OU-Kansas Postgame Quotes

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Head Coach Lon Kruger
Opening comment:
“Obviously, it was a game that was pretty tight all the way. We had a little bit of a margin in the first half, but KU really hurt us on the boards, especially in the first half. The big guys were helping on the drive and their big guys were having many opportunities at the glass. I thought we did a better job in the second half and, again, the game went back and forth all the way. The guys made big plays down the stretch and obviously the big tap late was huge.”

On if he drew up the last play:
“We wanted to get it to Jordan (Woodard) and set a ball screen for him at midcourt and let him get to the paint. He did a great job of getting to the rim and that kind of triggered the opportunity. Buddy (Hield), of course, did a good job to finish.”

On if changing the matchups improved rebounding in the second half:
“The first half we had guys helping on guards more at the bucket than being in that position to block his guy out. The weak-side wing has to block him out and we weren't doing that at all in the first half. I thought our guards did a much better job of helping and blocking out some of their big guys in the second half.”

On if they look back at Monday's Iowa State loss and think about “what might have been” had they won:
“You can always do that, sure. Sure. But we're not going to spend any time on that because it's not worth anything. All teams can do that, sure. You can think about the shot that didn't go but could have, but you don't' spend any time worrying about that. It works out the way it's supposed to. This group has done a great job. This group had a great February. They won 8 of the last 10 and made a great push. We almost got there but didn't quite. Playing those games is the main difference in terms of a championship opportunity and that experience will pay off for us in the future.”

On if there is an advantage to beating Kansas, the conference champion, going into the postseason:
“Well, there were a lot of things that happened in the ball game that we will refer to later on from an experience standpoint. Even in an “up-3-late” type of situation where they throw it deep and we don't foul on the catch, and they come back for a 3 in which we do foul. We didn't foul when we needed to and we did foul when we didn't want to. We'll learn from that. Especially, given that it worked out OK in the long run. It's great to go up against a club like Kansas and it will be beneficial.”

Junior Guard Buddy Hield:
On his game-winning tip-in:
“I just saw that Jordan (Woodard) had a good attack to the rim. I just saw the ball hit the rim and I was able to tap it back in.”

On if he was supposed to attack for the rebound or to stay out in case Woodard kicked it out for a 3:
“I was hoping that he was going to kick it to me. I know that Jordan is a good player and a good finisher. I thought we were going to get a foul called because they had him wrapped up. As soon as the ball when up I just went and got the rebound and tipped it back in.”

On what he saw on the last play from the defenders:“It is tough to really lock in and focus on the shot. Coach is always talking that the second shot is the one that is going to kill you, so I am always going to the glass every time. It is a habit I have and it is paying off a lot for me.”

On if he was worried that the shot would be waved off because of time expiring:
“Oh yeah, I was worried. I was like please don't call it off. I was out their celebrating and all of that stuff and didn't want to be on (ESPN's) 'Not Top 10' (for celebrating a negated shot). I was just saying please, Lord, help me.”

On his turn of emotions following his late turnover and then tip-in:
“It was so crazy. Isaiah (Cousins) kept calling my name, 'Buddy, Buddy, Buddy.' I saw him wide open so I spun and lost the ball. I was like 'Oh crap, Coach is going to give me crap for that one.' I was like, 'You know what, we have to move on.' In the timeout I said we have to bounce back. It was just a frustrating time at the moment, and I should have hit Isaiah earlier when I had the chance. But it is always in God's favor. It was a good win.”

Senior Forward TaShawn Thomas:
On if they felt they were due for a close win:
“I said that I felt like this was the first time that we had the ball for a last-second shot and we actually finished it. In Vegas (vs. Washington) we had an opportunity. This is crazy that on my senior night that it is the one that we actually make. I was excited it happened.”

On how he felt after taking a shot to the head in the first half that required stitches:
“I can't really feel it right now, they have it numbed. I know that I am going to be feeling it later on though. I will be alright.”

