Feb. 7, 2009
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SAN DIEGO -
San Diego State-Air Force Postgame Quotes in PDF Format
San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
Opening Statement:
"This was a good victory against a team that is obviously struggling, but this is a good victory. We held serve at home, defended efficiently for 40 mintues, shared the ball. It was nice to get off to a good start. We had back-to-back threes, Kyle and Richie made threes and we all felt a lot better about ourselves when we got out of the blocks the way that we did. I thought that helped ignite the crowd. We had a very good crowd, we had a very good walk-up crowd I was told. People got excited that we were doing what were doing. We appreciate that and we need that, it creates the type of home court environment that good teams with good programs have to have. My hats off, not only to the students, but to that walk-up crowd that came to add to the old standbys that are here all the time. It was a nice victory. Two guys shy, Wade and Shelton, and I am hopeful that we will have at least one of them back for Utah on Wednesday. I thought the guys that we had competed hard and did what they needed to do to get us a victory.
On the change of tempo:
"What we've been able to do is not get over anxious and break down defensively. We've kept people in front of us for the most part, we haven't given them a lot of real easy shots and if you guard you're going to have opportunities. We talked about the first game, normally we have about anywhere from 62 to 70 possessions a game. Against them we had 26 and 27, so we had 53 possessions in the first game. So we knew that it was going to be a shorter possession game. We talked about not turning the ball over and we had only six turnovers. `Give yourself some second-chance opportunities' and we had 12 offensive rebounds. I thought we did a pretty good job of following a script that played out pretty effectively for us."
On Lorrenzo Wade:
"He had a 103 (temperature) for a couple of days, it's down from that but he obviously wasn't able to play. He could have maybe come but it was everyones best interest to have him not on the bench because he still does have a temperature. I think they've got it under control but he is still far from ready to go."
On having Wade and Shelton gone tonight:
"We've got a good team, we talked about how we can go nine deep, but now we have seven we've got to play as hard as we can. It might be 35 minutes as opposed to 25 minutes, but you must compete and we did a good job of that. I thought Richie set the tone for us, I know he broke the steal record Brandon Heath had, both school and conference, and he is very deserving of that recognition but he does so much more for us."
San Diego State Guard Richie Williams
On breaking the school's and MWC's career-assist record:
"It feels good. I wasn't aware I was going to break it any time soon. To be mentioned in the same sentence as Brandon Heath, he's a legend at this school and in this conference, so to do something like I've accomplished, I'm proud of myself."
On what tonight's performance shows about the team:
"It shows how tough we are from the neck-up. You can play as hard as you want, but if you play too hard, Air Force will kill you. This shows how disciplined we are. I'm very proud of our guys."
On staying focused when they are leading by a large margin:
"Any team in this conference is able to get runs. This is a game of runs. We don't want to give up anything (offensively), and we started missing a few shots, and taking a bunch of three's. We didn't want to let our misses on offense translate to us breaking down on defense."
San Diego State Forward Billy White
On playing without Lorrenzo Wade:
"Lorrenzo is a big part of this team. We had to step it up tonight. We played hard. I think everyone stepped it up a notch tonight and that is why we got this win tonight."
On career-high four assists:
"I didn't even notice it. I look to pass (the ball) first. My teammates try to get me open, so I try to get them open. I look to pass to them, but if they aren't open, then I try to score. I guess they made me look good tonight."
Air Force Head Coach Jeff Reynolds
On the game:
"It was one of the worst performances of the year. Their defense was very good. We were limited in open shots that we got. We couldn't score the ball when we drove it. We couldn't score theball when we got to the free-throw line. We didn't play with any emotion or energy, and I guess that's my fault. You try to do something to get them energized and they didn't respond. SDSU is an awfully good team."
On the team's energy and enthusiasm:
"We played exactly like our shootaround today. The only thing I can attribute to is the youthfulness and these guys never being in this environment, this situation. We started three freshmen tonight and they played like freshmen."