Syracuse v. Maryland Eastern Shore
December 19, 2007
Carrier Dome – Syracuse, NY
Opening Statement:
This was an impressive game by our team. We came out and played strong and distributed minutes. We got everyone on the floor, everybody did something positive. I thought overall, our athleticism, and our speed, quickness, and our rebounding really took the game over. Defensively, we didn’t give them a whole lot of open looks, and I thought that was the biggest thing that we wanted to do – was not to give them open shots and to keep them down in three pointers. And, we played the zone the whole game and they shot 4 for 22, so I think that we did a pretty good job of getting out on the shooters.
On the team’s play in the first half:
We really just want to come out and be aggressive, and that’s our goal – to come out, and be aggressive, play at the rim, attack the basket. We didn’t shoot the ball well. We were1-for-12 from behind the arc, but all in all, we played a pretty aggressive game, and we played pretty tough. Our kids are playing really well, and I continue to give them all of the credit because we put a game plan in and they follow it to a ‘T’. When they can follow our game plan in that manner, we’re going to be pretty good.
On the team’s aggressive play:
Every possession is important, so we really want to get out and be aggressive for 40 minutes, no matter what the lead is. It’s not about showing anybody up. It’s about developing the attitude of playing hard for every minute you’re on the floor. We want to play a complete game, and I thought that tonight, we did that.
On equaling last year’s win total:
It feels good just to be winning. We’ve just been going along and taking it one game at a time, and it’s very humbling, honestly. We just talk about being humble in our locker rooms. This could be different. We could not be winning these basketball games, so we’re very humbled by it because this could be totally different. I think that our kids are really stepping up and playing aggressive, and they’re being strong, and that’s why we’re winning basketball games right now.
On the team’s confidence level:
We’re very confident that when we play 40 minutes that we’re a pretty good basketball team. That’s what we’ve been trying to do, we’ve been trying to put a full game together. I still don’t think we put a full game together, because we had so many turnovers in the first half, so there are a few things we have to work on. A lot of our turnovers, we were just being unselfish. We were overpassing. I don’t think a lot of them were steals or throwing the ball away – a lot of them were just overpassing. When you overpass, and don’t take advantage of your scoring opportunities, it leads to turnovers.