Oklahoma Postgame Quotes

Nov. 8, 2008

Oklahoma Head Coach Jeff Capel Quotes
Opening comment:
“First of all, I thought we got better today. I thought we played better than we did the other night. I am glad the exhibition season is over with and we are looking forward to the real thing starting Friday.”

On exhibition games:
“The best thing about them is playing against someone else. We get to see how you stack up against someone else. It's great to be able to go back and watch tape and show guys – especially your new guys, your younger guys – this is why we do these things in practice. We talk about them standing too much on defense, which they all do away from the ball. Competition wise it doesn't really do us much, and it is no disrespect. We are just a lot more talented and both of those teams played hard. Cameron was really trying to run some stuff.

“One of the things that has really helped us these two games is we got to work on our zone offense. We hadn't really worked as much on it. I know we will shoot the ball better. I'm glad we got these two bad shooting days out before we start the regular season.”

On OU's defense:
“I thought our defense was better. One of the things from Wednesday's game we saw that we needed to improve on was our help side defense and our ball-you-man defense. Guys standing and just watching, I thought we got a little bit better on that today. We still had some miscues on it but I thought we got better on it today. I thought our defensive intensity was better throughout the game, we were able to hold them in the second half. (Wednesday) against Panhandle, I thought in the second half we let up defensively. They shot something like 19 percent in the first half and 42 percent in the second half. They went up a little bit today in the second half. They shot 23 percent and I thought we did a pretty good job contesting shots and getting in the passing lane. Our ball pressure was pretty good.”

Oklahoma Player Quotes

Sophomore Forward Blake Griffin
On what the team took away from its two exhibition games:

“I think we have realized what we need to work on. We have figured out what we do well and what we don't do well. We need to work on really playing every possession hard, not giving up the easy buckets, focusing and not allowing turnovers.”

On if the team enjoys applying more pressure defensively:
“Definitely. The defense gets the offense started and helps get everyone involved. It helps us get our groove going, especially in a game like today. I like getting out there and trapping all over the court and really getting into it.”

Freshman Guard Willie Warren
On what he has learned from two exhibition games:
“The first exhibition game, everything was going my way. I got into the flow of the game early by getting a couple of free throws. This game, it was a little tough for me because I had a rough first half. I put my head down a little, but Coach Capel talked to me at halftime and said just keep playing, don't hold your head down and come through for the team in the second half.”

On his adjustments in the second half:
“I had to talk a little bit more, move around without the ball and just get into the flow of the game. The first half, I was kind of settling for the jump shot and not getting to the lane and finding other people.”

On getting halftime advice from Blake Griffin:
“He had games where he was down (last year) and everything didn't go his way, so he just talked to me (at halftime). He really helped me focus on not worrying what I did in the first half and making sure I came out (in the second half) fresh, like the score was 0-0.”

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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