Postgame Quotes - Ohio 61, Maryland 55
12/12/2007 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 12, 2007
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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
Opening Statement:
"I thought their inside players did a great job of beating us to the ball, getting in position to catch the ball and catching it when they threw some tough passes. You combine that with them out-rebounding us and that's certainly a bad combination. Why we start like we do is something we need to figure out. We have some time to work on some things now."
On how he and the team will handle the loss:
"One of the satisfactions you get as a coach, if you've been at a place for a while, is the players that are 30 years old who played for you, [Tony] Massenburg, Walt Williams, people like that. They come back and they show their appreciation. They [have a great] feeling about that period of their lives. No matter how many years you play professionally or how successful you are in business, you can't get them back. You get four years of college; being a college basketball player. When it's a great experience, it stays with you for the rest of your life. You try to get that feeling into every team and we have to find that with this team. There are no excuses. We have to play better basketball."
On flow of the game:
"Tonight we didn't shoot it great obviously, but it wasn't that. Ohio was the more energetic team. We allowed them to dictate the whole game. We made a nice run at the end, but that's not what we're here for. We're here to win."
On team's offense:
"We were really sluggish with our offense. They beat us to balls. We have to play at a high level this year to be successful. That's what we have to work toward during the next ten days."
Maryland Senior James Gist
On the game:
"We just didn't come out ready to play, plain and simple. There's no other answer to it. We didn't come out with the intensity we needed to win this game. That's what happens in college basketball, you lose games like that."
On losing two games in a row:
"You wouldn't expect it. We knew what they were fully capable of. This is a huge step back. For those that watch college basketball, this is a huge step back to have two losses on your home court early in the season. For us, we have 10 days to think about this until our next game, so it's tough."
Maryland Senior Bambale Osby
On the team's intensity level:
"Everybody comes to practice every day, so everybody's working hard. I can't see where that's an issue."
On if this loss is the toughest loss he's had:
"Pretty much. Coach said earlier that they hadn't beaten anybody with an RPI in the top 150 and then they come in and beat us on our home court, that's tough."
On where the team will go from here:
"We just have to bounce back. We have to learn to start our games better. We just have to get better as a team. This is a good opportunity for us to learn from a loss. We have exam week coming up, so we have a few days off. Guys can rest, get themselves back together and we can move on."
Ohio Head Coach Tim O'Shea
On the game:
"This was a great win for us. We made some mistakes at the end. We almost imploded. Fortunately, we made some free throws which allowed us to close it out. We had a couple of bad turnovers and a couple of bad possessions down the stretch. I think that's how it is when you play these types of games, the players start to get a little tight, nervous, and don't execute as well. This should be a confidence boost for us."
On his relationship with Gary Williams:
"It was 25 years ago that I played for him at Boston College. He also gave me the chance to be his graduate assistant. He was very complimentary towards our team. He showed a lot of class. I know he's disappointed. This is a tough loss for him, when he's got the ACC schedule in front of him. As a coach I can definitely feel for Gary in this situation."
On Ohio's upcoming game against Kansas:
"This gives us momentum going into the game against Kansas. We've got to finish the game better than we did today. We had some defensive lapses, some bad turnovers down the stretch, but we did enough good things to win this game. We've got to make an improvement between now and Saturday, but I think we're physical enough to rebound with Kansas. I hope this gets their attention, and they might take us more seriously than they would have before this win. It will be great for our conference to make a good showing against Kansas, and our guys certainly think we can win."
On Ohio's game plan:
"We concentrated on three things. We had to break the pressure, play transition defense, and rebound. We did all three tonight. For most of the game we handled the pressure well."
