleveland State." No, what we'll remember is the learning curve. We got through this and the things that happened in the game that cost us the game that we can improve on to make us a better basketball team.

Talk about Jones' game. Was that because of CSU's defense?
Coaches are funny guys. You sit here and your kid goes 2-16 and you say, 'He'll never do that again.' And their kid goes 2-16 and you say, 'Man, did we defend them.' That's what coaches do. So, if I'm going to give them credit for 2-16, Gary's got to give me credit for having Jackson go 3-14. Now, both of those guys probably won't do that again. It was probably half and half. Half their defense and half our defense. It was also probably half of that being our first game. For Johnathon Jones, he wanted to be Johnathon Jones and Derick Nelson in the same game. That's what I told him at halftime, 'You just got to be Johnathon Jones.' You let these other guys worry about Derick. He's not coming back. He's hurt and out for six to eight weeks. He's gone and there's nothing we can do about it. Be Johnathon Jones.' And I think that will take care of it.