Northwestern University Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
1/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2006
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
Opening statement...
"This is a very disappointing loss. We did not practice well the last two days and before then I cannot remember a bad practice in the past two weeks. When you have a team down 30-19 you have to put them away. We let them back in the game in the second half. They just outscrapped and outhustled us and deserved to win the game. They made big shots and seemed to get every loose ball. Our guys were bending over to pick up the ball while they got on the ball and took it away. We have seen zone defense the past ten games and know what to expect. Once again we shot a lot of three-pointers. We average around 19 a game and tonight we shot 27. One of the goals we had tonight was to get the ball inside."
On Vedran Vukusic's lack of scoring opportunities in the second half...
"It is possible that we were not looking for him enough. Teams know who he is and will not leave him open."
On the team's three-point shots down the stretch...
"Vince (Scott) had not taken a shot all night, but he was wide open. Bernard's (Coté) shot was a set out-of-bounds play and I thought that Vedran's shot from right in front of our bench was a good shot that was three-quarters of the way down but just stayed out."
On Penn State's zone defense...
"Right from the outset they played a lot of zone. We did well against their man defense. Eventually they found what they wanted to do against us."
On the possibility that his team was overconfident due to the five-game winning streak...
"They are not good enough to be overconfident. We have split with Penn State the past few seasons. We missed a lay-up to start, were sloppy with the ball and Penn State had a lot of open shots. So I guess it is a possibility."
On Penn State's offensive rebounding...
"Every team seems to get a lot of offensive rebounds against us and they had a lot of them tonight. It is just about boxing out and getting to the ball. You have to give them credit; they have some tough nuts in there. Like I said, they just outscrapped us."
On Mohammed Hachad's first game back...
"You could tell he was a little rusty. He got some minutes and did all right. We seemed to have a lot of problems when I substituted players in. We were unable to get to the spot on defense and guys were really tentative on shots."
On losing a Big Ten game at home...
"We just gave back the Minnesota game and that is what I told the guys in the locker room. It (Minnesota) is certainly not an easy place to play. Tonight we just did not play well all around."
Penn State Head Coach Ed DeChellis
On Penn State's three-point shooting...
"To be honest with you, we didn't really use any in shooting practice. We really couldn't make a basket in shooting practice today. Talking about being very nervous after we shot-we were clanging them all over the place. So I said the positive was that we didn't waste any today in shooting practice, maybe we'll have a couple tonight. I thought our guys shot the ball pretty well, obviously from three. I thought we generated a lot of offense off the offensive glass. We really rebounded the ball well-14 offensive rebounds, a couple stick backs off of those and some fouls and free throws. So I thought three-point shooting was important for us and I thought the offensive rebounded was really important for us."
On Northwestern forward Vedran Vukusic...
"Well, you know, he's a great player. We were a little disappointed in our defense in the first half because he got as many shots off as he did. He made a couple tough ones in the first half and he got off a couple open shots. We needed to get closer to him and get a hand up because he's a great player and he's going to make shots. I felt like in the first half he had some uncontested open shots and he's too good of a player to give open shots to."
