Feb. 6, 2007
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SAN DIEGO -
Air Force-SDSU Postgame Quotes in PDF Format
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San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher General Comments:
"I was very proud of how we defended. In the first half they had no offensive rebounds, no back cuts and no three-point field goals. We made them take difficult shots and we gave them only one shot each possession.
"We played some pretty good basketball in the first half and in the second half we were able to maintain that lead."
On the team's preparation:
"We had the luxury of six days to prepare and that is immensely helpful. (Assistant Head Coach) Brian Dutcher is as good as it is at breaking down teams, and he and (Assistant Coach) Gregg Gottlieb helped us define the way we wanted to guard them."
On Kyle Spain coming off the bench:
"Kyle (Spain) is a classy young guy and I told him we needed his intelligence and energy off the bench. I knew he would be ready to play and he was."
On how important this game was for SDSU:
"We knew if we wanted to even pretend to be in the (conference) race we had to win tonight. We did and now we have a chance."
On the support of SDSU's student section:
"Our student section is the best we have ever had here. From the time of being an assistant coach at Western Michigan, to being an assistant and head coach at Michigan, this is the best student support I've been associated with. They were phenomenal tonight."
San Diego State forward Mohamed Abukar
On SDSU's defense:
"We took pride in our defense tonight. We came out and played team defense. We had a couple of days to prepare for them and our coaches did a great job preparing us for them. We were excited to play and had a lot of intensity and energy. It feels good how it all came together."
On the team's preparation:
"The biggest thing that helped us out tonight was that we knew what was coming. Like I said, the coaches did a great job preparing us for tonight. We were able to help each other once someone got beat because we knew where (Air Force) was going."
On SDSU's win:
"We feel like we can play with anybody in this conference as long as we do what we need to do. Tonight's win was huge for us starting out the second half of conference season. Now we need to just keep the ball rolling."
San Diego State forward Lorrenzo Wade
On SDSU's defense:
"With (Air Force) running their offense, you're bound to get beat every now and then. You just have to make sure you don't leave your lanes and that helped us out a lot tonight."
San Diego State guard Brandon Heath
On how important of a win this was for SDSU:
"This is the biggest win we've had since I've been here. We've enjoyed every minute of it, but I think the fans enjoyed it even more. We were well-prepared for this game like (Mohamed Abukar) said and it was a game we expected to win. We just have to move on from here."
On SDSU's preparation:
"We knew what the game was going to be like before we came in. We knew our possessions would be cut in half and we knew they like to take the air out of the ball by running (the shot clock) down to 35 seconds each time down the court. I think the extra day we had to prepare helped, too."
Air Force Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
On Air Force's shooting:
"We had a lot of open shots. We were fortunate to even draw (San Diego State's) rims sometimes."
On if their shooting in the first half had a snowball effect on the rest of the game:
"When you're not making shots, your energy starts to deteriorate. If you're not really tough-minded, your defensive energy begins to deteriorate. It keeps going and slowly starts to get away from you."
On playing on the road:
"We certainly have not played well on the road the last three games in terms of giving us a chance to win. We have another tough game on the road. What do you do? We talk about how important it is to play your best basketball for 40 minutes to have a chance to win and we certainly didn't do that."