Dec. 6, 2012
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UNM vs. USC December 5, 2012
UNM Head Coach Steve Alford
Opening statement…
“I am extremely proud of the team. We have a lot going on, we have talked about our travel and the competition that we are playing. In college now, it is really two weeks of finals with papers being due. I am really proud of our team. We had great effort and the pace of our intensity was even up a level tonight maybe because we started making some shots tonight. With about five minutes to go in the first half to five minutes to go in the game that was twenty minutes of really high intensity basketball for us and that was good to see. It was good to see some guys make some shots because they have been working awfully hard on those types of things. We had plus eight on the glass tonight while playing the biggest team that we have played all year there were a lot of positives.”
On the first half run…
“It was a big run, I think we had another run in the second half that wasn’t as big. We were down ten and you end up going up nine at the half so you have a nineteen point turn around in one half. We are up nine and then build it to seventeen, when you do that at home there are a lot of things that have to go wrong to be caught. USC did a good job of continuing to play extremely hard and our guys had to adjust to some of the zone and that kind of thing. We got a little stagnant with that and allowed them to get back in. Our turnover transition has got to get better. I thought Pancake came off the bench and gave us a huge lift in the first half. I know that doesn’t show up a lot in the stats but it was a big lift. Cam got in foul trouble early so we had to play Alex way too many minutes tonight and need to get him some rest in the next 48 hours before we play again. Kendall was terrific at both ends. Hugh really started to make a lot of shots and do other good things as well.”
On Alex Kirk…
“He just keeps getting better and better and we were playing against a seven footer and he gets thirteen and thirteen. We have talked about what he can do here as a big and in my mind he was the best big on the floor. He did a lot of good things for us, logged a lot of minutes and made some big key plays for us.”
On Hugh Greenwood…
“Hugh is a tough guy and tough shooting nights aren’t going to bother him. One thing that you have to remember is that he scored eight in overtime vs. Indiana [State]. He didn’t shoot the ball particularly well but in the last five minutes he started making shots. Coach Neal told him that since he has hit his head on the floor versus Indiana State that he has started making shots and there has been a little bit to that. Since that head knock he has made a lot of shots.”
On USC’s shooting and adjustments to the defense…
“We didn’t make a whole lot of adjustments, we were just hoping that they wouldn’t continue shooting the way they were. They were seven out of eight shots every time they shot. I think we had some early turnovers, some missed shots that they ran out of on us and got some transitions. That is a credit to them. They started hot and if there was any adjustment it was done by the players. We wanted to trap early and that wasn’t a bad thing. We made some adjustments on how we guarded ball screens in the post. Our guys settled down a little bit and made it a little harder and we started to make some shots. When you are down 28-18 that isn’t easy and it was Davidson-like. We just went on a different run this game than during Davidson.”
On the early play from both post players…
“We weren’t going to stay with that long. What I didn’t want happening was that the first four or five minutes they come at Alex or come at Cam and they get in foul trouble. Cam got in foul trouble early. One was a bad foul and one I didn’t think they fouled but he got two quick fouls and got out of rhythm. That’s why I didn’t mention Nick because I thought he came in during the first half with some energy when we really needed it because we were down one big. The trapping was to stay out of foul trouble.”
On the shooting percentages…
“We shot 52 percent and we have been shooting 40 percent. Our defense was solid against a team that shot the ball pretty well tonight. They are a physical team and I thought our turnovers were pretty good. We had more assists than turnovers. They are at least at the center spot going to be the biggest team that we are going to play and we out rebounded them. They only had three offensive rebounds. They were obviously very concerned with our transition game. When you are concerned with that you are going to give something else up and during the second half the shots are what they gave up. We really told our guys that during the second half that they aren’t going to the glass because they are afraid of your transition, get the initial stop and you will be ok. It was two teams that shot the ball well and to the fans that is a prettier game because there are more shots being made. I will have to look at the tape to see if that had anything to do with our defense or not. It was good to see a lot of our guys shoot the ball well and have success that way.”