Dec. 8, 2006
San Diego SLAM Coverage Central
SAN DIEGO - San Diego SLAM
Press Conference Quotes
Friday, December 8, 2006
San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher
On the SLAM:
"As we know, San Diego is an event city and you put an event on like the Holiday Bowl, they come. We thought we could put an event on that if we got the right people that they would come and it has proven to be true. What could be better than to have two guys here in Ronny Thompson and Sean Sutton, sons of hall of fame coaches on their way to making their own mark. I think it will be a great game between two outstanding coaches with wonderful surnames as recognized throughout the world in college basketball.
On Arizona:
"We are excited about the opportunity to play a team that is good. They have great spurtability. You could be hanging with them and all of the sudden you look around and they go on a 20-2 run and you say what happened. We are going to have to be on our 'A' game if we want to have an opportunity to make it fun for us in the last four or five minutes. That's the challenge for us. Our kids will be ready to play. We look forward to the event."
"We try to have marquee matchups on occasion and this is as good as it gets for us to play a team that arguably could be ranked No. 1 in the country if they had held on in the opener against Virginia. The one thing that we won't have a problem with is being excited to play. We will be ready to play, hopefully not too excited. It is two teams that shoot the ball quickly, sometimes too quickly for us and we have to be able to manage the spurts that they have. If we get lucky and make some shots and hang in and have a chance to win at the end of the game, it will be tremendously exciting for our program, players and fans. It is good to get a team of this caliber to come in and play us. We've done that in the past. I think this city and arena attracts quality teams. We just now need to find a way to beat a few of them. We had a good win against California. They had beaten us the last two times we played. This gives us another opportunity against an upper echelon team to see how good we are at this stage."
On what SDSU needs to do to win:
"(We need to) Take care of the ball. We set an arena record in a bad way at Western Michigan. They had 16 steals. We have to protect the ball because if you turn it over against Arizona they are going to be dunking and shooting layups at the other end. It starts with taking care of the ball."
Arizona head coach Lute Olson
On the SLAM:
"We are happy to be here. It is a great matchup for us. What we try to do with our team is when we get a recruit, we try to get that recruit back into his home territory for at least one game. With Chase Budinger, it is obviously great for him to have a chance to come back and I know that he has a lot of fans in the San Diego area. Not just the ones that watched him play at La Costa Canyon High School, but also a lot of fans that I think have enjoyed him as a player, as a person, as a great volleyball player as well as a great basketball player. I know Chase is excited about this. I don't know yet how to know when he is excited because he just seems to have that demeanor about him that he goes ahead and just plays. I'm sure that there will be a few extra butterflies in his stomach tomorrow night with this game in Cox Arena.
"We played in Cox (Arena) back when Luke Walton was a senior and got him back here and had a great game with San Diego State that really went down to the last five or six minutes. They played us very well and I thought as a team we played well. I would expect that we are going to see the same type of effort out of both teams tomorrow evening."
On San Diego State:
"I've been very impressed with Steve's (Fisher) team just in watching them on the DVDs. They play hard. They have a lot of options, a lot of different scorers, and good quickness. They are definitely a team that everyone is going to have to pay a lot of attention to as this year continues."
On what concerns him about San Diego State:
"I think it is the balance that they have. They can score from all their positions. They get great leadership from the point position. They have really good shooters and they have a couple guys inside that put a lot of pressure on your defense once the ball gets to the basket area. They play hard defensively and based on what I can observe on the DVDs they seem to really enjoy playing together. When it gets down to it, the team chemistry is critical, I think, to the success of any team.
"There are a number of good players on that team and I think the matchups, probably when you take a look at (Ivan) Radenovic having to matchup with a horse inside, that is a problem. On the other hand, that same player has to guard Ivan at the other end. (Ivan) is really more of a four man than he is a post guy. I think probably every matchup that you take a look at you've got two very good players playing against one another and I think that is true through the starting five and Steve (Fisher) comes off of the bench with some good, solid players as well. I just think it is going to be a dog-eat-dog kind of game."
On Chase Budinger:
"Chase has done a great job for us. He is a wonderful young man. Typical of most freshman, when they are high school seniors they are very important to their team and are generally told now to make sure you don't get in foul trouble, which is another way of saying make sure you don't play any defense. That part has been a problem, but it is a problem for all of us when we deal with high school guys coming in. Their first year is normally a huge adjustment in terms of what goes on in the defensive end. The great this with Chase is he is coachable. He wants to learn. He accepts whatever you are trying to do with him. He is never making excuses for anything. He does a great job in terms of handling the ball. He shoots the ball very well and has done a nice job, for the most part, on the boards. There is no question he is an outstanding talent and is going to be an outstanding basketball player for us, we hope for a number of years. That is always a problem with the high quality players when you get them, you just hope you get to keep them long enough so they can mature and get ready to make a career at the next level."
