Dec. 10, 2008
Recap |
Final Stats
Penn State Head Coach Ed DeChellis
On the offense without Stanley Pringle:
"We're missing some open shots. We're not shooting well from the three. You have to make some open shots to loosen things up inside, and we really haven't done a great job of that. We're not getting transition hoops without him (Stanley Pringle). We have to get better. We have to get back in the flow and score some easy baskets."
On the offensive effort as a team:
"We've talked until we're blue in the face about cutting, and we've tried to spread the floor to allow Talor to penetrate. We try to pass and cut, pass and cut. We just stand and watch the ball out. We look like we're a tired team and that's my fault, not playing more guys. But we have more juice in practice. We've played better offensively in practice than we do in the game and that's frustrating. The last seven or eight minutes I thought we played the way we've been practicing, penetrating and kicking and getting open shots."
On Army's defense:
"They're a very good defensive team. We knew that coming in. They're physical. They don't want you to score much inside. They double and triple the post. They make you take perimeter jump shots. That's their thing. I thought we were good defensively. We only gave up 45 points and they shot 38 percent. That's as low as they shot all year and we defended them very well, and I'm really happy about that. I thought our guys settled in and played tough defensively, we just couldn't get the good shots up."
On David Jackson's offensive struggle:
"He's had a couple tough nights offensively and we've talked about that as a staff. We've got to figure out how we're going to get him the ball a little more, how he's going to be more effective for us. That's a concern. We can't have him play 28 minutes for us and get one point off the free throw line. He's got to get fouled. He's got to get to the free throw line. And he's got to score. So we've got to figured out how we're going to get him to flow."
On Mount St. Mary's:
"They're good and they're athletic. It'll be a completely different style of game. We'll be up and down their perimeter one, two and three are very good. They spread the floor, and they drive you so we're going to have to play well defensively to try to contain them."
PENN STATE PLAYER QUOTES
Danny Morrissey
On what was said in the locker room:
"It was a little quiet. We knew we played well defensively, and we didn't give them a lot of points. We gave them some easy stuff, but we just talked about how we needed to stay the course, keep grinding it out. We were gonna get some stuff offensively. Talor did a great job in the second half, sharing the ball, getting in penetrating. We knew what we had to do."
On his effectiveness in scoring:
"I've been practicing, trying to put the ball on the floor. I know people are flying at me. They know I'm going to shoot the three. I'm trying to be a little more multi-dimensional. They were going for my shot fakes. I just took what the defense gave me tonight, and I obviously didn't shoot well from the three so I had to find another way to score. When you have a guy like Stanley out who's giving us a bunch of points every night I had to try to pick up the slack."
On the overall feel of the game:
"We didn't get it going offensively. We're doing a good job defensively. We weren't making shots. We had a lot of open looks we just didn't knock them down. We knew they were going to play hard. When you come from a military school you expect them to play hard-nosed tough people. We expected them to give us their best effort. It's kind of a break for them I'm sure to get off their campus, so we knew they were going to give us their best shot."
Talor Battle
On why the team struggled offensively:
"We were just kind of standing there, second game straight. Just looking around at the next guy, watching him go one-on-one instead of cutting. Going into the game coach kept talking about how they love to take charge. Sometime when we were running down the court and they would try to fall over the guy without the ball, so that made me hesitant early in the game as far as penetrating, but coach said to keep going, but go under control."
On his re-entry in the second half:
"I was just anxious to get on the floor. I told the trainer, `My team needs me,' so he just wrapped it up so I could get back out there. I went back out I was trying to press and penetrate defensively, never mind the scoring. I made a couple steals. I got the ball on a rebound pushing it down for a basket. And I knocked the ball out of the guys hand on the 35-second shot clock violation. So I was more happy with the defensive effort."
Army Coach Jim Crews
Q: It was close for about 35 minutes, what happened in the last five?
A: They did a good job on defense. I thought they had a pretty consistent defense. We had a hard time getting the ball in the bucket throughout the game and I think it showed up. Then I think we kind of gave in at the end defensively and they got some easy buckets from their standpoint, easy from our standpoint. And kind of just broke the dam.
Q: What were you trying for going into this game?
A: They're a little thin right now. I know they're hurt with some things. But Battle is a really good player so we wanted to concentrate on him. They did a good job on getting the ball inside and we knew that we'd have problems on the board, which I'm sure we ended up having problems on the boards. I can't say we had a lot. We've been struggling, we've been trying, operative word, getting our act together. They're good inside. Coach does a great job, so I really admire the program and the way they go about it. They've got good kids that work hard and they're fighting a little adversity with the injuries right now. When they've got two other guys in there, they're fast. They're not obviously as fast with only one of them.
