Feb. 7, 2009

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Oakland vs. Centenary
Postgame Quotes

Oakland University Head Coach Greg Kampe

Opening Statement
"Obviously this was a good win for us coming off the emotion of Thursday night. We were a little flat when we came out. We missed a lot of easy shots, we missed free throws, and I think that defensively we were kind of playing in cement. We let some guys that are good shooters tee it up, and check the wind velocity and all that. But I do think that with a few minutes left in the first half, (Erik) Kangas hit a three to get going, and we picked up our intensity defensively and then we made two outstanding bombs to get us the lead and we went into halftime up one, probably playing the worst half of basketball that we've played at home all year. There was something missing in our step, and I was kind of angry about that, obviously because it's homecoming, we have a sellout; and with all the good things that we've done, I did not want to see that. We talked about that at halftime, and came out and played an outstanding second half."

On Cushingberry's play
"I don't think he has shot the ball at all, all year. When we recruited him we knew he was an outstanding shooter. In the preseason, he killed it. In our practices and scrimmage games, he was unbelievable. And then the day that Derick Nelson got hurt, he went from being a sub who could go in and play a few minutes, make some shots, not have much pressure on him, to 'Oh my God, I have to start. I have to play every minute. I have to get yelled at.' I doubt they yelled at him very much at Romeo, that would be my guess. I think he's responded and handled it well, but the ball just hasn't gone in for him. We talk to him daily, 'shoot it, shoot it, shoot it, keep shooting, I don't care how many you miss, you're gonna make them, you're a shooter.' Half of shooting is confidence. He's made some big ones, especially at home. The thing I like about him, he had nine rebounds tonight, four offensive. He battled. That was a very athletic team, and he jumped second and third times to get rebounds, and those were some of the things we saw when we recruited him. He had 11 points and nine rebounds, almost a double-double from the guard spot, off the bench, and that's the impressive part of it for me. He'll make shots. When we got him in here, we showed him Kangas' stats as a freshman. Kangas shot 28 percent from the three as a freshman, and I don't think anyone could believe that now. But he had the same struggles, and we're not going to treat him any different than we treated Kangas."

On Centenary making seven first-half 3-pointers and just three in the second half
"We had a nice little discussion at halftime. That probably had a lot to do with it. We didn't change defenses, no. Did we change the gameplan? No. Did we play harder? Yes. We played with a little more sense of urgency."

On the play of Keith Benson as of late
"Well, he only had two (rebounds) in the first half. And that's not good. It's not just me that he has to prove things to, it's Johnathon (Jones). We had 13 assists tonight, and Johnathon had 12 of them. So it's pretty sure that the guy that is shooting, it has to come from Johnathon. And so, Kito's had to prove himself. There's a lot of times earlier in the year where he's open and we don't throw him the ball. We're learning to get him the ball. We've really put in an assortment of plays throwing the ball in to him near the basket, because there's nobody else in the league that has anything like that. Oral Roberts is the closest with (Kevin) Ford, but still, Kito is three inches taller and seven inches longer. Against Oral Roberts, the pass has to be pretty good, and he can get in and score. Against everybody else in our league, as long as it's in the vicinity, he is going to out-jump people. Now when it's a bad pass, it's not a dunk, it's a come down and go back up. When it's a good pass, it's a dunk. JJ likes getting these double-digit assists, and the more Kito plays like that, the more he's going to get the ball. I can sit there and yell 'get him the ball, get him the ball, get him the ball,' but I'm not the one passing it. That's a confidence thing. He's really coming on, and I've said all along, big guys come fast. We've got to get 20 more pounds on him this offseason. If we can get him to 240 or 245 then he's a monster. He's going to be someone that nobody, no matter who we play, is going to be able to guard."

On Centenary's post play
"They're not very big. They're very small and very athletic. And what happened when we played at their place, is for some reason we didn't come to play, similar to tonight. And they got going down there, and made everything they shot. They out-quicked us. It was just one of those days. They had us by 30 at one point. I think you could see that we're probably a more talented team than they are, but that night we weren't. Tonight we played a little smarter, we got the ball where we needed to get it, Johnathon had a tremendous second half, I mean he was unbelievable. And when Johnathon plays well, we're going to be good. We go as Johnathon goes. The first half he was terrible, and we were terrible."

Senior guard Erik Kangas

On the two 3-pointers just before halftime
"We were struggling, we weren't playing very well. We needed something to give us some momentum. (Kampe) said he wanted me to shoot it, so I stepped up and took a couple shots."

On the Centenary defense prior to those threes
"They were doing a pretty good job of communicating, and switching off screens. I just probably needed to get open a little bit more, and get creative with my cuts." On overcoming a slow start "Really, I just had to step up and hit shots when we needed them."

On how the team approached today's game after losing a 20-point game at Centenary earlier this year
"That kind of drove us, motivated us. We just wanted to come out here and show that we were the better team."

Freshman Guard Blake Cushingberry

On his confidence shooting today
"No matter how many shots I have missed this year, coach Kampe keeps telling me I have to shoot the ball. I felt like I had a bunch of confidence the whole year, the shots just weren't falling for me."

Centenary Head Coach Greg Gary

Opening Statement
"Can we trade for (Keith) Benson? Luckily, we got him in foul trouble in the first game this season and we hit shots. But obviously, he hurt us tonight and we're obviously a little under-matched. He hurt us late, too, and we didn't do a very good job of defending him. When you're not very big and competing against big guys, we're small and quick, so we have to pressure the ball a lot better than we did in the second half. To be able to throw those lob passes out from where they did, one, you have to be a pretty good passer, but you also have to put more pressure on the basketball and we've got to do a better job of that. Benson took advantage of our lack of size and then, when (Erik) Kangas gets going, they're pretty darn good. He got going in stretches that you can't allow to happen, especially when you are in their house. And (Johnathon) Jones is just solid. People talk about Kangas, but Jones is hard to stay in front of and Chase Adams is one of our best defenders and one of the best in the league and at times, Jones just drove right by him and Chase is pretty darn quick. Chase was logging a lot of minutes and so were a lot of our guys, but getting 12 assists is pretty darn good. So, it was a combination of Benson, Kangas and Jones, which when that happens, they're going to win."

On whether Benson was the difference between this game and the last
"No, we shot the lights out at home, so that helps. But I didn't say Benson was solely responsible, though he did play 36 minutes. When we don't shoot it as well as we need to, then it's going to be a struggle for us because we don't have much size and we have to shoot it really well. When we went on our streak with four wins in a row, we shot the ball really well and we shot 32 percent tonight. We're not talented enough to shoot 32 percent and win games and we're not defensively yet where we need to be. If you're going to shoot 32 percent, you're going to have to defend your butt off and we didn't do that either."

On difference between the halves and whether it was because they didn't get open looks
"We had a lot of open looks. We just didn't hit them."

On if Oakland did anything defensively in the second half to stop Centenary
"I don't know if they did anything differently, because we were open. They could have been tired, I don't know. I wish I could get inside their heads a lot more than I do. I thought we had some really good open looks last game with Maxx (Nakwaasha) and he went 0-5 tonight. I recall, from the watching the film, that he had some good looks at it. I thought our big fellow, Lance Hill, could hit a three. He had great looks, wide open looks, and he didn't hit them; he went 0-4. They didn't go in tonight so hopefully next time, we'll get them to make them."