University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Milwaukee
12/23/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Minnesota Head Coach Richard Pitino
Opening statement…
"That was a tough one, obviously. We were missing shots and it affected our defense, our rebounding, our free throw shooting. We just kind of let it all take our confidence away from us. We just got to understand that we have to stay positive and continue to work. It was difficult, but you got to give them credit; they're a good team. We've played some good teams and they're a good team. They just beat us. They made plays, we did not."
On looking back at the home non-conference schedule…
"I always said at the beginning of the year that I thought we were playing some tricky teams. I remember looking at it and saying that we are playing teams that are going to be at the top of their leagues. At the end of the day, we've got to protect our home court. I knew we were young, but it's just going to teach us. We've gotten a lot of learning, obviously, from these 12 games. It's a growing process, but the rebounding is what really hurt us [tonight]."
On Milwaukee going on a 20-6 run in the second half…
"I think our offense was dictating our defense. I thought our guys were getting down on themselves. It's something where we're getting stops but not getting rebounds. We've just got to continue to stay with it and not let it affect us. I thought our offense was affecting our defense and our rebounding. They had nine offensive rebounds there that were killer."
Milwaukee Head Coach Rob Jeter
On the performance of Jordan Johnson:
"It was what we needed. We've had some tough losses this year - one point, double-overtimes. I think our four losses might total up to thirteen points or something like that with Notre Dame being the only one at eight and the rest of them being right there. We've always found a way to bounce back after a tough and emotional loss and tonight was big for us to do that. This is a place where you just hope to play well and I thought out guys played phenomenally well together, not only him [Jordan], but I thought that each guy had a key moment at the right time. It didn't look pretty in some spots, but each shot, each rebound, each stop and each drive to the hoop by all our guys were highlighted by Jordan's performance."
On adjustments in the second half:
"Yeah, we were trying to get to the free throw line a little bit more. Long shots lead to long rebounds and we didn't want those guys [the Gophers] to get out and start running and I thought we did a nice job of just sending one to the glass and getting four back."
On neutralizing Minnesota's offense:
"We were just trying to keep those guys in front. I think they're really talented going towards the basket. We tried to keep the officials out of this game as much as possible on their end of the court by just holding our ground and we didn't allow a lot of post touches for them either. We took pressure of ourselves."
