Q: Down 10 with 519 left, how did you do it, and where does this one rank?
A: Well, I didn't do anything but we were... Give OU credit. They did everything you're supposed to do to win a game on the road. They controlled tempo. They played smart. For the most part, they took care of the ball even though they end up having I think 11, they rebounded the ball above average. They did a lot of good things. They didn't make threes. But if you look across the board, what else could they have done a lot better? And you look at us, we're so happy that we won, but that's about as poor as we played in a long time. How many layups, did you guys count, we missed the first half, huh?
Q: 10 in the first half.
A: 10 the first half. And how many for the game?
Q: 21.
A: 21 layups not being able to play through contact. Now granted, out of 21, 11 of them were hard shots, but 10 of them, you should be able to play through contact. And so we didn't do a good job with that. And then we didn't guard very well at all. We didn't guard their actions well. We didn't guard Sherfield well at all. And Milos is a terrific freshman, and we didn't do anything to really create much havoc. And then we had some individuals have maybe the least productive performance they've had in a long while, and still yet our two bigs combined for 32 points. And that's something that we haven't had anything close to that all year long. So just [inaudible 00:01:48] found a way. But give OU credit, they were good.
Q: Coach, that being said, you guys are down 10 with five to go. What is it about this place that allows you to confidently come back in that situation?
A: I do think it's this place, but sometimes when you talk about this place, you don't give enough credit to the players. There were some guys making some plays. Kevin McCullough hadn't done much at all. And then he gets the unbelievable drive and he still got the steals late. We didn't have anything going. Grady didn't really do a lot. And then he gets some big rebounds there late and everything. So the place is special. Guys have so much confidence here. But that was some guys making some individual plays there late, though.
Q; Coach, over here, you're four games into this league right now. It's been a battle most every night. What have you learned about the league in the bit that you've played so far?
A: Well, I don't know that we learned anything more tonight that we didn't already know. We knew that if you don't play well you can lose anywhere. Road teams were 10 and five in our league coming into today, if I'm not mistaken. Or yesterday, whenever it was. So obviously the home court hasn't been near as much to start our league is what it has maybe in years past. So I know our league is good, and everything can be so fragile, but we could be one in three. K-States play great. They could be two and two, OU's one and three, and they could be four and oh, real easy. That's how good our league is. So it's Oklahoma State, I don't know how close the game was in Manhattan, but they were one and two, they could have easily been two and one or whatever, because they could have won here and everything.
So it's a monster league to the point where the team that doesn't get exhausted will probably have the best chance to stay at the end. And my teams historically have always hit a little bit of a wall sometimes in late January. And that happened last year, if you guys remember. And certainly it could happen again, but it could happen with any minor league. Have you guys looked at our schedule the rest of January? It's a monster so it's going to be tough. So stealing one today was big for us.
Q: Coach, with the OU fan base there's a lot of talk about how they haven't won here since '93. It's been a while. But this is two straight seasons now that they've really come out here and put up a good fight. So what has impressed you about the identity that Porter Moser has been able to establish in the brand of basketball they have at very moment?
A: Well Porter can really coach. He took Loyola to the final four, so he can really coach. He's got a good staff, Doc's over there helping him, but the thing about it is, it's much easier to slow a team down than it is to speed a team up. And they're comfortable playing at a pace that slows people down, even though they scored plenty of points today. They make you make plays to beat them. They get three to four back and transition every time, so you got to play five against five. We knew that going in, so there's not going to be much transition, take care of the ball for the most part so you don't get run outs. And we're actually decent at that. And the way that they guarded us today, they dared KJ to beat them, because they didn't help off the other guys, primarily Grady. So they executed their game plan very well. But he's a terrific coach. They're going to be really good, and their players look like, to me, they like each other. They play well together, and they're definitely tough.
Q: Bill, I know Coach Moser said Zach's kind of play went under the radar, he was going to expect him go in, make those threes. Can you talk about a little bit how Zach played overall today?
A: Yeah, well he scored 10 points. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know who I was going to put in, Zach or Zuby, when I subbed KJ, and then I did Zach. But the biggest reason was, is because he played so well against Oklahoma last year, and I knew that he had a couple of good days of practice. So I'm glad I made that decision. I do think we lost something defensively without Zuby in the game, but those 10 points were really important for us.
Q: And on the KJ front, he scores 22, they dare Jim to beat, does it. What does it show you, long term, I guess season-wise, is he more of a guy you can rely on to score [inaudible 00:06:51]?
A: When I say "dared them", they didn't dare them to score. They dared them to go one on one, because they stay connected to the shooter, so he's got to be able to make some plays. And he's getting better all the time. He's improved so much in the last six weeks or whatnot. So I don't know if this is a sample size to say, well this is definitely how we want to play moving forward. I could tell you right now, our bigs don't screen, there's some things that we don't do very well. But I thought OU was so turned up.
