Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
2/24/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
Opening Statement...
"We did not get beat on the boards tonight and that was really important. On the blackboard we write that if we do not get outrebounded we can hang with these guys. They had some shots that they normally make but did not tonight. We got a good start from Vedran (Vukusic), and after that Mohamed (Hachad) took over. It was a good team effort. (Michael) Jenkins was very good defensively. It seemed like he was all over the court. I am glad we were able to beat such a good team; we really needed that. We have not been able to get over the hump, but we have been playing and practicing well."
On Vedran Vukusic's status before the game...
"He had some pretty bad stomach problems before the game. We figured he would wear down a little bit, and it looked like he did. There are so many timeouts these days that you are on the bench almost every two minutes. Whenever he came over to the bench I would tell him, 'Drink a lot of water and you will be ok'."
On Mohammed Hachad's play toward the end of the season...
"He has surprised me for four years. He was terrific out there from the get-go, cutting hard and doing things. He is a risk-taker, and it turned out well for us tonight."
On defending home court...
"We have not done that well this year. We lost to Penn State, Michigan State and Illinois here. In all of those games we did not play very well. It is important that we play well now. I liked our practices the past three days and I liked the way we played against Ohio State. If we can hang in on the boards with these teams we have a chance to continue to play well."
On changing the offensive gameplan throughout the game...
"You try to run some stuff and see if we can get the ball in Mo's (Hachad) hands in certain situations. The matchups were pretty good for him tonight."
Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan
On each team's success on their home floor in this series...
"It's a tale of two games. At our place, we had some guys step up and hit some shots. Here we didn't. We took them out of their offense at our place. But (on the road) each team got out of sync on the offensive end."
On Mohamed Hachad's ability to get to the basket...
"Everybody knows about his slashing. He's pretty good at that and he's healthy now. He delivered. He's pretty tough."
On Alando Tucker missing practice earlier this week...
"I'm not going to make excuses, 'Lando' played hard, but timing-wise, I think he would admit that he was a little off. But that's not the reason for the outcome of the game."
On not applying full-court press earlier...
"That's not our strength. When a team is holding the ball and they get a little tentative like Northwestern, it's easier to press. But if you do that with 15 minutes to go and extend your defense-we'd like people to do that to us so we can play off of their aggression."
On the lack of offense...
"We didn't move well, but when you do get a look, you've got to make something happen. We had some drives to the basket where we shot some floaters-shots that I've never seen before. But you can't get those back."
On Northwestern's ability to get to the free throw line...
"We got inside a few times and when you do that, you've got to deliver. Then when you get fouled and go to the line you've got to make shots. They made 15 in a row. They didn't miss the last nine and a half minutes from the free throw line. But the key is, don't get behind. Then you don't have to foul."
