Northwestern University Athletics
Post-game Quotes
1/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 2, 2008
Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody
Opening statement...
"A team can't come in to your place and shoot close to 60 percent and they can't score 79 points against you. We've struggled with this most of the year. Teams usually shoot in the low 40's against us, which is OK. But now, teams are shooting closer to 50 percent against us and you can't win games that way. That was the most disturbing thing tonight. And [Craig] Moore getting two fouls early, we had an eight- or nine-point lead there and it seemed like when he went out, things got out of whack. And when he came back, he was out of whack. I just told our guys that we've got to work on our defense and really spend time on it to see if we can get any better. We're really undersized and I don't know if we can improve. We got it to 10 and then Jeff Ryan had a drive and it was a charge. Then they hit a three. Then three consecutive times they got it to [Jamelle] Cornley and [Geary] Claxton and those guys are just like men against boys and took it right to the basket. We had nothing to stop them. I thought they played very well. The start of the second half was clearly the difference, but to me, when Moore went down, I thought that really change the whole tenor of the game. We have a lot of work to do."
On the play of Michael 'Juice' Thompson...
"I told him at the end and I told the team that he had 17 points, but probably six or seven of them were at the end of the game when it was almost out of reach. I've seen a lot of guys do that, make shots in the end when it doesn't really matter. It's easier to make them in that situation, but I don't think that's the case with that kid. I'm taking some of the responsibility because I should have gone after him a little bit in a good way. Just tell him that when Craig went down, it got sloppy and Kevin [Coble] was in there and Jason [Okrzesik] was trying to run things. I said, 'that's your responsibility. You just have to go ahead and take the ball because that's what you do. Jason doesn't do that. Kevin doesn't do that. You run this team. It's your team. Go.' I want him to do that and you can see he pushes through drives and finishes some of these things, which is surprising. I have to do something more for him. It can't be a democracy. He's got to get the ball more and make plays. And only one turnover, I like that a lot. "
On the return of Kevin Coble...
"He was great. I thought he did fine. He was a little rusty around the edges. There were a couple of things he wasn't certain about because we've added some things. We've tried to bring him up to speed but it's a little hard. He's another guy that's over six foot. He was really red in the face and he played 20 minutes. But he can put the ball in the basket. He was trying a little hard out there. I think you could see that. He took a couple of bad shots. I said 'you don't miss that way when they're good shots. I've never seen you get the ball between the rim and backboard like that. Take good shots and that's good enough for me.'"
