Nov. 25, 2012
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UNM vs. Portland November 25, 2012
Head Coach Steve Alford
Opening Statement…
“It must be basketball season if the Steelers are loosing to the Browns, football must be over. Obviously, it wasn’t pretty. When you don’t make shots, things don’t get very pretty. We went 10 for 20 [from three-point range] against Idaho but I didn’t think our defense was where we needed to be. I probably jinxed the team because one of the things that I told them in the locker room beforehand was you are going to have nights where you don’t make things and that happens throughout a season but what has to be consistent is your defense. It probably was my fault and I jinxed them and because we didn’t make a lot of shots. I thought our half court defense was really good tonight. I thought we took a lot of things away and made it hard on them on their three-point defense. They only made one three tonight. We did a great job on the backboard so defensively we did a lot of good things. I thought their mixing of defenses got us a little out of sync and we have got to work on that in practice because other teams will do more of that to take us out of man a little bit. We need to work on that and help the guys understand what we want to do. I am obviously very please with all the travel that we have had to do. They are getting a very deserved day off tomorrow. Our last day off we traveled 15 hours and that’s not really a day off and they need it. We will get ready for Mercer on Tuesday who we saw a lot of in the islands.”
On Alex Kirk…
“They were big and very physical. I like what Cam and Alex did. This was another night where they both had career highs in rebounds. When you get 22 rebounds out of that position and 23 points every night you are going to keep getting better. Those two guys are doing a lot of work inside, having fun and making foul shots. Cam was 9 out of 10 on the line tonight and he was a fifty percent foul shooter last year. He is over 80 for the year. It has been really good seeing their development.”
On the perimeter defense…
“I can’t speak for their coach but I think that has been a big issue for them anyway. They have been an inside and a transition team. Our transition defense wasn’t very good in the first half and that had a lot to do with our shot selection and poor execution of what we wanted to do offensively. I thought in the second half we took away their transition game and really tried to pressure but not be driven to where they got wide open three’s. The only three that they hit was by number fifteen (Derrick Rodgers) and I told our guys that if he makes a three, it’s on me. I really thought that he wanted to drive the ball and that was what he was good at. The one three they got tonight was on me. So it was really a tough game for me; I gave up the three and I jinxed the guys in shooting so those were two big issues that I need to correct.”
On Kendall Williams not being in the starting lineup…
“Both Kendall and D-Walk were late to a team meeting so that is the reason why Kendall was out of the starting lineup and why Walk instead of being the sixth man was down in the line on rotation. I thought they responded very well. That is what college is all about. You make mistakes and there are consequences. They had their consequences and now that is over and they have moved on. Hopefully we won’t have that issue again.”
On the start of the second half…
“It is like what I have told the team: I need to raise my voice more and get crazy before the game. It seems like at halftime when I do that then things change. It’s not particularly good for my health but we need to continue to work. Tonight was a little different with the start but I didn’t mind my start. We had a new starting lineup tonight because of the disciplinary actions. I didn’t mind our start at all. From about 10 minutes until the end of the half was when I didn’t like what we were doing offensively and defensively. The second half the guys really came out and established themselves very early and that is a trait of a good team. You have to do that coming out of the locker room and we were able to do that tonight.”
On the start of the game…
“I didn’t have a problem with tonight’s start, I thought the start tonight was fine. We missed good shots and as long as we take good shots and miss them I have no problem with that. We were 2-for-19 from the three-point line tonight and only two of those shots were bad. Those things are going to happen, I don’t mind missed shots that are good shots. It is when you don’t shot up with effort and don’t show up to guard then those become issues. We haven’t had that in six games. We have had shooting issues and different breakdowns with efficiency with offense and those types of things. They have brought great effort and when you do that you are going to give yourself a chance to win. We held a team to 32 percent shooting and 54 points. We beat them nine on the backboard and turned them over 16 times. Their leading scorer only had 11. We did a lot of good things defensively and when you do that you have a chance to win on nights when you don’t shoot the ball well. We have two new starters and there is a lot that goes into a season. As we are learning, improving and getting better its nice to be sitting here at 6-0.”
On Chad Adams’ response to starting…
“He has responded very well and is doing a lot of good things for us. I think he is running the floor the way we want him to and stretching defenses because of it. He is battling. He did it against UConn and they were huge and came back here to do it against two teams with big power forwards and has done a good job. Nicholas was averaging around 15 and 9 coming in here and he gets 8 and 9. I thought he did a really good job on him for the most part. We were big/big for a while but I thought Chad has done a lot of positive things for us.”
