March 11, 2005
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SAN DIEGO STATE POSTGAME QUOTES
COACH FISHER: We have continued to fight but had a hard time winning, as everybody knows. We lost six straight. And to the credit of our team, they continued to fight this in the midst of all that.
Now that we finally got a win, I would say that it was justly deserved and well earned. And we played hard. We guarded them fairly effectively. We made it hard for them to get clean looks at three. That had been a real problem for us in the past. It was a great victory. We couldn't have won if Marcus had not been able to play. I thought both Marcus and Brandon gave us great plays and important plays. It was a good team victory.
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Q. Marcus, when you guys came out in the second half, Brandon had two steals, you had one. You are going to win or lose forcing your tempo, playing your way. Can you talk about the defensive intensity forcing them to win the game?
Marcus Slaughter: The whole year we were playing one half, twenty minutes. The second half we weren't playing as hard. The coach told us to come out and have an aggressiveness. We have got to have a complete forty-minute game. Tonight we did that. We started off strong and that carried us through the whole second half.
Brandon Heath: Like Marcus said, we were playing hard the first half and ten minutes in the second half. You can't do that. You have got to play forty minutes. The keys tonight was defending the rebound. Marcus gave us a lot of second-chance opportunities.
Q. Did your recent history change the way you guys played the last few minutes of the game?
Brandon Heath: Our recent history had a great deal with how we ended the game. We have been in that situation. Tonight I think it showed.
Q. Did the toe bother you? It looked like you banged knees for a little bit. Can you talk about your health and your game on the inside on the boards against them?
Marcus Slaughter: I got hit a couple times and it started to hurt, but I wanted to win so I did what I had to do to help the team win.
Q. Coach Fisher, Walton and Sharper came out for five shot attempts. Was this more of a symptom of their denying the ball or <?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Brandon and Marcus basically taking over?
COACH FISHER: You have to be able to take and make shots that prevent this. I thought we had some good looks for a lot of people. Our plan was to take them off the dribble quite a bit. I thought we were very effective doing that. We did a great job rebounding the ball offensively. Everybody in the league knows Sharper is a great catch-shoot player. I thought Chris did a good job of moving the ball, not trying to say I have to get a shot because I haven't had a shot.
Q. You probably haven't thought about it. You have to play tomorrow night against a team that beat you guys twice. You start believing if you win a game. Obviously you hope your kids have that going into tomorrow night against that team?
COACH FISHER: Winning helps you feel that you are going to win the next one. I told our team after the game. I packed enough to have three ties and three shirts in anticipation of playing games.
Now we get a chance to play the second game. New Mexico is playing as good as anybody in our league and maybe better the way they have finished down the stretch. We have to do that and then some if we have an opportunity to beat them. We can. I know we can. If we can guard and rebound the way we did tonight, we will have a chance.
Q. Obviously it is going to be something you have to take a closer look at, twelve turnovers between Marcus and Brandon. Can you consistently win when that happens?
COACH FISHER: I hope we win tomorrow. I don't care how many turnovers we have. You have to have poise under pressure. They were coming out at us hard late in the game. We made some not-so-good diagnoses some of the times. You can't have a turnover that leads to another turnover. I thought we did a good job at that.
Q. Is that something that comes with maturity over the years?
COACH FISHER: That comes with making plays when you have to. It doesn't matter if you are a freshman or senior, you have to find a way to make plays. You can't turn the ball over. When you do, you can't dwell on that. You have got to run back and make a stop. We had some turnovers, but so did they. What I am most proud of is that we were able to fight through the turnovers when they made a rally on us and come back to make a play to keep the lead, which is so significant.
Q. With the officiating, Coach Mooney was complaining about the officiating going your way.
COACH FISHER: You don't get every call. You compete. You fight for your team. You let your conscious be an advocate for the players and you find ways to play and play at whatever style and level they allow you to play at.
AIR FORCE POSTGAME QUOTES
COACH MOONEY: I give credit to San Diego State. I thought they were very aggressive. I think the game was turned really in the beginning of the second half. You know, they were very aggressive.
