Nov. 25, 2014
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LAHAINA, Hawaii -
No. 15 San Diego State Postgame Quotes | Pittsburgh Postgame Quotes
THE MODERATOR: Coach Fisher, some opening comments on tonight's game?
COACH FISHER: I like how we played. We played together. We guarded hard, made it difficult for them to get easy shots, and we fought like crazy on the glass. They're a very good offensive rebounding team, and they showed it again tonight. You look at the total 17, and it's hard to keep them off the glass. I thought the way we played and shared the ball and moved the ball is indicative of a mature team that cares more about winning than their own personal stats. When you do that, you've got a chance because we've got good players. You know that.
We're proud of what we've done and we look forward to an opportunity tomorrow to play a team that's as good as anybody in the country. We're excited about that opportunity. When we talked down here, Winston said I hope they ask me a question tonight. So somebody ask him a question.
Q. Winston, last night you were the guy who kind of ignited the team. Tonight Trey did. Can you just talk about how much you've seen him grow just in five games and what he brought to the table? Trey, are you feeling more comfortable out there in what you saw?
Winston Shepard: Well, Trey's been great. I think these last two games the country is starting to see what we've known really since this summer. He's a good player. I know it's his first time playing point guard, but I thought he was being more aggressive this tournament and looking for his shot. That's going to open it up for everybody. Just got to continue to work at it and continue to get better every day.
Trey Kell: For me, basically the same as Winston was saying. The first couple games came out tentative, nervous, the big stage, and over these past games I felt like myself out there, felt comfortable with my coaches and teammates pushing me to be aggressive. I'm helping the team and coming out with victories.
Q. Trey, you guys seemed to get to the basket almost every time you wanted to. Is that something you saw that maybe you'd be able to take advantage of against Pitt or is it what you're trying to do every single night?
Trey Kell: For us, I think it's more of a read because he comes off the screen, and we can always swing it. If they go underneath, we can always shoot it. I felt like today with the hedge, some of the bigs were hedging a little soft so we could take advantage of that and get to the rim.
Q. San Diego State seems like it just keeps bumping into Arizona. Can you just talk about playing these guys one more time out here?
Winston Shepard: For me, this will be my fourth time playing them. 0 3 so far, so I just want to be able to get a win. We just happened to be two great teams in a lot of the same tournaments, I guess.
Trey Kell: For me, this is my first time, but I've seen all the games on TV, so I feel like I'm part of it. I'm just trying to help these guys get their first victory against them, and have me start off on the right note.
Q. Since you're the last players to ask a question today, I'd like to ask you a frivolous one. What do you think of Maui?
Winston Shepard: I love it. Hopefully when I get to Coach Fisher's age, I can have a house out here.
Q. Is Coach going to let you jump off black rock after the game tomorrow?
Winston Shepard: What's that? I haven't heard of it.
Q. You get to dive however many feet into the ocean?
Winston Shepard: Not me. Not me.
Q. Winston, you had a big game last night, and tonight, 13 points, 7 rebounds and three assists. Do you feel like you've talked a lot about the potential living up to the hype fairly or unfairly? Do you feel like you're starting to turn that corner now?
Winston Shepard: Absolutely. I don't mean to be funny at all, but do you remember what I said to your wife the other night? I told her I would pick it up. She told me I was one of her favorite players. Sometimes I feel like I get judged unfairly, but some of it is fair.
At the end of the day, I just try not to worry about it. I come out and try to get to the glass. Try to rebound and try to get to the free throw line and do whatever I can to help my team win. So I think I got off to an okay start back in Viejas (Arena). I think I had two games in a row where I wasn't so good. But this is the stage, and I pride myself in performing on the biggest stage.
Q. Winston, of all the times you've played Arizona, I was wondering what your memories were that game in Honolulu a couple years ago? It really went down to the wire, a terrific game. What do you recall?
