University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Mount St. Mary's
11/16/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Recap | Notes | Photo Gallery
Minnesota Head Coach Richard Pitino
Opening Statement:
"The most important thing is we got the win. I think there was a lot of good. I thought our post offense was really good, our passing out of the post was really good. Defensively they were playing five guards it was a little bit challenging. I thought I subbed too much in the first half. It kind of screwed it up a little bit, I probably shouldn't have done that. But I thought overall, most important thing was we got the win. We gotta shore up the free throw line, shore up the closeouts. As difficult as that game is to play because you're playing the little guards, it's good for us to work on our closeouts, work on our shell defense. We did a much better job in the second half."
On if tonight's game could have been overlooked...
"Yeah - I mean I told them it's human nature to do that. That's ok. Everybody's going to do that recognize it and overcome it, because it's gonna happen. You beat a really good team on Monday, you play really well, you have the Big East team coming in Friday so it's gonna happen, but we should never overlook an opponent. We talk about that a lot. I don't think our guys overlooked them at all. I think they played pretty hard."
On Jordan Murphy's play...
"Yeah he was good. He would've been great if he'd made his free throws, but he rebounded the ball well. I think we're obviously doing a really good job rebounding and a lot of that is our size. We're obviously much much bigger. But you know Murph to go 8 for 9, 12 rebounds, and get to the line 7 times, he had a really good night."
On Dupree McBrayer...
"I think he's got a lot better and he's playing with great confidence. I always thought sophomore year he'd have a really good year, hopefully it continues. I do love the confidence he's playing with. You can tell when he shoots the ball he thinks it's going in and he's worked hard at it, he's put in the time, and that's where you get confidence from. You just put in the work and he's done that. So he's definitely playing with a lot of confidence. I'm happy for him."
Mount St. Mary's Head Coach Jamion Christian
Opening Statement…
"The Barn is a special place to play and I think everyone in college basketball understands that. Anytime you get a chance to step out here against a very good team and Minnesota, I can see what Richard Pitino is doing there. He is building a strong Big Ten team with the physicality in the inside and it is the only time you get to line up against a team like that; it is always a great time."
On adjusting at half to get to the FT line…..
"We didn't make any adjustments, I think we were just in a more favorable position. We were trying to get to the free throw line. I thought we did get fouled a few times in the first half, but they do a great job of playing above you because they are so big and blocking the shots and so we just do a better job of being physical in the drives and just being on balance and I thought we did a better job of that."
On your team shooting performance….
"Well, I am not happy with the way we are shooting right now. We are a very good shooting team I promise you, but this is the game where you got to make 14 to 15 threes. We are more than capable of doing that, but we are just coming up short right now and not having enough guys stepping in and knocking them down. We will continue to work on and I look forward to us to being able to knock down shots and put up two good halfs."
On a positive takeaway from the game……
"Well, we played great defensive in the first half. We only gave 3 offensive rebounds against a great offensive rebounding team, so that's always a positive. One of things we are really trying to work on is our ability to defend and be a really good defensive team. I thought we put together a really good half of defense in the first half…...I think we are well in our way of being a good defensive team in our league."
Sophomore Jordan Murphy
On looking forward to having the opportunity to have a game like tonight where he can be dominate...
"I think I was more looking forward to the game in general, I mean every time you step on the court, it is a new chance to see where you are at, see where you are skillwise and stuff like that. It is a chance to see how you can impact the game, I guess my teammates found me more tonight then in the past 2 games."
On how he felt about his first 2 games...
"I was very happy that we won to be honest, it's not really about how I do individually, it's about how I can impact the game, and get the W as a team at the end of the game."
Junior Nate Mason
On how Coach put in many different lineups in the first half and if it was tough to create chemistry...
"Games like this will always be hard, it was a tough match-up, at one point they had all guards on the floor. It was a time we had to regroup and just build the energy through ourselves."
On welcoming a big name school on Friday and if there was any sense of not looking past this team tonight...
"Yeah, Coach stressed it a lot in practice and before, just not looking past any opponent and respect every opponent that comes in to this building because we know that anyone can beat anybody on any given night. Coach stressed that to our young guys and we stressed it to them too. That was our main goal, just coming in and respecting our opponent and give it all we got."