We turned the ball over which is uncharacteristic of us. I think we averaged under ten turnovers in the whole year. To turn the ball over like that consecutive possessions was very difficulty for us to overcome. I don't think we defended well enough. Teams rarely get 73 points against us, but when they do, they often win. They were staples of our program, defending and not turning the ball over. We weren't very good at them tonight, and that is what hurt us.
Q. Either Matt or Antoine, was there anything San Diego State did differently at the start of the second half that led to their run?
ANTOINE HOOD: Obviously, they showed that they wanted it more than we did down the stretch. We had two turnovers at the worst time of the game. We never recovered from that until the end of the game. By that time it was too late. We were scrambling around.
MATT MCCRAW: They did kind of pick up the defense and kind of forced us into things we didn't want to do. I thought we would stay more calm. We kind of got into their direction and started being more aggressive with things. We aren't at our strongest when we do that as a team.
Q. Antoine, given how much you put in this game and ending the streak of losses at the tournament, how tough is this to take, given the way it went down?
ANTOINE HOOD: Definitely disheartening. It hurt a lot. The fact of coming off last year now the critics and reporters and media can say Air Force had one good year. Then we come back to the tournament and then we lose again in the first round. Hopefully we will have a postseason with NIT and whatnot. That is all we can hope for right now.
Q. This is a question for the team. Given your recent success against this particular team, the Aztecs, do you think you were overconfident coming in tonight given your twenty-point win last week or the week before?
MATT MCCRAW: You know, not at all. We prepare for every game. It doesn't matter who we are playing if we beat them by twenty last time or we won by one. It is a clean slate when we play a team. Tonight we didn't do that.
ANTOINE HOOD: We defended Heath and Slaughter a little bit better. They are both 24 and 28 points. That definitely hurt a lot. Our defense will need to be better down the stretch.
Q. In the second half, Antoine or Matt, when it started slipping away, did last year cross your mind, the fact that you didn't have success? Did that play a part if you guys are not being able to get back in the game?
ANTOINE HOOD: No. I had no doubt we were going to come back and pull this one out. We cut it to three with a minute left. We had a technical foul that hurt too. San Diego State is a great team. They brought their A-game today. Everybody starts 0-0. Whoever comes to play moves on. They came to play and we didn't match that intensity.
Q. If you both address this, how damaging do you think this is to the NIT hope that you guys had?
MATT MCCRAW: Right now it is not in our hands. You know, the thing that we can control is how hard we played, things like that. Really playing hard every game. We're just controlling it by our actions on the floor. We'll see if we make the NIT or not.
ANTOINE HOOD: I mean, just based on the facts, the fact that we don't have twenty wins doesn't look very good. Our confidence is solid. We finished third. That is holding some weight. We can hope for the best.
Q. Coach, seems like at times they had successes defending you guys man to man. I know they didn't do it that often. It obviously made them think twice and take a slightly more guarded three?
COACH MOONEY: I understand part of their plan was to disrupt us, get us out of our rhythm offensively. They were successful at it. I blame some of the turnovers on our guys. I think their aggression and game plan was solid. It did cause us some -- I think we were disrupted.
Q. Based on the last game that you guys had with them, a six-point lead turns into twenty points in just over six minutes. Can you address the fact that they have four overtime losses?
COACH MOONEY: I don't know. I just know what I have seen in our three games. I would say that they were extremely tough down the stretch. If they had history of folding, I don't necessarily know about it. I thought they were tough down the stretch and did everything. They made throws, the two that they missed, we got a technical foul which certainly hurt us. So but they were tough. Heath was ten for ten, had the ball a lot in his hands and he was very good.
Q. How devastating was that technical and what did you see on the play? Why was the technical called from your standpoint?
COACH MOONEY: I have no idea why the technical foul was called. I will talk to Jake, but I know the referre came in from behind to call it. I have no idea why it was called at that critical point in the game.