Even when we had a little bit of advantage on a back cut, they recovered so well. They were turned up, and did a great job, but still though, as poor we say offense that we ran or whatever, if you score 79 points against Oklahoma, you think you're going to have a great night. And they score 75, they think they're going to have a great night. There was a lot more points in large part due to free throws, a lot more points than what I envisioned this game being. I thought it'd be 57/59.
Q: Jaylen constantly talks about, there's no way he thought you were going to lose. It never entered his mind. And maybe that's team-wide, too. Where's this team's confidence on that level compared to the teams you've had? I don't want to go back [inaudible 00:08:13].
A: I think that's one thing here over time, and it probably goes back for decades, but players think that they're going to win here. And granted, we're playing with fire, so we've got to tighten some things up or we won't. But guys think that when it's time to compete, that's when they enjoy it the most. And that's what good teams do. Guys, there was a lot of games last year you could say, oh God, had that win at OU and the win against Oklahoma here. It's like, ooh, got lucky there. And that team goes on and does pretty well. So it's what you do when you have really good seasons, is you win games where it wasn't a percentage play, and that was certainly tonight, not a percentage play.
Q: You can't coach that, right? For a kid to have that kind of belief, just...
A: No. No, no, no, no. Give the kids, no, no, no. They deserve the credit on that. And Jaylen's confidence is supreme. He'll go to bed remembering his three makes and not remember the nine misses, I guarantee it. And that's the way it should be. But the thing about it is, I'm not sure with young players, it's near as easy to do as it is with older players that have been through it before. To me, like a freshman, he may be confident, but it's a little bit different being confident when things haven't gone well at all for 35 minutes, and then you be your best and being able to focus and compete and all that stuff. And guys that have just been in the wars, these kids have played in so many big games, they actually enjoy it. So that's a big bonus.
Q: Bill, you mentioned free throws, 62, what do you think when you think about that number, getting to that height?
A: Oh, what's that?
Q: 62 combined free throws.
A: Well, 62 combined. They shot 23. I gave them two. And to be real candid with you, we ran such bad offense, our only way to score was to drive it. And so that was our strategy, was trying to get to the free throw line. It wasn't trying to play to shoot perimeter shots. And so I don't know that it worked out great, but that was what we wanted to do. And neither team shot many the first half, I don't think. I think we ended up shooting like 11 or something like that, nine for 11, something like that. But the second half, both teams were in the bonus with what, 14 left? Something like that? So it was going to become a free throw shooting contest, and they made all theirs, just fortunately we shot more.
A: Well, I didn't do anything but we were... Give OU credit. They did everything you're supposed to do to win a game on the road. They controlled tempo. They played smart. For the most part, they took care of the ball even though they end up having I think 11, they rebounded the ball above average. They did a lot of good things. They didn't make threes. But if you look across the board, what else could they have done a lot better? And you look at us, we're so happy that we won, but that's about as poor as we played in a long time. How many layups, did you guys count, we missed the first half, huh?
Q: 10 in the first half.
A: 10 the first half. And how many for the game?
Q: 21.
A: 21 layups not being able to play through contact. Now granted, out of 21, 11 of them were hard shots, but 10 of them, you should be able to play through contact. And so we didn't do a good job with that. And then we didn't guard very well at all. We didn't guard their actions well. We didn't guard Sherfield well at all. And Milos is a terrific freshman, and we didn't do anything to really create much havoc. And then we had some individuals have maybe the least productive performance they've had in a long while, and still yet our two bigs combined for 32 points. And that's something that we haven't had anything close to that all year long. So just [inaudible 00:01:48] found a way. But give OU credit, they were good.
Q: Coach, that being said, you guys are down 10 with five to go. What is it about this place that allows you to confidently come back in that situation?
A: I do think it's this place, but sometimes when you talk about this place, you don't give enough credit to the players. There were some guys making some plays. Kevin McCullough hadn't done much at all. And then he gets the unbelievable drive and he still got the steals late. We didn't have anything going. Grady didn't really do a lot. And then he gets some big rebounds there late and everything. So the place is special. Guys have so much confidence here. But that was some guys making some individual plays there late, though.
Q; Coach, over here, you're four games into this league right now. It's been a battle most every night. What have you learned about the league in the bit that you've played so far?
A: Well, I don't know that we learned anything more tonight that we didn't already know. We knew that if you don't play well you can lose anywhere. Road teams were 10 and five in our league coming into today, if I'm not mistaken. Or yesterday, whenever it was. So obviously the home court hasn't been near as much to start our league is what it has maybe in years past. So I know our league is good, and everything can be so fragile, but we could be one in three. K-States play great. They could be two and two, OU's one and three, and they could be four and oh, real easy. That's how good our league is. So it's Oklahoma State, I don't know how close the game was in Manhattan, but they were one and two, they could have easily been two and one or whatever, because they could have won here and everything.
