Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern Mens Basketball -- Minnesota v Northwestern Postgame Quotes
2/6/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 6, 2008
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Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody
Opening statement...
"We played pretty decent man-to-man against Indiana and then Indiana switched to zone and made a difference on Sunday. Tonight, Minnesota started out in zone. We got some pretty good looks and we were hanging with them. We were up 18-16 and missed two foul shots. Then they went man-to-man after that and we didn't change gears from zone offense back to man-to-man. [Spencer] Tollackson really hurt us in the beginning, sort of had his way with us. We were letting him get the ball down there and when you start going in on that, their shooters started getting open looks because of the strength that they had inside. They passed the ball around very nicely and each guy did what he was supposed to do. The second chance points that they got helped. The first half was like 22-5 rebounds so it's tough to win with that kind of statistic."
On the team's attitude during the game...
"I don't think we gave up. I just think that we couldn't stop them. We tried to play a little 2-3 match-up, some 1-3-1, but they were just moving the ball around very nicely and getting some good looks. In the last six minutes, I said 'let's just go man-to-man and see if we can just have some accountability here for this.' They were getting too many good looks and with the good looks they were knocking them down."
On the play of sophomore Jeremy Nash...
"He's been playing the last five or six games very well so he's just getting more and more time. Remember he didn't practice for the first two months of the season with a bad back. He's come in and now he's playing because he's healthy and he feels good. Jeremy's a pretty good player and if we go man-to-man, I think he can defend pretty decently too. He's progressively gotten more time as he's produced."
On Northwestern's defense...
"I was trying to figure this out at halftime. We lost [Tim] Doyle and Vince Scott and how did our defense change so much? I don't understand it but I know we have to do something about it, whether it's go man-to-man or press and fall back into something because Minnesota knew what they were doing and they executed and a lot of teams have been doing that to us. Maybe we have to give them less time by picking it up a little bit so they have less time to attack us in the half court."
Minnesota Quotes
Opening Statement...
"We felt like it was an important game for us tonight, after coming out and taking a real beating at the hand of the Wisconsin Badgers. I thought our kids were very focused tonight. We made shots early on ... I thought our guys were tough. We had good balance tonight, and it was important that we moved the ball. Obviously, Northwestern does a good job at making you have to pick and probe, and I thought was why we're were able to find people open."
On the play of Spencer Tollackson...
"Spencer got us started the right way by attacking the basket, making his free throws, and then some good defensive work inside. When Spencer is able to get the ball close to the basket he's much more effective. Tonight, he had the size, he had the bulk, and so he had the advantage that we needed."
On the rebounding of his guards...
"We've been harping on our guards, and against a team like the Wildcats, their long shots mean long rebounds. So our guards really have to chase down a lot of those long rebounds. They realize that we challenge them to make themselves go get the ball. That's something we've been struggling with all year, but we showed some improvements tonight."
On his team response to the loss at Wisconsin...
"After playing horrible, we've seemed to be able to respond and recover the right way. I thought that was the case tonight. We've played some very tough teams as well. Four of our five losses have been against teams that are ranked. So we know we're not as bad as we played at Wisconsin, and we're not as good as we looked tonight. We're somewhere in between there, as long as we can find some consistency, and that's what we did tonight."
