Dec. 22, 2012
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Coach Alford Quotes vs. South Dakota State
Opening Statement…
“That was a tough one. We never got in sync all night. Our rhythm was bad I think from beginning to end. And they [South Dakota State] had a lot to do with that. It’s a very good basketball team. They play well together. The Wolters kid is the real deal and as good of a point guard as we’ve played all year. I compared to the Odum kid [Indiana State’s Jake Odum] with the jump shot and he proved that tonight. He really controlled the game for 40 minutes and did a really good job of running their team. You can tell that he’s their leader and that other guys play well off of him. And they deserved it. I though they played better than we did in a lot of different areas. It’s the first time we’ve been rebounded in a long time. So it was definitely a game they deserved.”
On possibly looking ahead to the Dec. 27 matchup with unbeaten Cincinnati…
“You can always look at those things. And we addressed that after the game. And if that’s what happened, that’s a really soft mentality. We’ve talked about it all year long: each 40 minute game is the most important game. And that’s what you’ve got to tackle and that’s what you’ve got to really focus and concentrate on. You can say the same thing: they’ve been on a bus for 19 hours trying to get from here from Nashville. Those aren’t excuses. Two teams had to play tonight and one team was a lot more focused than the other at both ends of the floor. And the undiscipline that we’ve had now here off the floor showed up on the floor tonight. Our offense was executed extremely poorly. Basically, they held us to the 50s. We threw in two bombs late, but this was a team that held us in the 50s on our home floor. I can give them a lot of credit defensively. But I also credit a real lack of execution offensively on our guy’s part.”
On South Dakota State guard Nate Wolters…
“That’s what really good players do. They have a really good feel for the game. We call it feel for the game. And I thought that’s his greatest strength. He’s got a tremendous feel for the game. You never see him out of control. We took a charge on him tonight and that might the first time he’s committed a charge in maybe eight games. He knows how to use his body. He’s very skilled with the ball. He comes up with those runners in the lane, or he makes a big three or he makes a big pass. Just all-around, a really nice player. He’s just very talented.”
South Dakota St. Head Coach Scott Nagy
On how his team handled its crazy travel schedule getting to Albuquerque …
I don’t know if anybody in the country has taken a harder road trip than this one here. I’m proud of our guys to come out of it 2-1. We played three NCAA (tournament) teams. We knew that bus trip would have no affect on how we played. It just wasn’t going to. We’re used to the bus trips. We weren’t going to use it as an excuse.
On his team’s game plan to stop UNM’s offense …
Just defend like we always do. We haven’t been great defensively, but we were relying on (the fact that) sometimes they just don’t shoot well. That’s just part of it. We’ve not shot well all year. We didn’t shoot well tonight from three. We took 25 and only made nine. That’s not good for us. The thing we did really in the second half is we rebounded the basketball. We didn’t give them many second shots.
On Nate Wolters play …
He’s really not healthy, that’s the thing, but today he had more juice than he’s really had in about the last five games. He was active emotionally, which is what we need from him, and he hasn’t been because the injury has affected him emotionally. But he was better today. We need to get him completely healthy because you can see what he means to our team. … I told him if I see what I’d seen the last few games then I was just going to sit him down. He couldn’t get by anybody; he had no burst. Maybe that’s just what he needed to decide to give his ankle a try, and he pushed his ankle today. He did pretty well.
On keeping Kendall Williams in check …
We didn’t do anything special. Our kids just worked hard to guard. He got to the free throw line too many times, but we didn’t do anything real special with him. We just guarded the way we’re supposed to guard.
On stopping UNM’s comeback attempts …
That’s what Nate is really good at, and so are our other players quite frankly. We’ve gone on the road the last five years and won a game like this. Our kids understand what it’s like to play in these situations, and I agree, I thought we answered well and never let them get the lead.
On holding the Lobos without a field goal for eight and a half minutes late in the second half …
Some of it was just them missing shots. They shot a lot of free throws. I’d prefer that we make them take shots and not foul them, but we obviously fouled them quite a bit. … They’re one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country. We did catch a break. In order for us to win a game like that, some of those things have to happen for us.
South Dakota’s Nate Wolters
On UNM’s guards…
“Most teams usually rotate guards on me and try to pressure me. Today my teammates did a great job of knocking down shots and we shot really well from the three. When we hit shots we are tough to beat.”
On the altitude and the long bus ride…
“Those both were definitely against us but the drive but the adrenaline kicks in, especially with the way that we started. When you get off to a good start that really helps.”
On the bus ride…
“It wasn’t very fun driving across the country especially after a loss and the way that we played on Wednesday. This is big for us.”
On how you were defended today…
“They are a good team and fortunate to get out of here with a win.”
UNM Player Quotes
On Wolters…
“Obviously, he is a very good player. You are a great player if you are scouted and then still perform like he did tonight. We tried hard and did all that we could. He made shots over the top of us and he was shooting it overhand. It is something that we need to adjust to. He was very similar to Odom from Indiana State who did really well on us. Great players are going to play well.”
On the sync of the team…
“I think there were patches but we need to put it together for a full forty minutes and that has been an issue this year. We have had our ups and downs throughout the game but we need to be able to perform for thirty minutes. I think our offense still needs a little bit of work because we are stagnant. We have struggled against zone but they didn’t play a zone tonight. It is the whole offense itself. Coach Neal puts in some great sets but when things break down we need to be able to make reads for ourselves.”
On looking past South Dakota to Cincinnati..
“No, we definitely were not. They were what was on our board and we respect our opposition. At the end of the day they played harder and wanted it more than us. They hit us first and tonight we weren’t able to respond. We have got some issues that we need to take care of and tired bodies but credit to them. They won the game.”
On the starting lineup…
“It threw us out of sync. You want your starting lineup and starts are very important. Tonight they jumped us at the start with a different lineup. We need to give credit to Pancake and Cam for doing what they did but we need Kendall and Chad to be in that starting lineup. Chad is a great starter and Kendall is the leader of our team. I think that they will respond in the right way and come back against Cincinnati.”
“Before questions I want to address why I didn’t start. Coach has his rules and disciplines and Chad and I didn’t follow them. I am sure he addressed them further but I don’t want to take anymore questions on that. As far as the loss goes most of it is on my hands and some on Chad in terms of not keeping it consistent. We have to move on and I take a lot of blame for it on and off the court. I need to pick it up. We have a few days off and we need to move on.”
On overlooking South Dakota…
“I don’t know if we were distracted. It was another game that we might not have had time or whatever it is to prepare for them and do what we need to do coming off the quick turnaround from the road. We have done it before with winning the mid-week game and then winning the weekend game and we didn’t execute today. It didn’t bounce our way tonight.”
On Wolters…
“He is good and made some tough off balance shots. When we did a good job on him he was still able to be elusive enough. He had the ball in his hands a lot. He has to make plays in order for his team to succeed and he did that tonight.”
On coming off screens…
“I’m not really tired. Another game with logging the minutes I normally log. It’ll be nice to have a few days off. A lot of guys play a lot of minutes and have responsibility on their shoulders so tired isn’t a word I would use.”
On the defensive game plan for Wolters…
“Nothing special was planned: crowd him on screens and make adjustments to ice. At the end of the day he is a basketball player and we are basketball players. He had a great night and a lot of guys made shots around him so I wouldn’t say that he single handedly beat us.”
On the flow of the game…
“I don’t think we ever got into a flow the entire night. We had it within five the entire game and they did a good job of being solid and making the right plays.”