So it's a monster league to the point where the team that doesn't get exhausted will probably have the best chance to stay at the end. And my teams historically have always hit a little bit of a wall sometimes in late January. And that happened last year, if you guys remember. And certainly it could happen again, but it could happen with any minor league. Have you guys looked at our schedule the rest of January? It's a monster so it's going to be tough. So stealing one today was big for us.
Q: Coach, with the OU fan base there's a lot of talk about how they haven't won here since '93. It's been a while. But this is two straight seasons now that they've really come out here and put up a good fight. So what has impressed you about the identity that Porter Moser has been able to establish in the brand of basketball they have at very moment?
A: Well Porter can really coach. He took Loyola to the final four, so he can really coach. He's got a good staff, Doc's over there helping him, but the thing about it is, it's much easier to slow a team down than it is to speed a team up. And they're comfortable playing at a pace that slows people down, even though they scored plenty of points today. They make you make plays to beat them. They get three to four back and transition every time, so you got to play five against five. We knew that going in, so there's not going to be much transition, take care of the ball for the most part so you don't get run outs. And we're actually decent at that. And the way that they guarded us today, they dared KJ to beat them, because they didn't help off the other guys, primarily Grady. So they executed their game plan very well. But he's a terrific coach. They're going to be really good, and their players look like, to me, they like each other. They play well together, and they're definitely tough.
Q: Bill, I know Coach Moser said Zach's kind of play went under the radar, he was going to expect him go in, make those threes. Can you talk about a little bit how Zach played overall today?
A: Yeah, well he scored 10 points. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know who I was going to put in, Zach or Zuby, when I subbed KJ, and then I did Zach. But the biggest reason was, is because he played so well against Oklahoma last year, and I knew that he had a couple of good days of practice. So I'm glad I made that decision. I do think we lost something defensively without Zuby in the game, but those 10 points were really important for us.
Q: And on the KJ front, he scores 22, they dare Jim to beat, does it. What does it show you, long term, I guess season-wise, is he more of a guy you can rely on to score [inaudible 00:06:51]?
A: When I say "dared them", they didn't dare them to score. They dared them to go one on one, because they stay connected to the shooter, so he's got to be able to make some plays. And he's getting better all the time. He's improved so much in the last six weeks or whatnot. So I don't know if this is a sample size to say, well this is definitely how we want to play moving forward. I could tell you right now, our bigs don't screen, there's some things that we don't do very well. But I thought OU was so turned up.
Even when we had a little bit of advantage on a back cut, they recovered so well. They were turned up, and did a great job, but still though, as poor we say offense that we ran or whatever, if you score 79 points against Oklahoma, you think you're going to have a great night. And they score 75, they think they're going to have a great night. There was a lot more points in large part due to free throws, a lot more points than what I envisioned this game being. I thought it'd be 57/59.
Q: Jaylen constantly talks about, there's no way he thought you were going to lose. It never entered his mind. And maybe that's team-wide, too. Where's this team's confidence on that level compared to the teams you've had? I don't want to go back [inaudible 00:08:13].
A: I think that's one thing here over time, and it probably goes back for decades, but players think that they're going to win here. And granted, we're playing with fire, so we've got to tighten some things up or we won't. But guys think that when it's time to compete, that's when they enjoy it the most. And that's what good teams do. Guys, there was a lot of games last year you could say, oh God, had that win at OU and the win against Oklahoma here. It's like, ooh, got lucky there. And that team goes on and does pretty well. So it's what you do when you have really good seasons, is you win games where it wasn't a percentage play, and that was certainly tonight, not a percentage play.
Q: You can't coach that, right? For a kid to have that kind of belief, just...
A: No. No, no, no, no. Give the kids, no, no, no. They deserve the credit on that. And Jaylen's confidence is supreme. He'll go to bed remembering his three makes and not remember the nine misses, I guarantee it. And that's the way it should be. But the thing about it is, I'm not sure with young players, it's near as easy to do as it is with older players that have been through it before. To me, like a freshman, he may be confident, but it's a little bit different being confident when things haven't gone well at all for 35 minutes, and then you be your best and being able to focus and compete and all that stuff. And guys that have just been in the wars, these kids have played in so many big games, they actually enjoy it. So that's a big bonus.
Q: Bill, you mentioned free throws, 62, what do you think when you think about that number, getting to that height?
A: Oh, what's that?
Q: 62 combined free throws.
A: Well, 62 combined. They shot 23. I gave them two. And to be real candid with you, we ran such bad offense, our only way to score was to drive it. And so that was our strategy, was trying to get to the free throw line. It wasn't trying to play to shoot perimeter shots. And so I don't know that it worked out great, but that was what we wanted to do. And neither team shot many the first half, I don't think. I think we ended up shooting like 11 or something like that, nine for 11, something like that. But the second half, both teams were in the bonus with what, 14 left? Something like that? So it was going to become a free throw shooting contest, and they made all theirs, just fortunately we shot more.
