Postgame Quotes

Jan. 12, 2008

Oklahoma Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening comment:
"First of all I want to congratulate K-State. They made more plays than us. It was an exciting game, but they made more plays down the stretch. I thought we fought, I thought we gave pretty good effort, but we came up short."

On Michael Beasley:
"He is very good. He is very efficient. He makes the game look easy. It is effortless. He reminds me of Derrick Coleman, a guy that used to play for Syracuse and was the No. 1 pick. He doesn't miss many shots. He is very good."

On Blake Griffin "holding his own":
"Blake is very good, too. He did more than hold his own. He is as good as anyone in college basketball. He has proved that. This wasn't a Griffin-Beasly matchup. That was maybe a sub-plot in the whole thing. We weren't concerned about that. We were concerned about K-State and trying to beat Kansas State and we came up short."

On only playing seven guys:
"I probably need to do a better job of getting some other guys in there and getting these guys some rest, especially with such a quick turnaround, but in the heat of the game I'm not thinking about that. I am trying to win, trying to coach. I'm sure there are probably a 1,000 mistakes I made. I will think about them all tonight. But I have to do a better job of figuring out ways to steal some minutes."

On OU's defense:
"We needed to defend like we normally defend. This is probably one of the highest percentages a team has shot against us since I have been here. We talked about that at halftime, but they came out in the second half, shot the ball and played better offensively. So that is the thing that I am most disappointed in. We talked about that in preparation and in our zones. Our zones are good when we are active. I didn't think we were very active, though. We tried to give them different looks, throw them off balance a little bit, but nothing we did today worked."

On what his team needs to improve upon:
"If you go by today, we have to get better defensively. That is something that is a little surprising to me, and a little alarming because we have been pretty good defensively. We scored enough points. We scored 82. We scored enough points to win. Teams don't score on us like this team did. So that is an area of concern. We have to understand situations better and understand why we learn stuff and what we are trying to get out of it. Guys have to stay in character. Bill Walker had four fouls. We knew he wasn't going to foul, he wasn't going to get close to fouling. But a couple times I thought we took bad 3-pointers, instead of understanding why we called the play. So we have to stay in character and really understand those situations that are going on in the game."

Senior Center Longar Longar
On playing from behind a good part of the game:
"They kept executing and that is one thing they did well tonight. They executed well and we kept executing, also. We would tie the game here and there and take a two-point lead, but they came back and kept making plays. We need to be smarter at the end of games."

Freshman Forward Blake Griffin
On Kansas State's last possession:
"Coach told us to stay down because they were going to get inside because that was all they needed. I tried to slide over to take a charge. Give them credit, they made a play when it counted. Unfortunately it didn't go our way."

On his battle with Michael Beasley:
"He is a talented player as you all saw tonight. He is hard to contain and hard to guard. That is why he is one of the best players in the country."

Kansas State Head Coach Frank Martin
Opening comment:
"It's the Big 12. I said it the other day, we have 16 quality games looking at us in the face. That's why you have to schedule hard teams in the early non-conference schedule. If we don't play Notre Dame, or we don't play Xavier, we don't have a chance to come in here and beat what I think is a top-20 team. Give credit to our kids, a bunch of freshmen, rather than come in and be lousy in practice because we didn't win some of these games, or dwell on the negatives. We battled and competed. Like I told them after the game, I couldn't be any more proud of a basketball team than I was tonight."

On the battle between Michael Beasley and Blake Griffin:
"You know what I just said on our radio station back home? I said that is why that NBA rule absolutely stinks. We should be allowed to watch those two guys compete against each other, and play at a high level like they do. They should be able to come out here and just represent their schools like they do. Those two kids, both young puppies, to play the high level basketball that they play and lead their teams like they do; people should look into that and try to figure out a way to get the NBA out of our business."

On Kansas State's last play:
"That is what we talked about doing. That is something that we do towards the end of shot clocks. If I sat here with you guys who cover us all year and told you that that is the way we run it and it works that way every time, I would be lying to you. It is something that we have worked on and talked about, and when your freshmen keep their focus and make a play against such a quality team, it shows a lot of growth."

Kansas State Freshman Forward Michael Beasley
On the last play:
"It didn't happen exactly like it was supposed to, but Jacob Pullen was able to play like a point guard and make a play and it worked out for the best. Jacob's ability to pull my man toward him was just gorgeous. It was the perfect play."

On his first Big 12 win:
"It was good, but we can't get overly excited because we have got 15 more Big 12 games to go. One is not enough."

On his battle with Blake Griffin:
"Man that is a big boy. He is a great player. We just came out and played and it ended up being the battle of the beasts. He is my guy. In basketball there are no friends on the court, but we will always be friends after the game."

Kansas State Freshman Forward Bill Walker
On the spark his two 3-pointers provided:
"I don't know, I think in the first half I just didn't shoot them because I wanted guys to play off and do different things because I knew they were going to just collapse on Michael (Beasley). After I got those three quick fouls, I was watching the game from the bench and I saw how I could get them to stay on me and not collapse on him. I hit those two quick 3's and they had to start playing me. That provided some other opportunities for everyone else."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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