University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes: NJIT
12/6/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Minnesota Head Coach Richard Pitino
Opening Statement...
"Well we had moments in that game, you know, I thought we did guard pretty well. They shot 32 threes, obviously a lot of difficult ones, but we made them shoot 25%. The problems, the two problems were turnovers and offensive rebounds, so we've got to clean that up. This is a scary time of year in the sense of, you know, you get a lot of home games, obviously the names are not as big as some of the other bigs ones, so you've got to get your guys to understand you can lose to anybody. It doesn't matter in college basketball. You see it every single night, and you try to tell your guys over and over again, and sometimes just feeling it is a nice wake up call. So, I'm happy we won. 8 and 1, I'm very satisfied with, and to do it with not playing great, obviously. We just found a way to get stops when we needed to, we made winning plays. Credit to NJIT, they play hard. I thought they run a good offense. And yeah, we just weren't great, but we found a way to win."
On whether Tuesday was an off night for the team...
"I don't think that's the case. I just think there's so many elements that go into it. You've got a long month. I think they all see that, it's human nature. You've got to fight it; the good teams fight it. You've just got to find a way to lock in every single day to get better. It's December 6th. We've got to find a way to use this month to individually and collectively get better while finding a way to win games. It was difficult. We only had one day of prep, because we had to take of Sunday, so give them credit too. I thought they were really hard to guard and our offense is not very good so we've just got to get better."
On winning close games unlike last year...
"It's a different team than last year... It's good that we're finding a way to win close games. I thought we hit big free throws when we needed to and got stops when we needed to. I think these guys are understanding the benefit of doing that where maybe last year we did not. We've got to just find a way. I think Reggie does provide something. If you mess up a little bit, he's back there blocking shots. We haven't had that as much. I think it's infectious with Bakary. He's blocking some shots as well. It's a long month; we've got to grind them out from a skill development standpoint, as well as do a great job with finals. Get those locked in and make sure they do a good job with those, and then just finding a way to win the next game."
NJIT Head Coach Brian Kennedy
Redshirt Senior Akeem Springs
On the mentality of a school from a smaller conference coming to the Barn:
"This game was the game that could put us on the map, basically. And thats how we looked at it."
On feeling good about his individual performance:
"We didn't play well, you know. I mean definitely it was a personal best for me but I didn't feel good during the game. I didn't feel like my team was playing the best of their ability."
On the close margin of victory:
"It was good that we had a close game though, I think that's going to help us to know that we've been in a battle ... It's all learning. I mean, parts of me is happy we had this game, because it's gonna make us hungry in practice."
On benefits going forward:
"I think tomorrow's going to really help the team. Seeing how we respond, seeing if we're hungry, you know? We got hit in the mouth, and its good for us."
Junior Nate Mason
On the team's play:
"Great leadership from Akeem, but I felt like everyone stepped up. Everyone made key plays, and everyone came in and did their job."