On halftime adjustments leading to rebounding better:
“Well I wasn't in there at halftime, in the locker room. I was getting stitches. Me and Ryan (Spangler) talked before halftime, and were like, “Me and you know that we are better than this.' I guess that when we said that it just picked up the mentality for the whole team. Coach always tells us that it always starts with me and Ryan. When we decided to say that, that is when everyone started coming back in and getting rebounds.”

On reflecting on the season:
“There is just a lot of games that we can look back on and say if we would have done this, or if I would have done that, then we could have won. Of course, we might have had the championship, but life happens and everything doesn't always go as planned. We just hope to continue playing hard and continue on to the postseason.”

Junior Guard Isaiah Cousins:
On Kansas' defensive pressure in the last part of the second half:
“We were trying to be solid on the defensive end. No matter what they were doing we were just going to try to keep getting stops and keep having energy on each possession.”

On the foul on Frank Mason's late 3-point attempt:
“I don't know what to say about that one.”

On his perspective of the last few seconds of the game:
“That was beautiful. I was excited for Buddy and for the team. It was exciting because we really needed to beat Kansas. It just feels good to beat the championship team. Now we know what we can do, and we should be pretty dangerous down the road.”

Head Coach Bill Self:
On KU missing shots in the first half:
“Yeah, well, of course on offense we didn't make any shots. And OU didn't shoot well, but they looked like Paul Pierce shooters compared to how we shot in the first half. I'll bet we missed five fairly uncontested put-backs, which would have put us in great position going into halftime. That was disappointing. And then the second half they controlled the glass. So it was kind of a tale of two halves.”

On what happened to the Jayhawks defensively on OU's last possession:
“Well, we did a poor job. We were trying to keep the ball in front of us. We were going to a switch five, which means we're switching all dribble handoffs and ball screens. Jordan (Woodard) did a great job. We switched, but we didn't switch-up. The whole deal is you've got to keep the ball on the side and we switched back so that means he came off of the ball screen into the switch guy and there was space where he could reverse-pivot. You've got to keep everything to the outside. That's twice – he has cost us two games at the buzzer by us not being able to defend that so we will go back to work on that. That was just a bad mental mistake by us and a great play by Jordan, obviously.”

On his main takeaway from the game:
“Who cares who's out. We came down here to try to win the game and it's a big game for OU so to me it doesn't matter who's out, you've still got to try to win. We never talked about since we had guys out that our chances to win were any less. I thought our kids competed well, I thought OU played hard. I thought it was a good college game. The game didn't have any rhythm but in the second half for about 10 minutes it had some rhythm. It was a fun game there for about 10 minutes and then it kind of got back to being a slugfest after that. They obviously made one more play than we did, but I'm proud of our guys. I thought our guys competed hard. Looking back now, I wish I wouldn't have played Wayne (Selden Jr.), which if we hadn't we would have only had seven guys. But I thought that all the guys tried really hard.”

On if clinching the Big 12 title prior to game impacted KU's intensity:
“No, not at all. I talked to the guys about this being a statement game. We won the league; now make a statement to put some separation between winning the league and the second-place team. And we didn't do it. But we have had a remarkable year considering some of the stuff we've gone through. Our talent level is really, really good; I'm not apologizing about that. But it was probably not the same as some other Kansas teams. It's been a year that the league has probably been the best it has ever been. It's been a great year. I don't know how you're going to spin your story, but that was a good effort by us. There was nobody laying down, nobody playing to play close or anything like that. That was a good effort by us, we just got beat.”

On if the play at the end of the second half that put Frank Mason on the line was perfectly executed:
“Yeah, it did. To me, it was like, if Lon (Kruger) is going to foul with 10 seconds left, you know he's going to foul with 6 seconds left. So, try to do something before they can foul. I looked at (Ryan) Spangler and Spangler looked at me and smiled – of course he didn't know we were going to throw it to his man – but I was hoping that he wouldn't foul him on the catch. Because if he didn't foul him on the catch, he had a chance to pitch it and then best-case scenario is you make the shot. But obviously the second best is it catches them off guard and they foul while you're shooting, which is what happened. We executed that pretty well. I wish we had executed as well defensively.”