Winston Shepard: I remember my old teammate, Nick Johnson stealing the wind from us. I thought we'd played great. I thought Chase Tapley had an open look, and Nick just, he made a great play. That's why he's in the NBA right now. So me personally I just want to redeem it. Like I said so far, since I've been here, 0 3 versus them. So hopefully we can turn the corner tomorrow. I think we have a great team and match up pretty good with them.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.
Q. You guys allowed by far the most points that you had this season last night to BYU. What did you do to sort of ratchet it up defensively tonight again against Pitt?
COACH FISHER: I thought we played really good defense against BYU. I don't know what the score was as it came down to the end of regulation, but they were well below what they had been averaging. You throw an extra half of a half in and you're going to have more points. We're a good defensive team. If we continue to work on keeping the guy in front of us, keeping the guy in front of us. Don't give him anything on run outs, box out and rebound, we'll make it hard for people to score a lot of points because we're long, we're athletic.
At times we can say, okay, we're going to switch one through four. At times we're going to say don't switch anything. At times we're going to say run double in the post. Sometimes we'll say we're not going to double. So I think we can say what do we think in this game will help us, and we've got a lot of different ways to go. I think good defensive teams can do that. But it starts with guarding the ball and having a collective effort of be a good teammate, stunt, help, make it hard for them to get good looks.
Q. You talked about the unselfishness of your team and how you play as a team and guys give up their own personal stats to win. Do you recruit that kind of player or is that something that you have to instill in them because the stereotype now is young players, that's not what they want to do or that's not how they play the game anymore.
COACH FISHER: I think everybody wants to win. There is not a player that we recruit or anybody else recruits who doesn't want to be on the floor. You know. That's what we all have to negotiate and to teach to is you have to be the ultimate teammate. How can you be that? By being unselfish. By being happy for someone else's successes. Hard to do. We try to recruit the best players we can. We want good character, but we're no different than anybody else. We teach, and prepare share the ball, early up, give it to the first open man. We have three fifth year seniors, and I think our older guys set the table for our younger guys. We have four new recruits in, all highly regarded, and they very quickly fell into the group theory of play together. Don't worry about me, worry about me and we'll be good.
So I think we're now at a stage where the older guys could help the younger guys, and we get good kids, but most of these teams who are here, I would say all these teams who are here have good kids in their programs.
Q. Coach, you played really heavy minutes last time against BYU. JJ played 48, and couple other guys played in their 40s. Bunch of career high in minutes. How imperative was it for you to go to your bench early, and how important was it that they kind of responded and allowed you to not to play more. I'm looking here, and Winston played 28, and that's pretty much it.
COACH FISHER: We knew we were going to have to sub frequently, that multitude of Sky's play would be impactful on tonight's game. So I told the players I don't know exactly how, but we're going to play a lot of you, so be ready. We subbed four people starting with the first TV timeout and we've got good results.
But we've got good players, and all those guys are nipping at the heels of the guys who get called to be part of the starting lineup. They want to be there. So they come in, compete hard. I thought we got great defensive play from Dakarai Allen tonight when he came in. He needs to go from fifth gear on defense to two and half gears on offense at times when he tries to lower his head.
But I thought he did some really good things. Angelo did a nice job, and we've been steady with those other guys, AQ, and Kevin Zabo. It's good to see Malik get in, and I told him after the game, progress, progress, and progress is our most important goal. Just inch forward. Don't get in a hurry.
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach Dixon. Coach, some comments on tonight's game?
COACH DIXON: We don't feel really good about our performance tonight. Disappointed. I told our players we have an hour to feel sorry for ourselves and get ready, after that. After dinner we're getting ready for Kansas State. We know they're good as well, and we'd played against a very good team tonight who is older, quicker, stronger to the ball to us, and it showed.
