Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes From Wednesday's Game
1/8/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 8, 2003
EVANSTON, Ill. - Some quotes from Wednesday's postgame press conference, following Iowa's 68-63 win over the Wildcats.
Iowa Head Coach Steve Alford
On getting a road win to open the conference season ...
"When you can win a Big Ten opener, that's big. In particular when you come off a year where you didn't win any road games in the league. To start the season and get a road win is big."
On switching to a zone defense in the second half with the lead ...
"I thought once we got (the lead) to 15 or 16 points, I thought what the zone might do is eat up some clock. It did its job. They scored sometimes out of it, then we were really bad offensively. That's when we turned the ball over, we had really poor shot selection and we shot off of zero passes. I thought we got a little passive at that time. It was good at times, but we've got to continue to work at it."
On committing only 10 turnovers ...
"I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to value the basketball, and that's important in this league. In this league possessions are so key. I think what would be nice for our team to learn is that when you get up by 15 or 16 points on the road in this league, that's like having a six-point lead. It can evaporate in a hurry just because it's so hard to play on the road in this league against the caliber of players you have to play against."
On going 0-8 on the road in the Big Ten last year and the poor free-throw shooting performance ...
"They remember last year. Last year's road trip wasn't a lot of fun. They got in at 3 o'clock and had to shoot some free throws. That's the first thing they asked me (after the game), if we were going to shoot free throws tonight, and I'm still not sure about it. We won, but the front-line guys may have to stay a little bit."
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
On failing to stop the strengths of Iowa's players ...
"We didn't stop them (Iowa) from doing, individually, what each one of those guys was good at."
On cutting Iowa's 16-point lead down to two late in the 2nd half...
"It wasn't necessarily that they (Iowa) played poorly at the end. They missed foul shots."
On shooting poorly from behind the arc...
"We've been stressing not taking too many three-point shots, and we take 25 three-pointers. That's my fault."
On his team getting tired late in the game and failing to convert...
"It seemed like we had about three or four situations in the second half where we had lay-ups, and they blocked the shot. We didn't seem to have any explosiveness."
On Glen Worley and Jared Reiner's active play in the paint...
"(Glen) Worley is very active on the offensive boards, and we weren't able to stop that. When they got the lead, it just seemed like he was everywhere. Same with (Jared) Reiner. He was going from one block to the other, and all of a sudden he had the ball."
