Jan. 27, 2007
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SAN DIEGO -
Utah-SDSU Postgame Quotes in PDF Format
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San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
Opening comments:
"We did what we needed to do. We won a tough, hard fought home game. You must find a way to win at home and if you play hard and well you will have a chance. We did both of those. I thought we collectively guarded as well as we have at any time this year. We had a bit of the same mind set we had when we played Colorado State. We talked about having high, high energy defensively and not allow them to come down and have time to look inside and throw it to Luke Nevill. He got a lot of touches but he did not get a lot of shots. To me, the most important thing was how we guarded collectively."
On the comeback:
"I know when they got the 11-point lead with a bevy of three-point shots they had us on the ropes. During that stretch, Lorrenzo (Wade), offensively, stood tall. He attacked on the middle drive and got it to the rim. He had two great assists for baskets and he ignited our team. It wasn't just Lorrenzo, but he had a couple of plays that allowed us to get our legs, and let us believe we were going to win.
"It was a wonderful win for us - an important win. You have to find a way to win at home and we did that."
On what was said at the timeout trailing by double digits:
"We just said we have to guard them. We can not give them that good of a look. To the credit of our team they didn't panic. We knew that we needed to make stops."
On the impact of Mohamed Abukar:
"Mohamed brings a whole lot of pluses to our team. Obviously, when he is not out on the floor, we are not the same team. He guards the biggest man on the other team. It has so much impact on what we do. He believes every time he touches the ball, he is going to score it. I think he draws not only attention from his man, but from another player or two, which helps others get opportunities. I wasn't sure after the Las Vegas game that he was going to be able to play."
Did something different happen when SDSU fell behind double digits?
"We won so it puts a different spin on how you feel. We were down double-digits at UNLV and made some defensive stops to cut it to four with the ball. We were not able to make the next play. Other than BYU, there is no way you could fault our energy level and effort. I do believe we are guarding better."
On Richie Williams:
"It was as if Richie (Williams) cloned himself three times. He was running all over the place. What he did today, which he has not done with consistency, is when he is on the dead run driving, instead of doing something wild, he spun around and took the ball out. That is something we had not seen enough of. He was good today."
San Diego State forward Lorrenzo Wade
On the game:
"We've been in a lot of tough situations before. The last few games that we lost were close games in the last five or six minutes of the game. Losing those games hurt, they hurt a lot. So in the second half we felt we were at home and had to protect our homecourt just like everyone else does in the Mountain West Conference. And that's what we did.
"Basketball is a fun game. But it's not all fun and games when you lose. We came out and had a bit of a swagger about ourselves. It wasn't cockiness, but we knew we had a job to finish and that's what we did.
"We tried to play tough defense in the first half. In the first half early they were trying to go into (Luke) Nevill a lot. In the second half, Johnnie Bryant tried to take over. With the help defense that we were playing it was very hard for him to get into the lane and get easy baskets like he did in the last two minutes of the first half. For the entire second half, it was very difficult for him to get that."
San Diego State forward Mohamed Abukar
On the win:
"We needed this one. We got together as a team and told each other that we were going to try to not lose anymore games. We got down a little bit and looked at each other and said it wasn't a problem and rallied back. We need to be in these tough games and we've played a lot of them. We knew what to do and came out with a win tonight."
San Diego State forward Jerome Habel
On his performance:
"I was just trying to help my team. I wanted to provide the team some energy and try to get the crowd into it. Having the crowd is like the sixth man. I just did what I could do. I tried to play tough defense and make some plays here and there and just get my team motivated to get this win because now is the time to do it."
Utah head coach Ray Giacoletti
On Utah's loss:
"We can't turn the ball over 21 times and expect to win. We need to shoot the ball better and Luke (Nevill) needs to play more then just 22 minutes. (The game) went south and it just snowballs."
On how Utah played:
"We had a good effort and defended well in the first half. But you can't turn the ball over 21 times and expect to win. We're on the road and it's a loud crowd. We were stuck at 40 (points) for awhile. We kept turning it over. We couldn't knock any baskets down."