Opening Statement: "Yeah, what an awesome college basketball atmosphere and game. Iowa State's obviously got a great team, physical team, a mature team, and just TJ Otzelberger's done an awesome job. You can see the the grit that they play with, especially down the stretch. And man, I loved a lot of the things that we did as a team this afternoon, but when it got down to winning time and just the possessions as the game went on, I thought you could just sense their urgency of getting paint touches and putting us right next to the rim. We weren't making them shoot fade away threes to beat us. I mean, they really put it on us. Got to the free throw line and made them and then got got to the rim or got offensive rebounds. I mean, we did out rebound them, we turned it over 15 times. But just the way they caved us in, really was the difference in the game. Their physical downhill mentality, ability to turn us over and make us play away from the basket, and we had to make some pretty difficult shots and they were making shots at the basket. So give them all the credit, thought they came in here and beat us."
What did you see from Christian tonight?: "We've trusted him from the beginning. I mean, his ability to get in middle ball screens, and that's where Iowa State is a unique team. I mean, you don't want to play on the side of the floor against them, because they do such a good job of keeping it over there, and they bully you to the baseline with their size in all their positions. So we try to play in the middle of the floor. Christian is really good there, I mean he's special good there. The more we can get him involved in those actions in the middle of the floor, the better off we're going to be. What I love about Christian is he doesn't back down. I mean, you can go watch it back, he was throwing his body around in there at the end of the game as a freshman, and put his hands on some basketballs, like he dove on that ball that was a shot clock violation. That's what I love about him. He's one of those guys who loves to play. He'll play one on one if you want to. He's a basketball player in every sense. His best days are ahead of him."
How did Hawkins getting in foul trouble change your offense?: "With their ball pressure, it just give you that other ball handler that can get downhill. I thought he even made such a great play toward the end of the of the game, where he got him on their heels and pitched it back, and JT had a good look. I mean, it's just those kind of penetration against the game that applies that much physical play on the ball. You just got to be able to get in the paint, and his ability to do that and take the load off of us. Having him out of the game really hurt us."
You mentioned them caving you in, was there consideration of playing Fede defensively?: "Yeah, definitely there was I mean huge part of the game, and we talked about it just about and every time out. Especially with a timeout. Having him in the game for a rim presence. and, you know, for rebounding, and honestly, they had four guards for a majority of it. They went with a big lineup, kind of there at the very last one. But we thought we knew what they were going to be able to do and liked the matchup of it, and we basically said they're going to throw it in and throw it into the post, and D5 was on him, and we just didn't front it like we needed to and let them throw it in there. They just made it, got fouled. There was definitely consideration and it was strongly considered. Felt like we were going to roll with that group for offensive purposes."
Could you talk about the philosophy of the timeouts when you were ahead?: "The biggest thing was just to set our defense. I mean, you looking back at a few of these games we lack experience. Let's just take half time for example. You know, Christian Anderson was out there at the point and without Elijah Hawkins, and he jumped out of bounds to throw that ball in bounds before we were set up. It just feels like with this team, we don't have a lot of Big 12 experience at the guard positions, especially the ones that are out there, so it's helpful for us to be able to set our defense. And, man, we just needed one miss and to figure out a way, but you got to make people miss in this league, and didn't feel like we did that adequate enough."
What'd you see on the final play from Jefferson down low?: "I mean, they tried that to post up the inbounder, and it was just the last thing we said, just don't let the ball go into the post. Don't let him throw it into the post. Make him reverse it and make him throw a high low. And you know, they pitched the ball in and he just beat D5 to the spot, caught it and made a play at the basket."
Do you consider this taking a step back from what you guys did in Utah or just a setback for this game and you can take some stuff from it?: "You know what this is man, it's the Big 12 man. I mean, you better. You better take the things that are good. You better figure out. I know everybody's going to talk about the result. I look at the result. It's important. Winning and losing is what matters, and how we get judged in this but I just told them in the locker room, I gotta feel that we're still trying to decide if offense is going to dictate what we do defensively. I'm going off the intensity that it takes to win, win in this league, not win some games, but win the whole thing. There just has to be such a different level of urgency to how we compete on every possession, and I thought, we ran up against a team that does that for the most part, you know I mean I do think they got holes in some spots that we were able to take advantage of."
EDIT: I asked about Toppin's resolve to play through the injury but my recording has seemingly lost that portion of the audio. I will add the quote/video when Tech posts it on YouTube.