On Chase Budinger handling the publicity:
"I think Chase has handled all of the publicity well. He is a very laid back kind of guy. I think he is very excited about coming back here to play this game. If you take a look at some of the games he has played where you've played Virginia, where it was a carnival atmosphere in opening their new arena, I didn't think he was uptight about that. We played Illinois at U.S. Airways Arena, I think that should bother freshmen a little bit. It didn't seem to bother him. Then when you go to Madison Square Garden, which is the really the mecca of college basketball, I don't think he looked like he was nervous there. My guess is that this will be the one that will get his heart pumping a little harder than anywhere else that he has been because of all of the family and friends he has watching."
On this potentially being San Diego State's biggest game of the season:
"We are too busy to be worried about things, frankly. All we want to do is try to get better at this stage of the season and when you take a look at the schedule that we play, it is crazy that we play everyone that we do play. The purpose of our non-conference schedule is to get ready for the Pac 10 season. I think the challenges that San Diego State will present us with will make us that much better, win or lose, when we get to the league."
Ball State head coach Ronny Thompson
Opening comments:
"We're excited to be here... But, we're here to play basketball. We definitely have a tough one that we have to get through tomorrow. We're playing a very well-coached team (in Oklahoma State). They're a very strong and physically imposing team, and we're going to have our work cut out for us. I think our guys have been playing hard throughout the course of the year and tomorrow, we're obviously going to have to do that again. We're going to have to deal with some of the different matchups they're going to throw at us, and we're going to have to come and play. But I think our guys are ready, and they've worked hard. We're going to come in here tomorrow and do the best we can."
On comparing his coaching situation to his counterpart Sean Sutton:
"There is that pressure, but I think you know that going in the door and it's something you've always dealt with. My situation is a whole lot different than Sean's. I'm starting a program from ground zero. We're starting to get things going. We're trying to build and we're trying to get to the point where Oklahoma State is one day. My situation is definitely different, but in terms of pressure, that's always there. That's part of the business. That's part of what you deal with as a player. I think one of the biggest challenges I have with this group of guys, especially coming into this season with our schedule, is trying not to let their spirits get too down. We've played four top-25 teams (in non-conference), so my big thing is trying to keep the kids' spirits up, keep them positive and make sure they're still working hard and make sure they're doing the right things to stay positive for our league games."
On whether his tough early schedule will help against Oklahoma State:
"I think that given the schedule that we've had already, we're not going to be surprised, we're not going to be shocked at what Oklahoma State is going to do with their strength, with their size or with their intensity."
Oklahoma State head coach Sean Sutton
Opening comments:
"It's been a fun week for our players. Earlier in the week we were in New York with coach (Lute) Olson's team playing in the Jimmy V Classic. We probably played our most complete game of the year (there) against a very good Syracuse team and now we're out in here in San Diego to play a very tough Ball State team. We've got two tremendous players in JamesOn Curry and Mario Boggan. Both of those guys have really played at a high level for us all year. We happy to be 10-0, but I really think this will be a tough matchup tomorrow. I've been impressed watching Ronny's team on film. They played Kansas extremely well, and I know how talented Kansas is. But they play very hard, and they're very good at the defensive end. It's an opportunity for us to compete in another great neutral setting. Hopefully, our guys are going to come to play and we'll play well."
On how the transition has been since taking over for his father Eddie Sutton:
"I think it's gone pretty smooth so far. Of course, we've won every game. It helped that we had so many players back, and the fact that I coached the team the last 10 games of last season has made it a lot easier. Our players are really comfortable with our system. We've changed just a few things, but for the most part everything's stayed the same."
On his team's 10-0 start:
"I think our players probably deserve the credit; they're the one's making the baskets. But they've been a fun group to coach. Last year, they fought through a lot of adversity. They lost eight games on the final possession and lost our streak of consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances at eight in a row. I don't think any of them felt good about the way the season ended. I think they felt like they let the program down. I think they finally embraced the tradition at Oklahoma State and what it means to our fans. They really worked hard this summer, and they're a team that's very close."
On whether he's felt any pressure succeeding his father:
"I think there's pressure on all coaches, and I knew that well in advance before I took over. Oklahoma State's got a great tradition and has a huge expectation level, but I never have been one to shy away from pressure. The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself. Nobody has more passion for the basketball program having played there. If you just do the best job you can, work hard and do what's best, good things will happen."