University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota-Cornell Postgame Quotes
12/5/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Minnesota 71, Cornell 66
Dec. 4, 2010
Minneapolis, Minn.
Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith
Head Coach Tubby Smith
Opening statement:
“First, I just want to commend Cornell. They came in ready to play. They gave us all sorts of problems. Trying to guard the three has been a real challenge for us. They exposed something for us and we knew that Drew Ferry and Chris Wroblewski would be good, but Johnathon Gray came out of nowhere. I don’t think he played much at all. He wasn’t even on the scouting report…One of the things we’re having trouble with is guarding the three pointer, and post guys that are out on the perimeter, we need to do a better job. It is good to get the win. We needed to get this win no matter what. I thought our guys really showed a lot of grit, something we didn’t do against Virginia. I asked guys to make plays and they did.”
On what can be done to improve at the free throw line:
“When a guy like Trevor [Mbakwe] gets to the line 20 times, I don’t think I have had a guy get to the line that many times. He made them down the stretch. We usually shoot our free throws better. Ralph [Sampson III] has been making his free throws. When people start missing it becomes contagious. We had some guys make their shots. If Mbakwe makes four more of those, it’s a whole different story. We will see what we have to do to improve in that area. Obviously we have to spend more times on free-throws.”
On if teams will start to foul the Gophers more often:
“We are an inside-oriented team and we expect to get fouled. Our post players have to expect to be fouled. When one dilemma is solved, there is another one. By that I mean we improved our post play, but with that our free throw shooting has suffered, because those guys are not as good of free throw shooters as smaller people. Now we are playing with guys that have to get better and we will.”
Minnesota Player Quotes
Ralph Sampson
On free throws:
“We had to pick it up in other areas on the defensive end and be more patient on the offensive end…We knew that we had troubles with free throws but we still wanted to get to the free throw line and put their players in foul trouble, and they did play a little more reserved and that’s also a boost for our team.”
On Mbakwe’s game:
“He played a very tough game, very physical inside. He got to the line a lot for us, which also is a boost for us…He was a big part of tonight’s game and a big part of this team for the win.”
Blake Hoffarber
On Cornell:
“Anytime you’re playing a good three-point shooting team like them it’s going to be tough all night. They’re hitting their threes all night…have to give them their credit. They played very well tonight and had a tough battle against us.”
On free throw shooting:
“I think any game you have to hit free throws and it showed it tonight…We almost lost because we were shooting poorly from the free throw line…We just have to forget about it and we know we have a tough St. Joe’s team we have to play this coming week, so we just have to go back to our fundamentals.”
Cornell Head Coach Bill Courtney
On the three-point shooting:
“It’s something that is the strength of our team, and we haven’t shot the ball well. We’ll continue to take good ones and I think we did a good job of getting and taking open looks tonight.”
On the Gophers’ size:
“We fouled out all our big guys and they laid the ball in on us four or five times. They were just bigger and more athletic than us. We tried to battle but in the end we got in foul trouble and it just didn’t work for us tonight.”
On playing a top-25 team close on the road:
“For us it’s all about getting better, it did not necessarily show up this week because we played Syracuse and Minnesota, but we did get better this week. For us it’s about winning our league and I think we made some steps towards that today.”
