University of Oklahoma Athletics
Postgame Quotes
January 15, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2011
Head Coach Jeff Capel
Opening Statement:
"Congrats to Texas. Good team, very physical. I thought they did a lot of good things out there today. It's going to be tough for us to beat anyone if we don't make shots. I thought, though we didn't make shots in the first half, we were right there at half-time. I thought we created that for it to only be an eight point game. At half time I thought we had the pace needed to win this game. And then, to get the awful start we had in the second half is mind boggling to me. It's a simple getting the ball and bounce and they turned it right back over. What that does is it invites the crowd to get into it, it got [Dogus] Balbay even more excited, it got the team more excited and it changed the pace of the game there for a little bit. It knocked us back. We weren't able to handle the pressure, but I thought we battled, I thought we competed. We just have to be a better team."
On Jordan Hamilton:
"He was one of the guys that we talked about. There were three guys we talked about, we said we couldn't give them open looks. And at the start of the game, the second half, we gave two wide open looks to Jordan. Obviously we know he's a great scorer, and he's a guy that loves to shoot, loves to score. What we wanted to make him put it on the floor and we worked on it for two days, we watched tape, we studied it, and for us not to be able to follow through with that, four of his five threes, I felt, were wide open. We didn't make him put it on the floor. We've got to get better at those things. That's another example of something that we can control."
On what he likes about this team:
"It's a tough time to ask me about this question because the loss is so fresh, but I like our future. I really like our future. I think we have some guys that are gaining valuable experience this year. I think we have some guys that are being thrown in to the fire immediately, and I think that will pay off. I think Tyler [Neal] came in and really competed. I thought Andrew [Fitzgerald] did some good things offensively. He has to understand how important he is to us. I keep saying that. He can't pick up cheap fouls, things of that nature. I thought Cameron[Clark] did some good things out there today. Again, I think we have some resolve. I don't think we gave up, I think we fought. It's very disheartening for a young group when they don't see the ball go to the basket. Again, I thought we had the pace right where we wanted. I felt like we would have had a much better chance of winning than the score indicated coming into this game. But the fact of the matter is that we have to put the ball to the basket."
Forward Andrew Fitzgerald
On what the team takes from this loss:
"It's hard to build off something like this, but at the same time we need to look at the positives like how some of our players would come in and fight. It's tough to play in this building. I can't really explain the frustration."
On his success inside in the second half:
"With posting up hard and creating space and any hook shot or jump shot that I have, the ball decided to go in. It started building my confidence and I played from there. Last game, Baylor was in a zone so I was looking to help the team as much as I could. Texas played man-to-man the majority of the game so all I had to do was get in the right position at the right time and use the space I had to store."
Senior guard Cade Davis
On Texas' early second half play:
"[Dogus Balbay and Jordan Hamilton] made a huge impact at the start of the second half. A lot of that was due to our inability to take care of the ball and we lost Hamilton twice knowing that he is a great shooter. You can't leave a good shooter like that open. That got them going and gave them momentum and got the crowd into it. A lot of it is our own mistakes. Those are things that we should be able to stop and limit those turnovers."
On getting down early:
"That's been a struggle for us all year, getting down early against teams especially on the road. That's something that we're going try and limit. We have to make sure that we jump out early and try and build the lead early ourselves because it's tough for us to fight back, especially at a place like this and when they have momentum like they did. That's something that we struggled with all year and we have to correct it at some point."
Texas Head Coach Rick Barnes
On the play of Dogus Balbay today:
"If you watch the game and look at Dogus, he dominated the game. He set the tone in terms of what he does to disrupt things. That's what he does really well for us and I thought Jordan made some really good plays defensively too. I don't think there is any question that Dogus has a major impact on the game when he is out there because of what he does, the energy he brings and the things he can do to disrupt people. Every team is different, but there are times that we tell him he has to get things going. I think he has a good feel for it too. They went zone early and were going to go with another offensive player in that situation, but when Dogus came back he stayed into the game and really started to create some offense for us with his defense away from the basket."
Overall thoughts on Texas' play:
"One thing that we have said all year long is that we want to work hard at playing inside-out and we really tried to do that. I thought our post guys could have done a better job of fighting for their spacing inside. You have to give Oklahoma credit in the fact that they really got everybody down there. Rebounding-wise I wish we would have done a better job, but I think you have to give them credit for that. A couple times we actually made some plays where we did give up too much penetration. Our guards didn't crack down like they had been. In the start of the second half, those first quick points were where we went to make a play and we just didn't rotate where we needed to."
Senior Guard Dogus Balbay
On taking command of the game when it was close:
"Well we talked about it at halftime. We wanted to come back out there and play as hard as we could in the first four minutes. I thought we executed really well starting the second half. We played really hard on defense and we set the tempo in the second half with our defense and steals."
On his performance in setting the tempo:
"Well the coaches have told me to set the tempo and to play hard on both ends of the court. In the first half I thought we did a poor job of that, but the second half we did a great job of coming out and executing."
On the impact of Jordan Hamilton's three-point shooting:
"You know Jordan is going to knock down some big shots every game, so we have confidence in him that he's going to perform well every game. If he's open he's going to take the shots, and today he did a great job starting the game. He hit a couple of three's and we kept going from there. We know he's going to do it every game."
Sophomore Guard/Forward Jordan Hamilton
On his performance:
"Yeah I got some good shots. My teammates did a great job finding me when I was open. Dogus threw me a lot of good passes there on the wing and I like that shot."
On the impact of Dogus Balbay's defense:
"You know he's the best defensive player in the country. I think that helps our team. At times I think our defense turns into offense and we get easy layups and easy baskets. I think he's been doing a great job going out there and containing guys."
On his successful three-point shooting:
"I thought it was Christmas out there. Like I said I just knocked down some shots because my team did a great job of finding me when I was open."
On finding the open man and getting the ball into the post:
"It seemed like when I got the ball down there they brought the double team, so I was looking around and then I saw J'Covan (Brown) open on that pass right there. As far as getting into the post, we want to play inside-out. If we can play inside-out we'll be able to get a lot of open shots on the perimeter too."
On playing Texas A&M next week:
"We know what we have to do. We just have to come out and play hard and execute. I know they're going to come in and play hard. We just have to play well."
On his spinning shot in the lane:
"That was something I used to do in high school a lot. I'd pivot and throw up the floater in the lane."
