University of Connecticut Athletics
Post Game Quotes
2/24/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2011
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February 24, 2011 Connecticut vs. Marquette Connecticut Associate Head Coach George Blaney
"No one, and especially us, likes to lose a game at home that you certainly have a chance to win. Having the ball down the stretch a number of times.... Seventeen turnovers is the answer and we just can't have that."
"We played great coming back, down 11, and held them one for 13 in the second half early."
"We got 28 offensive rebounds and still shot 36 percent. I don't know if I've ever seen that before, to be honest with you."
"It's two games that we've lost at home in the overtime situation with a lead in regulation, and those are the hard ones."
Problem down the stretch? "Mostly our inability to spread the ball around a little bit. We kind of were demanding that Kemba do it by himself. And they were trying to double him. That was as much my fault as anything."
"I felt that, if we just got a shot, we probably were in good shape. Then we just needed to play full-court defense and make one stop. You're always worried about somebody throwing some kind of a home run three in. I thought if we had been able to get a shot off at that point we would have been in good shape. And there's nobody in the country better at getting off a shot than Kemba is at that time."
"I felt going into the game that I wasn't as clear as Jim has been with who should be in the game and when they should be in it. He's done a magnificent job with that all year, and I've been saying that all year, that he's picked and choosed amongst the freshmen and he always seems to be pretty right about it. I didn't feel comfortable most of the night until I got Niels in there. And Niels really did a great job defensively. And I felt a little bit more comfortable. But I probably ran everybody too many minutes. We needed to get a little bit more production, but some of the guys that came in didn't get it done when they were asked to do it, so we stayed with the guys that were doing it."
On Kemba Walker "I thought Kemba was magnificent. We're asking him to do so much. It's still one of those things - you're demanding that he have the ball, be the point guard, dribble through people. We just weren't getting enough out of the offense."
On Niels Giffey "He just gave us a huge lift coming off the bench, and did a great job on Jimmy Butler after Butler destroyed us in the first half. He just did a lot of things. He was in every possession and played really, really good defense, and kept the ball alive a number of times, got himself nine points. He just did a really solid job."
UConn vs.
February 24, 2011
"It was a game we had.
What was the difference down the stretch?
"Turnovers. I got two big turnovers at the end of the game. I was a little careless with the ball and they were able to take those turnovers and make them into baskets."
Did you they were putting too much pressure on you because you had to handle the ball all the time?
"No, I'm up for the challenge. I think it was me trying to force the issue a little too much. That's about it. They were tough. They wanted the ball and they wanted to win."
What do you have to do in the future to get back on track as a team?
"We have to start off games the right way. Lately we've been playing catch-up a lot and it hurt us."
Was there enough support out there tonight for Kemba?
"I just know I didn't hit shots I was supposed to. He tried to make plays and he made a lot of big plays. I feel like I let him down…He tried to get it done for us, but we didn't really give him much support."
What was said after the game?
"Everybody just said to keep our heads up."
"Toward the end we just made a few key turnovers and had a few lapses on defense."
How were you able to climb back into the game after being down so much at halftime?
"Kemba kept talking saying, 'let's challenge ourselves.' We needed stops and we were able to do that. And we were able to score off their turnovers."
What happened in the final 5 minutes?
"We turned the ball over. We didn't play the way we wanted to and it's tough to see it slip out of your hands."
How did you climb back into the game?
"Coach Blaney told us to play with a lot of energy which we did."
February 24, 2011
UConn vs. Marquette
Head Coach Buzz Williams
"I don't know that there's necessarily anyway statistically you can explain how we won. We couldn't make a shot. They got every 50/50 ball in the second half. They absolutely hammered us on the offensive glass. But our guys hung in there. I thought we made some big plays. I thought we were really good in overtime, obviously. But we had every reason, because of how good they were, to shut it down. I thought our guys hung in there."
On improving their NCAA tournament chances
"I don't know what the appropriate response is because I think that college basketball has become….there's so many people who are covering, and everybody has an opinion. You can really get lost in the numbers of itâ€â€the bubble and the teams."
"We had to be consumed with tonight's game, not relative to winning or losing [and] how it impacts us two weeks from now. We had to take care of tonight."
"We haven't won road games. We've been in a position to win them. But tonight we were able to finish."
"I thought our team's energy, our toughness and their attitude relative to pulling for one another…I thought it was consistent from start to finish. I thought for as discombobulated as were for most of the second half, they just kept hanging in there."
