University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota-Akron Postgame Quotes
12/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith
Opening statement:
“You have to respect the way Akron played. They are a well coached team. For us, we missed some open shots, but the kids bounced back in the second half and hit some shots. I don’t know why we keep having slow starts. We need to attack more. When you are missing easy shots, everyone is deflated. We got the win. The teams we are playing are some good teams here. We just need to start hitting shots. We were better in the second half. We are happy to have gotten the win.”
On how to improve the defense:
“Once we get Al Nolen back that will help our ball handling. We have to make shots to get into our press. When we take bad shots and have to hustle back on defense and are not ready to go, that’s when we are the most vulnerable. We have some time off here, so we can work on what individuals need to work on, like our free throw shooting.”
On Rodney Williams’s game:
“I was impressed. He practiced extremely well the past two days and he is healthy. That is the big thing… He is attacking the rim and not settling for a jump shot.”
Minnesota Player Quotes
Trevor Mbakwe
On being worried about slow starts affecting this team as it moves into the Big Ten season:
“We have to get better, to be honest with you. We have to play with better energy and come out and play the way we are capable of. We’ve gotten lucky so far to bounce back and I think that’s going to help us in the future, but we still need to get better. It’s going to prepare us for down the road when the games are going to be close.”
On his free throw struggles:
“Ah man, free throws make me want to quit basketball sometimes. I’ve never shot this bad before in my career, so I think it’s only a matter of time before that comes around—hopefully in time for the Big Ten season because that’s when they become extremely important.”
Rodney Williams
On this being the best game of his career:
“Yeah, it’s definitely been the best game of my career. I came out to practice these last couple days with a different mentality. Just work hard every minute I’m out there. I did that in practice and it carried over to the game.”
On what he needs to improve for the Big Ten season:
“Me personally, I need to go the boards, both offensively and defensively, and I need to attack the rim more. As a team, I think we need to guard against the three-pointers and continue to rebound.”
Akron Head Coach Keith Dambrot
On the game:
“I thought competitively, we took a big jump. We showed terrific competitiveness. I’m so proud of guys like Mike Bardo, who really shouldn’t even have played [Bardo has the flu]. I had to question myself as to whether he should even be out there at all, but we had no choice. We had nobody else. He just fought and fought, and he really didn’t have anything in the tank…We just did not shoot the ball. We had open looks, and we did a good job of penetrating to the rim and just didn’t make any. I thought we made harder shots in the first half than we did in the second half.”
On Alex Abreu:
“He blew by Minnesota and Temple, who are two really good defensive teams. He’s not quite ready to shoot the ball consistently yet, but he’s got some qualities that are hard to teach. I think we’ve just got to keep throwing him out there, and I think by next year he’s going to be one of the best guards in our league.”
On the rough second half:
“We have to learn that you just have to play through adversity. You can’t let the last shot affect the next shot, the last play affect the next play. You have to do a really good job of letting it go. I thought Minnesota came out and they went back to basics in the second half, and that’s why [Tubby Smith is] a hall of fame coach. He came in and said, ‘Okay, enough is enough. We’re going to pound that thing in on them and if they block it, fine, but we’re going to get them in foul trouble. We’re going to throw it in.’…And that was the difference. They threw it in better than we threw it in.”