On if Brannen Greene's suspension is a one-game deal:
“I don't want to say positively. But I'm hopeful it is just a one-game deal. He just needs to take care of some business. If we were playing for the championship today, he still would have been suspended. So it didn't have anything to do with the fact that we already clinched a conference title, but it had a lot to do with the combination of him not being very responsible. So, hopefully he'll get his head on right and we'll have him for the rest of the games this season.”

On if it is a defensive concern that OU had 18 offensive rebounds, a season-high for the Sooners:
“Yeah, I guess it's a concern. But stats are so misleading. How many games have they missed 42 shots, too. So, obviously you have a chance to get a lot more offensive rebounds then when you don't make shots. But when you stop and think about it, that's not a great rebounding team we're playing out there. It would be nice to say, 'OK, regardless of who is out there, we should always rebound to this level.' Our two best defensive rebounders didn't suit up. So, it's not a great rebounding team. If you had told me before the game that we would be even with OU on the glass, I'd say that'd be a pretty good view. I think Buddy (Hield) goes to the glass as well as any three-man in the league and those other two big horses can really rebound. So, I thought we did fine. In the second half, we didn't do near as good of job as we did in the first half.”

On Landen Lucas' performance:
“I thought he played fine. I mean, gosh. He goes 6 of 8 (from the field) and the two he missed were just uncontested bunnies. In my book, he had a really, really big day. I thought he did good. He's battling injuries, but he'll be in the training room the next three or four days. But I thought he did fine. I thought Jamari (Traylor) played really well offensively; I don't think he rebounded the ball as well. And I thought Hunter Mickelson gave us some great minutes too. So those guys pieced it together and I thought we did a nice job. If you told me before the game we'd get 20 or 30 from our bigs, I'd say, 'Well, we've got a shot if that happens.' And that's what happened.”

On how forward Perry Ellis is doing physically:
“Same as this morning, or yesterday. He's fine. Feels good. We will reevaluate him Tuesday.”

On if he thinks more teams have a chance of winning the Big 12 tournament than have in previous years:
“Oh yeah. I think some years, not necessarily last year, but I think in other years you look at it and you say, 'Well these two teams play well, they should be in the finals.' Who knows who will play? We'll play TCU, who gave us all we wanted twice; Kansas State beat us last time we played them. And we probably won't be 100 percent healthy. So we could win three games or we could lose the first. I think there are a lot of teams playing in the tournament that could say the same. It's going to be a great tournament.”

Sophomore Guard Frank Mason III
On his 3 free throws at the end of the game:
“I was just thinking I had to make them all. I knew I was going to make them, I just had to take my time. It felt great leaving my hand.”

On what happened defensively on OU's final play that allowed Buddy Hield to tip the ball in:
“I think that was on us. Some of us didn't do our job, we didn't rotate and we couldn't get the rebound, so that's on us.”

On how the team adjusted without Perry Ellis and Cliff Alexander:
“Our guys did a great job tonight. They came in comfortable and confident, stepped up and played some great minutes.”

Sophomore Forward Landen Lucas
On having to play extra minutes tonight:
“I was just trying to go out and get some rebounds and easy shots.”

On the play that got Mason open for a 3-point look on which OU fouled late in the game:
“We have a great coach who comes up with great plays at the end of the game. It worked out. They ended up fouling Frank and he was able to knock down those free throws.”

On the team's mentality going into this game:
“This game wasn't meaningless. We play every game to win, we look forward to March and we'll get better as a team. Just because we already won the league doesn't mean we came in here prepared to lose. We came in focused and wanted to get the win.”

On how the team reconciles this game versus winning the league title:
“It's nice to win the conference. But we come to Kansas not to lose, so every loss matters. From here on out we can't afford to lose or else we'll be going home.”

On how hard it was to keep OU off the offensive glass:
“That's just something we've struggled with this year and something we have to get better at because in the tournament teams are going to expose that weakness.”

On Buddy Hield's tip-in at the end of the game:
“I think it's definitely something we need to work on. The same type of play happened when we played at West Virginia and they were able to go down the length of the floor and score. The same thing happened today. Luckily this game didn't send us home from a tournament or anything so we have to learn from it and adjust.”