So we're going to come back and play better tomorrow, and that is the message we got across to our guys. They're very good. They're very well coached. They're big, they're strong, they've got depth, and we hopefully learned a lot from this game and going forward here. So I give them a lot of credit. We've obviously got some things to work on. If you told me we outrebounded them by 14, I would have felt pretty good going into it. I would have felt really good. The turnovers were extremely costly. We're a low turnover team, but right now we definitely struggled with that tonight, and it got them a lot of transition baskets. So we know where our problems lie. We'll address it, and we'll get better.
Q. Early in the game they had, I think it was three. You guys had three shot clock violations. Couldn't seem to get into your offense. Was it just trying to get used to their size and athleticism, and what they were doing on defense that was causing that?
JAMES ROBINSON: I think that's pretty much on me, and I've got to learn from it and take it into tomorrow's game and make sure we're better off, especially early.
Q. Something you guys haven't really seen yet this season, how tough is that to adjust to for you the way you played last night against Chaminade and then going up against a team like that.
MICHAEL YOUNG: I played against guys my height or taller, I think it was the guards, pulling, 6'7", 6'8", the point guard was 6'4", and you've got Shepard who is also the other one who is about 6'8". And they're coming in and rebounding. So I think that expected it more so the first game. The first game I would get my man and go for the rebound. This game I would seal my man, and it was me, my man, and Shepard, and Polee, so it was difficult. Just the taller, more athletic, and also they were just going after rebounds harder than we were, and they just wanted it more than us as a team. So I don't think it was any different. I just think they wanted it more than us.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the Coach.
COACH DIXON: We played on it. I don't think it was effective. We got to get better with our man to man defense. They hurt us inside in the zone, and they hurt us up top in the zone. So question ran it about four or five possessions, and I think they scored every time. So, you know, they're good and we're not defensively where we need to be. That's where it went off. Man or zone. And we did both. We did well. We wanted to control the boards. I thought we got hurt on the boards in the zone and that did occur, and then obviously they hurt us by interior passing as well against the zone as well. You can look at different ways, but they beat us soundly both on man and zone.
Q. San Diego State's stuck down there in the corner of the country. Do you have a sense how good they are and how good this team can be?
COACH DIXON: I do. I believe that. The size, once you play against them you see how big they are. They've got depth. They added another guy so they seem to have a lot of guys, a lot of guys that can play and they're very experienced. You've got transfers from all over the place, and they're old, and they're big. They're well coached and they know what they want to do, and they stuck with it.
But I think the depth is the thing that really stands out. You have Pope back in there, and you see Chol making free throws and knocking down jump shots. It's, again, they've done very well in the transfer market, that's for sure.
Q. I know Cameron's still out for the year. But how much is the lineup still a work in progress? Guys are playing sort of minutes, fluctuating, game in, and game out, Joel hasn't played much the past couple of games. Ryan's playing more.
COACH DIXON: Ryan was hurt, Derrick was hurt. So those are things that have factors into a lot of things. We have had a unique situation. There is no question we've got to battle through it, and we've got to get better as the year progresses. That's where we're at. Nothing is set in stone, as you might expect. When you have guys out that can't play in certain games and then practice, you're going to have fluctuating minutes for obvious reasons.
Obviously, Cameron will be back in there in the near future, and we've got to get better. So we're a team that certainly isn't where we who we thought we'd be first off. And we've got to figure that out. We lost to a very good team today. That's clear. So hopefully we'll learn something from a very good team.
Q. Jamie, was it their length on defense that was giving you guys problems early in the game? Is that why you were getting a couple of shots?
COACH DIXON: I said to our guys we did exactly what we wanted to do. Came out, ran a play and executed it the way we wanted to do it. Got a bucket, got a charge on the first play, and those are two things we emphasize. The next 39 minutes we seem to go doing things different in how we planned and prepared. I mean, penetration, we were forcing shots and that's not who we are. We made bad decisions to pass to the wrong guy. They're going to help down, and we've got to kick out. We just didn't handle the adversity well and what they did. That's my fault for not preparing them and having them ready to handle that.