University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota-Brown Postgame Quotes
12/5/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2009, Williams Arena, Minneapolis, Minn.
Brown - 55
Minnesota - 91
Attendance: 12,420
Minnesota Coach Tubby Smith
Opening Statement:
"It was good to get back to Minnesota and to Williams Arena and I thought our guys were pretty efficient on offense and defense today. Brown University is a team we felt like has played well; they lost in overtime to Holy Cross and took St. John's to the wire, but we were pretty good today."
On getting the team motivated after a few rough games:
"I think we would not have lost the last few games if we had played like we did today. We tried to get back to basics in practice and tried to get back to just letting our guys know we are not going to make any more excuses."
On how the team played:
"I thought they were very disciplined on offense and I think it was pretty obvious that we were working the passes and shots and doing little things like talking on defense. These are good indicators that we have recovered and we did not have anything lagging or held over from the other games."
Minnesota Guard Blake Hoffarber
On the importance of today's win:
"We were kind of on a rough stretch there. Anytime you go on a stretch like that you've got to stay focused. You have to try and get on the right path again. Today we were trying to focus on the way we were playing, like screening."
On the game:
"Today we played kind of loose again and were having fun out there. If you're not having fun, you're not going to play well."
On his ten rebounds in today's game:
"The coaches were kind of focusing on rebounding. Other guys were blocking out well, and I was kind of getting the loose balls. The coaches were kind of emphasizing that in the films. I decided I needed to get in there and mix it up with the big guys."
Minnesota Guard Devoe Joseph
On the level of competition thus far:
"We let a couple of good [games] go, but we play in the Big Ten, one of the best conferences. We're going to get a great schedule and great teams to play against."
On the team's shooting performance:
"Even though we didn't shoot the ball that well, we were right in there in all of those games, and tonight we showed that we can shoot ball well. I feel like we did a lot more creating for others in today's game. A lot of guys had an assist, and people were looking for each other and playing unselfishly."
Brown Head Coach Jesse Agel
On the difficulties of today's game against the Gophers:
"I am a huge Tubby Smith fan, always have been, and he is one of the premier people in my profession. His teams are tremendous, well schooled defensively, and we were having trouble with not just their team defense, but their athleticism on the court. Early on we were doing things that we wanted to do, but it was going at too quick a pace for us to be successful. It just took awhile for us to get comfortable."
On what the Bears will take away from this game:
"We played five games like this already, and we have been in the hunt pretty much all of those games and had a chance to win them. If you get in enough of these someday it is going to happen. Some days you are a statue and some days you are a pigeon. The way that we fought in the second half was very, very important to us, to me and to our guys. You are never happy when results do not turn out positively, but in terms effort and execution we did a lot of good things in the second half. That is what we take away from the game."
