Jan. 16, 2010
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SAN DIEGO -
San Diego State-TCU Postgame Quotes in PDF Format
San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
Opening Statement:
"I have been doing this for a long time and I know when you play hard you have a chance. We did not play hard enough in the first half. To TCU's credit, they made every shot they took but we were part of our own problem. We allowed them to get in their comfort zone.
"We were night and day different with our energy and with our effort from half one to half two. I was disappointed in our emotional lapse in the first 20 minutes. But what you would expect for 40 minutes, we got for 20 and it was enough to get us a win."
On Coach Fisher coming on to the floor during the altercation:
"I wanted to make sure nothing crazy happened. My concern was to get over there and get our guys away. I thought both teams did a pretty good job of making sure it did not go to a different level. It is not want you want to have. You want to have what occurred on the court and that is two teams that went after one another. That is basketball."
On the importance of the victory:
"It has been a long time since we have lost three in a row. We still feel like we are good enough to challenge for a conference championship. It is a lot of talk if you lose a home game to go 1-3 before your next road swing to the state of Utah which has always been a hard place for us to win. This was a very important win. I was proud of the way we competed and the plays we made in the second half."
San Diego State Forward Billy White
On breaking the mini two-game losing streak:
"We needed that a lot to get our confidence back. It was great we came back home and got the win. That was what everyone was trying to do - get back on a winning streak and break our losing streak. Tonight, that's what we did. We just have to stay focused and take it game by game."
On his ankle:
"It's doing well. I just have to take it day by day and keep ice on it and try to get back to 100 percent."
On if their inside passing has improved:
"I think so. We work on that every day in practice, the guards feeding the post and we just kick it back out and get in good position. That's what we try to do - get it inside and outside. It's just showing when we get in the game."
San Diego State Forward Malcolm Thomas
On the physical play:
"In conference play, everyone is going to come and play hard. Everybody has emotions. Everybody wants to win on the court. That's all it was, just emotions and wanting to win. (It was) nothing against TCU. They play hard and we play hard."
San Diego State Guard Kelvin Davis
On his back-to-back three-pointers in the second half:
"It was that time where you could make or break the game and I just got open and got a couple of good passes from my teammates. The energy was up. Everybody was standing up and both teams were intense. You have to get the first punch because if not, you'll be in the back with a loss. We didn't want a loss. We just had two back-to-back losses so every play counts for us.
TCU Head Coach Jim Christian
Opening Statement:
"I'm proud of our kids tonight. In the second half they really got up in us in a couple of situations, but we gave ourselves a chance to win on the road and I think we did a lot of the things we wanted to do coming into the game. We got a little careless with the basketball in the second half, but you have to give San Diego State credit. They're extremely athletic. They're very good at pressuring the ball. We made some silly plays but they took advantage of it."
On shooting 70 percent in the first half:
"We really executed to start the game. In the second half they took us out of it a little bit, made us play, and that's when we got a little crazy and became careless with the ball."
On how play changed after the altercation:
"Tonight we battled and came to play and lost to a very good basketball team. When something like that happens (the altercation) we have some younger guys, so I thought emotionally we started making crazy plays. We weren't doing the things we were doing. It wasn't tempo, we just started making some really bad decisions and lost our composure. We gained it back in the end, but if you give a team like that a chance their going to take advantage of it."
On the steal and slam by Kawhi Leonard:
"That's a great play. He's a tremendous freshman and that was a great play. An ill advised pass, but a great defensive play."