Oklahoma Postgame Quotes

Dec. 20, 2007

Oklahoma Head Coach Jeff Capel:

Opening statement:
"That was exhausting. What a great college basketball game. I'm really proud of my team. We beat a very, very good team and a very, very good program. It was a total team effort. All of our guys played well and it impacted the game and helped us. I am just really proud of our kids and how we were able to gut out a win down the stretch."

On the decision to use Austin Johnson to guard Jeremy Pargo down the stretch:
"I probably waited a little too long to do that. We tried to play the percentages with Pargo. He had made, I think, five 3's coming into the game and he was shooting something like 17 percent. It was a very, very odd stat - he had made four of those against UConn so he was like 1-for-22 in the rest of the games. So we tried to play the percentages and we were going under on ball screens, things like that. In the second half he got going. So we felt like we had to make an adjustment and we put Austin on him. His length and his size was an advantage, and he was able to bother a couple of his shots. The last one he was able to get a piece of."

On the second half:
"The first half was really ugly and boring. You know for us, I can't speak for Gonzaga, but for us, in the first half we stood around. They went to some different types of defenses, like a soft man, a zone and a 1-2-2, and I thought we were a little bit confused. We stood around and had no movement, so we talked about that at halftime. The other thing I don't think we did a good job with was pushing the ball in transition. We rebounded well today. That is something that we didn't do against Arkansas, but I thought we would be able to get out and get some transition baskets. We did at times, but more so in the second half. We just had better movement. Obviously, everything looks better when you make 65 percent of your shots."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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