Prosper Energy Management is a mineral management company based in Dallas/Fort Worth with a Red Raider as a founding member. With over 35 years of experience in oil and gas management, Prosper provides full start-to-finish management, as well as tailored service, with the mission of serving their clients above all else. Prosper specializes in petroleum engineering, giving their clients that competitive edge when tackling the complexities of leasing, land & title, division orders, accounting, forecasting, etc
www.prosperenergymgmt.com
@Zacbash10
What did you see from Christian tonight?: "We've trusted him from the beginning. I mean, his ability to get in middle ball screens, and that's where Iowa State is a unique team. I mean, you don't want to play on the side of the floor against them, because they do such a good job of keeping it over there, and they bully you to the baseline with their size in all their positions. So we try to play in the middle of the floor. Christian is really good there, I mean he's special good there. The more we can get him involved in those actions in the middle of the floor, the better off we're going to be. What I love about Christian is he doesn't back down. I mean, you can go watch it back, he was throwing his body around in there at the end of the game as a freshman, and put his hands on some basketballs, like he dove on that ball that was a shot clock violation. That's what I love about him. He's one of those guys who loves to play. He'll play one on one if you want to. He's a basketball player in every sense. His best days are ahead of him."
How did Hawkins getting in foul trouble change your offense?: "With their ball pressure, it just give you that other ball handler that can get downhill. I thought he even made such a great play toward the end of the of the game, where he got him on their heels and pitched it back, and JT had a good look. I mean, it's just those kind of penetration against the game that applies that much physical play on the ball. You just got to be able to get in the paint, and his ability to do that and take the load off of us. Having him out of the game really hurt us."
You mentioned them caving you in, was there consideration of playing Fede defensively?: "Yeah, definitely there was I mean huge part of the game, and we talked about it just about and every time out. Especially with a timeout. Having him in the game for a rim presence. and, you know, for rebounding, and honestly, they had four guards for a majority of it. They went with a big lineup, kind of there at the very last one. But we thought we knew what they were going to be able to do and liked the matchup of it, and we basically said they're going to throw it in and throw it into the post, and D5 was on him, and we just didn't front it like we needed to and let them throw it in there. They just made it, got fouled. There was definitely consideration and it was strongly considered. Felt like we were going to roll with that group for offensive purposes."
Could you talk about the philosophy of the timeouts when you were ahead?: "The biggest thing was just to set our defense. I mean, you looking back at a few of these games we lack experience. Let's just take half time for example. You know, Christian Anderson was out there at the point and without Elijah Hawkins, and he jumped out of bounds to throw that ball in bounds before we were set up. It just feels like with this team, we don't have a lot of Big 12 experience at the guard positions, especially the ones that are out there, so it's helpful for us to be able to set our defense. And, man, we just needed one miss and to figure out a way, but you got to make people miss in this league, and didn't feel like we did that adequate enough."
What'd you see on the final play from Jefferson down low?: "I mean, they tried that to post up the inbounder, and it was just the last thing we said, just don't let the ball go into the post. Don't let him throw it into the post. Make him reverse it and make him throw a high low. And you know, they pitched the ball in and he just beat D5 to the spot, caught it and made a play at the basket."
Do you consider this taking a step back from what you guys did in Utah or just a setback for this game and you can take some stuff from it?: "You know what this is man, it's the Big 12 man. I mean, you better. You better take the things that are good. You better figure out. I know everybody's going to talk about the result. I look at the result. It's important. Winning and losing is what matters, and how we get judged in this but I just told them in the locker room, I gotta feel that we're still trying to decide if offense is going to dictate what we do defensively. I'm going off the intensity that it takes to win, win in this league, not win some games, but win the whole thing. There just has to be such a different level of urgency to how we compete on every possession, and I thought, we ran up against a team that does that for the most part, you know I mean I do think they got holes in some spots that we were able to take advantage of."
EDIT: I asked about Toppin's resolve to play through the injury but my recording has seemingly lost that portion of the audio. I will add the quote/video when Tech posts it on YouTube.
Prosper Energy Management is a mineral management company based in Dallas/Fort Worth with a Red Raider as a founding member. With over 35 years of experience in oil and gas management, Prosper provides full start-to-finish management, as well as tailored service, with the mission of serving their clients above all else. Prosper specializes in petroleum engineering, giving their clients that competitive edge when tackling the complexities of leasing, land & title, division orders, accounting, forecasting, etc
www.prosperenergymgmt.com
@Zacbash10
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