March 7, 2005
SAN DIEGO -
General comments:
"The Lobos are going to be a tough match-up for us. The reason why New Mexico is extremely tough is because they have very mobile, big players. We're going in there with two six-footers. We're going to have to somehow contain them. We're not going to stop them, but we're going to have to make sure that they don't have big nights around the basket. Then we have to harass and take away as many good three-point looks as we can and go in there with the belief that if we do those two things, we have been close before, maybe we get over the hump this time."
On going into the MWC Tournament:
"If you have seen us play in the last six games, you have seen a team give everything they physically have from start to finish. They haven't always executed at a high level, but in terms of effort, fight and spirit, they've been good game-to-game. Our scores have indicated that, against the better teams in our league, we just haven't shot the ball as well as we have needed to win these games. We played BYU to an eight-point game at our place, it was close throughout. We played Utah to a 10-point game, we played Wyoming to a three-point game, and beat Air Force by 16. We have had a good stretch of games, they just haven't resulted in victories. Maybe we're not ready to win yet, maybe that's ahead of us. We hope it's ahead of us, but it's not from a lack of trying. We are going to continue to work hard through the end of this year and hopes it happens sooner rather than later."
On the team's injuries:
"We lost four players, from start to finish, to season-ending injuries. Just recently, Kate Eveland, who has been our point guard for the entire year injured herself two games ago and played sparingly on Saturday against BYU. She's day-to-day. It looks like Jessica Huettl, who had been out four games, is hopefully back full-time. She played a few minutes Saturday, but did not practice. We were down to eight scholarship players as of Saturday's basketball game. We're hoping we can get Kate and Jessica back at full strength to give us some depth. We had five players play 32 minutes or more against BYU. When both of your post players are six-feet tall and they're playing players that are 6-3 and 6-4, they fatigue. That was the difference in the game Saturday. We ran out of gas and that resulted in easier looks for BYU, looks that they did not get in first 30 minutes of the game. We have to shore our numbers up and we need to be eager and ready for New Mexico."
On the team's struggles:
"If you look at the numbers, we lead the conference in turning people over by five. We are dead last in the conference in assists. In turnover-assist ratio, we're last, but yet first in turning people over, so we're not taking advantage of those situations. Our shooting has not been good enough throughout the year to take advantage of the extra possessions that we have been getting. That is something that comes down to confidence and ability. We don't turn the ball over that much and we get pretty good looks. We struggle to score inside, I think that is one of our issues. We're small. Until we get some bigger bodies in there, we probably will continue to struggle. Hopefully, we will take care of that next year with recruiting. Shooting has been something that has prevented us from having a better record and yet, it is a fickle thing. There have been some nights where we have shot the ball like nobody and many others where we have been less than average. I am hoping Wednesday will be one of the good days."