Feb. 8, 2015
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BOISE, Idaho -
San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher
On the lack of urgency...
Well we didn't play with enough intelligence. Our number one bullet point was to defend the three. And we wanted to keep them under five three's for the game. And they had five in the first five minutes. And that's not having the ability to say these guys will take and make threes if they are open or almost open. And they were too open. We did a bad job. They had eight threes in the first half and they probably had six in the first six minutes. So you have to make it harder for them to do that and we didn't make it harder for them to do that.
On road losses having the same scenarios...
Well when we talked at halftime, we wanted to go into halftime in single digits. I thought it would be a 9-point game. And I think it was Alford who hit the three-point field goal at the end to make it 12. We talked about them being 8-for-16 at the three point at halftime. And 16 of the 24 shots were threes. We said that's not doing what's required. That's not doing what we asked you to do, that's not doing what we told you to do. In the second half we were better; they had two three's in the second half. But when we cut it to four points, they had the two threes. They came out and (Heyer) hit a three. Then we came down and had an and one that we miss a free throw on, and it's 7-5. They go back down and hit another three, Webb hit it. (Malik Pope) did a bad job where it got screened in and we're a half-count late and boom, he made it. The other two threes, they came at a great time for them. So give them some credit and give us, shame on you a little bit.
On Webb's three fouls and Boise State going into the 1-2-2 zone...
They've played that zone before. Rather than saying they're extending it a little bit and coming from underneath to throw the ball, we went further and further out and it became throwing it around the perimeter. I thought later on we did a better job, we screened a couple of times and got inside it and had some shots we missed that were good shots, turned it over a couple of times. We got beat by a better team today. I don't think they are a better team but today they were. Their crowd was very instrumental in helping them.
On Boise State's defense...
We've had that happen to us a lot of times; I thought we had good looks and we didn't make them. I think Boise's defense, I think Leon would tell you: this is a better defensive team than he's had in the past. They are a little more athletic, they keep them in front of you, and they give you easy shots to the rim. But we've had troubles at times. I thought we had good looks that we didn't make. And that's not going to help the cause.
On concern over the slow starts...
You want to play basketball and go out and compete and play. I'm not buying in to the theory of losing three in a row on the road. It's sometimes the way things happen and the way things are played. I thought we played hard early on but we didn't play smart enough. Now they're screening and stepping right back and we are a half count late. I thought our effort was there. We weren't very good offensively and we were not quite with it enough from the neck up to say this is what they want to do to create three-point shot opportunities.
On Boise State being an NCAA team...
I'm not worried about Boise State, no disrespect. I'm hoping San Diego State is an NCAA team.