University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes
12/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Head Coach Richard Pitino
Opening statement…
"That was obviously an entertaining game. You've got to give Furman and Niko (Medved) a lot of credit. They had a great offensive game plan and hit a lot of tough shots. Their players made a lot of great plays, so you've got to give them credit. They played really well. I'm happy for (Medved) and certainly he would've liked to win, but he's a good guy and he's from here, so I know it meant a lot for him to play well. He's a great coach. For us, that's what we needed. I talked to these guys the last couple days and I was on these guys and they looked at me funny like, 'Why is he on us? We're winning by 20-30 points, we're No. 1 in assists and in the top two to three in steals. Why is he on us?' It's kind of an epidemic in college basketball-teams are losing to these other teams. We now understand."
On the crowd…
"I have to say this. I think our fans this year, have been so good in the non-conference, as opposed to last year-not that they were bad last year, but this has been much improved from last year. They were great tonight and there should be no reason why we don't fill that place up Saturday. They've been great and they continue to show that we have a great fan base."
On Nate Mason…
"He's a pretty underrated freshman. I watch the Big Ten Network sometimes and I keep seeing these big-time freshmen that people keep talking about-he's never on the lists. Just because he doesn't have four or five stars in front of his name by Scout, ESPN, or Rivals, nobody wants to list him as one of the better freshmen, but he's doing it. He's not just doing it, he's doing it versus good teams-he did it against Louisville. I think it's time to start talking about him as one of the better freshmen in our conference."
On whether the team is further along than at this point last year…
"I do. At this time last year, I don't think we did what we're doing. Looking at our past games, we were blowing teams out-we didn't do that last year. This was tough for us to win because everyone in the building, myself included, when they hit those tough shots was like, 'Oh my goodness,' and we found a way to win. I don't know that we do that last year…"
On the closely played game…
On Furman's hot shooting…
DeAndre Mathieu (Sr./G)
On needing a test before the start of Big Ten play…
Nate Mason (Fr./G)
On his motivation in the second half, when he scored 12 of his 14 points…
On how he keeps his composure as a freshman…
On the offense needing to produce to counter Furman's hot shooting…
