University of Memphis Athletics
Memphis Basketball Quotes vs Oklahoma State
Dec 13, 2014 | Men's Basketball
Recap |
Box Score |
Notes |
Joe Murphy Photo Gallery 
|
Photo Gallery
 |
Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner |
Overall Thoughts…
“You’ve got to give Oklahoma State a lot of credit. We had two halves with big-time scoring droughts. Turnovers and scoring droughts kill you. We missed so many point blank layups, those end up biting you on the rear end. We just have to get back to the drawing board for Monday and try to get better.”
On Markell Crawford’s injury…
“Markell has a sprained left knee. It was the opposite knee of where he had the ACL tear. He will be out until after Christmas. He’ll miss the next four games. The good news is it’s nothing more than a sprain.”
On the point guard position…
“Pookie gave us some good minutes in the first half. We’re trying to find someone to get the job done. It makes it really hard when you’re struggling at the point guard spot. We had a couple turnovers by the post because they didn’t meet the pass. Those turnovers bite us in the butt. The other thing that bites us in the butt are those scoring droughts. We would force a turnover which led to us turning the ball over. We have to get back to work. We will get better. We have four games before Christmas and we’re going to try to win all four.”
On the positives of tonight…
“The one positive for us is that we did a nice thing on the glass. We had 19 offensive rebounds. We just couldn’t finish around the hoop. When you’re having the scoring drought that we’re having that’s a major issue because you can’t find ways to score. We can’t give away those bunnies. Those are energy killers. They suck the morale out of you when you miss so many of those short shots. The biggest two issues are our turnovers, they had 25 points off turnovers, the second issue is the scoring droughts. Those are the two most severe things with our team right now. They’ve been an issue for us in every game except the Bradley game where we turned it over only eight times. We’re a work in progress. We’re going to have to get on a streak. That doesn’t mean we won’t have so more lows. The good news is the American is a wide open conference. We have to play our best basketball when we get into league play. We have four more games where we have to work to get better.
|
Sophomore Forward Austin Nichols |
On the second half…
“They started hitting shots. They would turn it over and we would go down and we would turn it back over. We wouldn’t get back quick enough and they were getting easy buckets. It snowballed from there.”
On the frustration of not hitting shots…
“It definitely affects you mentally. You really have to focus on the next play. All of these turnovers, they are terrible but it didn’t affect us until the other team scores, which Coach Kirby tells us almost every day. If you let it affect you negatively, mentally then you just have to keep pushing to the next play. ”
On taking a step backwards…
“I think we definitely took a step or two up this week in practice. It definitely stings losing, but we have to put this behind us and get ready for Monday.”
|
Sophomore Guard Pookie Powell |
On the game…
“I think the second half, we kind of slowed down a bit. First half we were making shots, but we missed a lot of layups. It’s something we can correct though. I think it has to do with us just being consistent. We needed to come out and play the same way we played against Bradley. Our consistency just needs to go up.”
On making sure the team stays consistent every game…
“If we keep doing the little things in practice and keep going hard like we do, it will carry over to the game. It was just one of those games we had. Everyone has one as a team. We will just get back into the gym tomorrow and work on getting better.”
|
Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford |
On Anthony Hickey’s performance….
“Anthony Hickey was a great leader today. He set the tone defensively. As a team, our defensive intent was off the charts, and that’s the best that it’s been. It’s great to see because that’s what we worked on all week. We practiced harder this week probably harder than we have for a prior game in a long time. It paid off for us because we saw a lot of positive habits that we’ve gotten away from. Anthony Hickey ran our team on the offensive end and set the tone defensively for us.”
On first half concern with Memphis’ offensive rebounds…
“We scrapped a little bit better in the second half, and we blocked a lot of shots around the rim when they had some open looks. That was big for us, and that can take your confidence away a little bit. You have to give Memphis credit. They are an athletic quick, aggressive to the ball team when it comes to offensive rebounding. We should’ve done a better job, but we didn’t secure a couple of rebounds that we had in our hands. Overall, I thought we played much better the second half rebounding than we did the first.”
On playing in FedExForum…
“I’m proud of how they responded in front of 15,000 people in a tough atmosphere, against a very talented basketball team. I loved that we never let up. We got a lead and we never let up. That’s something we’ve done a couple of times this year. For two halves, I was pretty pleased. We still have to take care of the basketball. I’m not happy with our assist to turnover ratio right now, and we have to rebound the ball better as a whole. I’m proud of our team though.”
