Feb. 24, 2007
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SAN DIEGO -
Brigham Young-San Diego State Postgame Quotes in PDF Format
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San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
On the game:
"We were so good out of the gate at both ends of the floor. We made every shot we took, guarded like crazy and gave them nothing easy. We had a huge first half that gave ourselves a push and to their credit, they made a couple of runs at us in the second half, but we were able to hold them off. It really aws a wonderful, wonderful day for the San Diego State Aztecs."
On the team's defense:
"We did a really good job of defending. ... We talked about having the ability to sustain the defensive energy and so often (we were tired). Brandon (Heath) and Richie (Williams) were exhausted. Both of them played 20 minutes in the first half. But then we said to not give them fool's gold and don't give them an opportunity to gamble when you're tired."
San Diego State guard Brandon Heath
On his first-half play and the game:
"It (ranks) at the top, definitely. It started with our defense though. We came out with high energy. We started the first play off with a dunk, got the crowd involved. It's always great when you get the crowd involved. We let our defense dictate our offense today. As long as you start games off like that, with defense on your mind first, you'll win a lot of games."
On sustaining BYU's second-half run:
"BYU hit some threes. (Jonathan Tavernari) hit four or five consecutive threes. But we also felt that Mohamed (Abukar) had the hot hand on the offensive end. We tried to milk that. Every time someone had the hot hand, we tried to feed him the (ball). (Mohamed) was making plays for us and it wasn't broke, so we kept going to him."
San Diego State forward Mohamed Abukar
On the victory:
"It was huge for us. We're at the point in the season where every game is a must win. It was a home game against the No. 1 team in the conference. Obviously we wanted to come out and be successful today and we did so in convincing fashion."
On the difference between the first and second meeting:
"It's just later in the season. We growing together as a team more. We are a more mature team now. We've jelled. We playing more as unit now."
On jumping out to an early lead:
"We knew coming out with a big lead and hitting them early was going to be huge for us. We talked about that before coming out of the tunnel. We talked about getting on top early and holding it down. We knew that if we could get a significant lead and start out with that momentum, especially in a place like Cox Arena, we knew it would be something that they wouldn't be able to come back from."
Brigham Young Head Coach Dave Rose
On SDSU:
"They were really good tonight. I thought Brandon Heath and Mohamed Abukar were really tough for us to handle."
"I think San Diego State was really intense tonight. For the first four or five minutes, for whatever reason, we just weren't in a position to handle it, and after we settled in, we were okay, but it was a big hill to climb and we weren't able to do it."
"It's a long season and games are hard to win. Our guys have done a good job of being consistent and tonight we didn't play as well as we wanted to. You've got to give a lot of credit to San Diego State. It's a team that was picked to win the league... They've played really well the last 10 games themselves. It was a battle and I thought we fought hard, but we just got down too much too early."