University of Minnesota Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
11/25/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Post-Game Quotes
Minnesota 84, North Dakota State 65
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Head Coach Tubby Smith
Opening Statement:
“We are very thankful for the win tonight. They’re a good team with good, tall posts and the team is always well-coached. They gave us a lot of match-up problems trying to guard their motion offense. I thought our kids showed a lot of poise and came back. You always worry after coming off big wins, so we’re growing up and we showed a lot of character tonight. I have to compliment North Dakota State
On Rodney Williams:
”We don’t know yet. He may have sprained his ankle. He felt like he turned it, so we’re not sure what happened yet. He’ll be having an MRI to check it out.”
On Blake Hoffarber becoming a multi-dimensional player:
“He’s doing a good job. He’s curling into the basket and he’s making a lot of short shots. I was really impressed with his assists. With 24 points and four assists, he had a pretty good game.”
Blake Hoffarber
On Rodney Williams going down…
“Yea it’s a little scary anytime someone goes down like that in a game and their not able to come back into the game or suit up. It’s definitely bad to lose someone like that but hopefully he can get treatment. We have a couple days off before the next game so hopefully he can get a lot of treatment and get healthy sooner.”
On Puerto Rico trip and being tired…
“Any time you have three games like that and the Siena game was right close to the tournament too so we had a bunch of games right in a row. It definitely wears out your legs but I think coach did a good job of making practices a little shorter and stuff like that; worrying about our legs. Tonight I think everyone was fine leg-wise and stamina-wise.”
Colton Iverson
On Rodney Williams going down…
"It was kind of scary with Rodney going down but I think he’ll be alright. It was just precautionary that he sat out the rest of the game. So hopefully he’ll be back but I mean we all just wanted to go out there and work hard and come away with the win. It was kind of a scary game coming back after winning the tournament. We know NDSU is a very tough team so we’re just glad we came away with the win tonight.”
On NDSU having a lot of shots blocked but they kept coming…
“Yea that was key for them…attacking the basket. I think that’s how they stayed in the game especially in the first half. They kept attacking the basket. I mean even if they were getting their shots blocked they kept attacking and that was key for them and apart of their game plan.”
North Dakota State Head Coach Saul Phillips
Opening statement...
"Wow they're big; they did a great job of leaning on us and really taking it at us inside. We were able to function pretty well in the first half, we were getting good inside-out looks, we were being patient, then all of a sudden we had a couple of timeouts and got out in transition and that kind of turned the table."
On this loss to the Gophers vs. a 40-point win over Mayville State...
"I'll take a win any day over a loss. Any game you can learn from a little bit. We got to go back and look at the tape to work on a few things, especially when you give up 84 points, but I'll take a win any day of the week."
On their gameplan...
"We had to draw their bigs over and be able to hit the guys on the outside, and I thought we were doing a good job of that early. The problem with that, and we knew this going in but we are trying to beat a good team, is we only get to the line 11 times as opposed to their 32."