New Mexico senior Guard Jamal Fenton
On the first half…
“The first half was a little sluggish because it wasn’t our usual starting lineup, but we held it to a close game. Then, when the real starting lineup came in the second half, coach really got in to them and they came out and played.”
On the team’s second-half performance…
“Coach always preaches that we need to play 40 minutes and we haven’t played a full game yet, but the last 20 minutes have been good for us in these six games.”
On the team still being 6-0 even with sloppy points in the game…
“It’s all about our teammates. Somebody might have a bad game and the next man off the bench might have a better game and that is what teammates are for.”
On only allowing one three pointer in tonight’s game…
“Coach has preached all week about ball pressure and that Portland was decent at shooting from the three, so we just stepped up our ball pressure so their shooting guards couldn’t hit anything.”
On his 13 shots and 1 assist…
“They were just open, and sometimes the ball doesn’t go in. Next game it will go in.”
On what he knows about Mercer…
“We saw them at the Paradise Jam and they played a really good game against George Mason. They had them down the whole game and then George Mason some how pulled it out. Coach told us though, that Mercer didn’t have their all-star point guard, and he should be back for our game. We’ll just be prepared for them. We saw them play over there, we know their faces and we’ll just be prepared for them.”
Redshirt sophomore forward Alex Kirk
On whether or not he’s answered the questions people had about how UNM’s middle/bigs would be this season…
“I don’t’ know that I’ve necessarily taken care of that. I mean, I’m playing hard and getting better each game. Everybody keeps telling me I just have to keep getting better and the big key right now has just been rebouding. I haven’t jumped ahead of Cam (Bairstow) or anything, because our minutes are still pretty much the same.
Sometimes I get a little bit more, sometimes he gets more. It’s one of those things that we just need to keep working at. We got to play together a little bit more tonight because Portland went with two bigs and I thought we worked together really well.”
On the team’s offense improving and appearing to have more chemistry…
“We don’t go against a zone defense a ton and we’ve been zoned quite a bit the last few games, so it’s something that we’ve continued to be able to face. A lot of teams have also been pressuring us, just to slow us down getting in to our offense, so that has been a process of working on that. We’re learning how to engage – when to flash and where to flash in a zone. It’s just a process that we’re going to keep working on. As long as teams keep zoning us, we’re just going to have to start hitting some shots, but also keep engaging the zone and finding the open guy.”
On whether or not they’ll actually ever play a “complete” game…
“Oh yeah. It’s early. Coach always says that the sky is the limit and we have a ton of potential and head room to keep improving every single game. That is what we’re going to keep doing. We’ve had how many games in so many days, so it’s been quick and we haven’t had a ton of time to sit back and watch film, but we’re just going to keep improving and I think we have. I think each and every player has improved and we just have to keep getting better and the 40 minutes will come. Hopefully it comes when we get to conference play and we’re playing better teams.”
On how the team is preparing for Mercer…
“Well the most important thing is that we need a day off. Tomorrow will be a day off and we can catch up on school. We only saw a little bit of them playing against George Mason at the end, so we’ll take our day off and catch up on school and then get back to it on Tuesday. I think the coaches are pretty prepared for us. They saw Mercer play three games, so that will be a good scouting report.”
On whether the team has talked about being ranked…
“It’s a goal. It’d be crazy for a team to say they didn’t want to be ranked. We see San Diego State and UNLV up there, but it’s nothing we can control. We’re New Mexico . We’re putting our name out there, we’re winning games, we’re 6-0, so we just have to keep winning games and keep playing hard and getting better. It really doesn’t matter if you’re ranked now, I think it matters more at the end of the season. That’s when it matters the most. We just have to continue to improve.”
On the difference in play in the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half…
“Things started to click. We didn’t take as many bad shots. We got the ball inside a little bit more and got a couple of open shots and then they just weren’t really able to hang with us. And, once you get the crowd in to the game, it’s tough for the other team. Portland was kind of gasping for air after that first four minutes. That’s what we have to keep doing. We just have to keep getting that to happen in the first ten minutes of the game and we’ll have more first-half success.”
On the chemistry between him and Kendall Williams…
“It’s definitely something we’ll just have to keep working on. Kendall is a great player. He’s the quickest – I can’t keep up with him, so sometimes that’s something I need to be more aware of. I have to figure out where he can see me and where I can help him. He wants to get to the hole, we need him to score we need him to get fouled and get shots so whenever I can help him out to set a screen and roll and get open for him it’s just going to help him. If I can get a couple of open shots, then the next play the roll is going to be open for him to get to the rim. I think it’s just one of those things we’re going to have to build up and that goes for the whole team. The chemistry is just going to get better and better.”