Jan. 11, 2010
SAN DIEGO -
San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher
Opening statement:
"I tell our players not to look back in the rearview mirror, (but) to look forward to what's ahead. As I look back on Saturday, I am very disappointed we were not able to hold a lead. For 35 minutes we played very good basketball and then we had a five-minute drought, lapse. You can give Wyoming credit, they played terrific. They scored 24 points in the last four-and-a-half, five minutes of the game. So they had 61 points with four-and-a-half minutes to go and they wound up with 85. You don't win when that happens. Six threes, two lay-ups and two free throws - 24 points. You scrutinize everything from the officials, to your coaching, to your play and I was mad, angry and disappointed. And yet, you learn and move forward.
"We have UNLV on Wednesday and they are as good as it gets in this league. To go on the road to BYU and New Mexico and get a split ... and they're saying they should've won two and maybe they should've. They are very good. We'll need to be on our A-game and I think we will be. We've played well against (UNLV) and we're going to go in with the determination that we are going to play well in that game. We've got enough talent, we've got enough experience to go in and win. We will have to play well because they're good anywhere and they are better at home than they are on the road like we are."
On the team's injury situation:
"Billy (White) tried to talk me into playing him on Wednesday. I think he wants a free ticket home to he can see his mom. We are going to pack his bag, including his shoes, he'll be with us and the bag will probably still be packed when we come back home. I see no way that he can play. He says that he is remarkably better than when we left (for Wyoming). We did not take him to Wyoming, and we had intended to, but he had a lot of pain and there was a lot of swelling on Friday that we felt that it would be better if he stayed here for therapy. He will make the trip.
"Tim (Shelton) did not practice on Monday. His knee is sore, but he will play on Wednesday."
On Kawhi Leonard:
"He is a player. Good players make plays. Sometimes you ask them to do a lot of different things. The way Wyoming was pressing us, one of our thought processes was, when Tim (Shelton) wasn't in the game, to have Kawhi be the guy who takes it out to have a third another ball-handler to help us get the ball up the floor. Tim played 17 minutes. It was not because of his knee, it was because of foul problems. So Kawhi was asked to do a lot of things. He was an absolute demon on the glass and when he put the ball on the floor. He had eight offensive rebounds and it looked like every time he went in, nobody jumped but him. I liked some of the things he did. He had six turnovers, which is too many, but he is unafraid. He, like everyone, but especially your young guys, they learn from every experience the first go-around. It was his first trip to Laramie and he found out some of the things we talked about - the altitude, some of the stress of the moment and the relentless pressure are factors. But you look at his stat line and it's pretty doggone good."
On the team's confidence level:
"It better be that we can play with and beat anybody that we line up against. You have no time for self pity or self doubt because if you do, you won't be successful. We talk about all the good things that we've done and we have to close our eyes and think of the best we've played and play that way. We have really, really good people on this team, who were bitterly disappointed that we didn't come home 2-0 (in the MWC), but that's over. Now you have to watch film and we watched enough for them to see things that we did that we want to do better. We saw things we did that we said if you do this, we'll be successful and you learn from it. But you move forward. No complaining or me yelling and screaming will bring back a victory in the Wyoming game. Hopefully, when we're in that next situation the next time, we will respond a little bit better down the stretch. (Wyoming) led for, I think, 24 seconds of the game, 24 seconds of a 40-minute game, but they led at the right time - at the end. To their credit, they fought. We didn't give them threes, they made threes. We needed to make a stop and couldn't make it. We turned the ball over a couple times. It's happened before to really good teams, hopefully it won't happen to us again this season."
On if playing with a full compliment of players at Wyoming would have resulted in a different outcome:
"I have no clue. The bottom line is we played with the guys we had, we played with them when they were able to be on the court and we were two points shy. I've said this before, nobody wants to hear (excuses). I can't tell you if we had Tim (Shelton) in there we would've acted differently (or) if we had Billy in there (we would've acted differently). We play a team that is good enough to win anywhere. And we played like that for the bulk of the game, but unfortunately, we didn't bring closure to it the way we wanted to."
On Chase Tapley:
"Chase twisted his ankle pretty badly. Again, this is a young freshman who was on his first road trip to a place like that and his stat line was pretty good also. He came back and played; his ankle was gimpy. He practiced today and never complained. I never even asked him how his ankle was. Chase is a terrific young guy, who wants to please, and anytime something happens, he always goes, `My fault.' He is never going to say why didn't you do this, why didn't you do that, even when he could, he doesn't and I really like that about him."
On Tim Shelton:
"Tim Shelton is a coach's delight. He is smart. He plays smart most of the time. He doesn't complain at least to us about all the stress and issues he's having to deal with with that knee. It's hard. It's hard to play and know you're going to have pain the next day. It's hard to not be able to practice all the time and still be able to contribute. He is doing everything he can to help himself and help us and that is all anyone can ask. But he's got maturity about him, he's got some perspective. His dad, who played in the NBA for a long time, has had multiple knee problems that you have to somewhat deal with, but you also have to be smart with. ... He has (two-plus) years with us. We want to make sure we are doing the right thing by him, for him and with him also."
San Diego State junior guard D.J. Gay
On the critical point of the Wyoming game:
"I think the critical breakdown was the comfort level that we had at the four-minute mark. I thought that we were playing thinking we had the game won. We should have had a stop, at least, that last four minutes, which we didn't. The critical part was we should have kept attacking, should have kept our aggressiveness. The turnovers definitely hurt us in that game."
San Diego State freshman forward Kawhi Leonard
On the critical point of the Wyoming game:
"I think it was in the last four minutes, too, but we also had a lead of eight points with two minutes left and we still couldn't keep our poise on the floor and with our turnovers."
On the confidence of the team coming off the loss at Wyoming:
"I think we are still very confident. We just let the game slip away. We are disappointed but we are just all looking forward to UNLV and trying to get the next win."
San Diego State sophomore forward Tim Shelton
On how he is feeling:
"I am doing ok. Coach said to stop practice today and try to get some rest so I am ready to go for the game. It's got to be one of those routines where last year they understand that my body works a little bit different than everybody else's right now. So I am just trying to get a little bit of rest so I am ready to go for the game."