University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota-SDSU Postgame Quotes
12/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith
"I want to thank the fans for being here. We had a really great crowd tonight, I got really into the game myself. Coming in I was concerned about South Dakota State. I think our key tonight was putting pressure on SDSU and pushing the tempo. I think that played to our advantage and I really was impressed with our play from top to bottom."
"It all starts with defense. That's been about guys talking and communicating (on the floor). We haven't really had many breakdowns defensively, just some issues in transition early. We made some adjustments and took care of those. I think we're winning because we are playing extremely good defense and that's leading to transition scoring."
Senior Guard Lawrence Westbrook
On how this year's team compares to last year's team at this point in the season:
"I don't know if there's anything different, just a sense of urgency. We need a signature win, and the Big Ten was rated the number one conference at the beginning of the year. We've had struggles and so have some of the other Big Ten schools. I think we can be a good basketball team. We just need to get signature wins."
Junior Guard Blake Hoffarber
On the team's slow start tonight:
"I would've liked to get out to a better start at the beginning. I think we came out a little slow there, but we picked it up. I think that this team's good at getting someone the ball if he's hot. It's good that we have a lot of depth because if one guy's hot we give him the ball, and if one guy's not hot, guys can come off the bench and they're hot. I think our team's been really unselfish this year, and hopefully we'll keep that up going into Big Ten play."
