Dec. 20, 2014
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 1 | Photo Gallery 2
SAN DIEGO -
San Diego State-Ball State Postgame Quotes
San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
Opening Statement:
"It was a good day in San Diego. The Chargers won in overtime, the Padres are putting together a murderers' row and the Aztecs got themselves a victory. It was a nice pre-Christmas gift for the city. I'm happy with a lot of things we did offensively. We're making progress with our offense. We now have to say, `How can we cut five turnovers off of what we're doing and that would be legitimate progress. I'm seeing things we're doing more under control and more with poise. It will allow us to score a few more points with the right guy shooting at the right time and have angles to rebound. With purpose, we said we were going to pressure harder out on the floor than we have in any game. They (Ball State) like to hold that ball and find that guy off of a pin screen so we guarded them. Make them feel pressure. It led to too many fouls and a few too many attack, sweep and drive before we could retreat a little bit, but that was the intent. They had 16 first-half turnovers and 22 for the game. When you play that well, it lends itself to a few more open looks. Our first bullet point (to focus on) was to (hold them to) five or under three-point shots and they shot three. I think we can grow from it."
On decreasing the amount of turnovers:
"We had a similar variety again where we had a couple charges where we just lowered our head and predetermined. We tried to make too many home run, pocket-pass, pinpoint-passes. You have to be able to eliminate those. Maybe because the game slowed down because of the pressure defensively. We had four turnovers in the second half and played more of the way you have to play. Fifteen turnovers is still too many and we will continue to work on it. I think we're inching along, but we have to take care of the ball better. That was bullet point No. 2, under defending the three."
On Aqeel Quinn's injury update:
"I haven't talked to (SDSU athletic trainer) Tom (Abdenour). He fell hard as you saw with a hip-pointer. I don't know what that will mean. He fell very hard right on the hip so we'll see. Hopefully he'll be ready to go on Monday and just sore tonight."
On the status of Angelo Chol:
"Angelo said that he felt like he wanted to try it, but after the first segment, he said it really hurt to plant and go so it was foolish to try and play him anymore. With treatment, I think he'll be okay."
On the team's response after Aqeel Quinn's exit off the court:
"I think everyone was worried about the health of AQ. The nicest part about what happened after that was Skylar (Spencer) stepping up and looking at the stats, deciding that we wanted Skylar to shoot the free throw. He made two in a row and I believe he was 6-for-6 tonight from the free-throw line. It was great to see. I know he felt wonderful about it. You have to know when you have a chance to get a run and get a little one going. You have to rebound the ball, don't give them a layup or second chance point."
San Diego State Junior Forward Winston Shepard
On team adjustments after the Cincinnati loss:
"We took a step in the right direction. A lot of the turnovers fall on me, I think I am leading the team in turnovers. I thought I did a better job with the ball tonight. There is still a lot of the season left and a lot of room to grow."
On Aqeel Quinn starting:
"I thought he got off to a great start. The ball was moving, we were being aggressive, and JJ (O'Brien) was playing pretty well. I thought AQ helped a lot. It was sad to see him go down, so I hope it is just temporary."
On the team meeting expectations:
"We will be alright, we just have to keep working. I would say maybe a handful of teams in the country are playing at their 100 percent. That's not an excuse for us, but I think we're going to be just fine. We have good guys in the locker room. We have guys that love the game and want to get better. A lot of it falls on JJ and I, and I think we're doing a pretty good job leading the team. I've said all along that this is going to be a different team than last year."
San Diego State Senior Forward JJ O'Brien
On the win tonight:
"It feels good to come back home and play, and obviously getting a win makes us feel good. It's a good feeling."
On Aqeel Quinn going down with an injury:
"We just hope he's ok, seeing anyone go down isn't a good thing. He's just getting back, so he needs more games to get his legs back and get his experience back up, but we're hoping that it's not anything serious."
On getting the ball inside:
"We wanted to make more of a focus to get the ball in. Our offense is `you take what the defense gives you,' so we don't try to force anything, but we had an emphasis on getting it inside and making plays from there."
Ball State Head Coach James Whitford
On coming back from the previous game (Wednesday night):
"It was (hard). I felt like we really competed and I told the guys in the locker room that I think we have everything we need this year. I thought we came out nervous. We don't play in front of crowds like this very often to say the least. When you combine that with the way that they press and those two things really bothered us so we took, I think, 12 turnovers in the first 10 minutes and once we got through that part we had 10 in the final 30. I thought we settled down and that we played pretty even from that point on, but we dug ourselves a hole."
On Matt Kamieniecki's leadership and Franko House's performance:
"Those guys did a good job, both of them. They [San Diego State] have great shot blockers and I think both of them used the shot fake really effectively which was really important. They did a good job getting up in the air and getting to the free-throw line."
On coming back:
"That's what we did every game except (the James Madison game). We are not going to be perfect and I told those guys that tonight we could have played a lot better than we did and we could have handled the pressure much better than we did. But I can always live with that when we make mistakes and I am going to make a lot of mistakes. It's a matter of us staying together through good moments and bad moments, and I thought we did that tonight."
Ball State Senior Forward Matt Kamieniecki
On performance tonight (playing with a different fire in the first couple minutes):
"I just tried to come out and not get sped up and try to let the game come to me. I got into a groove early and there were a couple of easy baskets at the start of the game."
On defensive strategy going into tonight's game:
"It was just trying to limit their post-touches. They've got great guys down low and we came in trying to not let them catch the ball on the block and I think we did a good job of it for the most part in the game. They got a couple easy baskets down low. I think the thing that hurt us was that they got a lot of offensive rebounds that led to baskets. Other than that I think we did okay."