Nov. 17, 2009
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Maryland Quotes
On Maryland's defense:
"I was pleased with our defense tonight. I thought our defense kept us in the game. We're starting to get it, how hard you have to work to be a good defensive team. To be able to hold them to 28 percent (shooting) is good. You can't depend on the defense to force turnovers all the time that lead you to scores. You have to run your half-court offense."
On practice this week:
"The emphasis in practice for the next two days before we play New Hampshire is to run a better half-court offense. It all comes back to half-court offense and half-court defense to win games. It has to be there, and our half-court offense has a long way to go."
On Fairfield's defense:
"They did a good job of confusing us. They took us out of our sets because they kept switching defenses quite a bit out there. You don't usually see that this early, but having been through it is good and we'll learn a lot from this game."
On Eric Hayes:
"I thought he really played well. There was a certain toughness out there. He is such a study player that sometimes what he is doing gets overlooked. He looked really calm when things weren't calm. He settled us down and set the offense."
On Sean Mosley stealing and rebounding more:
"You're not supposed to stay the same. You have to get a player like Sean who is willing to work hard. You got to have a guy who's willing to work in the off-season and listen. Listening is a big thing, and Sean listens. He's just gotten better, and there is no doubt about it."
On Maryland's play in the second half:
"With an eight-point game at halftime, the game is not over. You have to play really hard coming out of the locker room and that's two straight games we've played pretty well coming out in the second half. I thought we played better and we were more aggressive offensively. If we can play eight or nine players, then we can wear a team down. That's part of the strategy, to try to keep the pace of the game up."
On Greivis Vasquez's shooting:
"He's getting his looks. He's a marked man. He's gotten enough publicity this summer with where he will be picked on the All-America team. He's got to handle that, and that's what this part of the season is for, to learn how he can still be really good. He's a great player, and some of the passes he made tonight were just incredible. It makes us tough to cover and once his shots start to go in, he's fine. I'd rather him miss now then miss later."
On the improved rebounding tonight:
"We just put a big emphasis on it at practice. It's something that we usually work on. After the scrimmages we really started talking about that a lot, because Coach didn't feel like we went after it as hard as we did last year. I think it's one of the good signs of us turning it around as far as defense. He was really proud of that tonight and if we could keep that up that would be good for us."
On what changed after the first half:
"I think Eric [Hayes] pretty much brought us up a little bit. When he came and attacked and hit those shots for us that kind of got our other guys into it. Once we settled down and started running our offense a lot more we got better a better shot selection... The second half was real good but the first half is something we're going to have to work on a lot. I think the first 10 minutes were real sloppy and in the second half we started to get a little bit more into it. We just have to learn to start off games the right way."
On the first half:
"We did a good job on defense, we just couldn't score. I don't think it was so much them stopping us as us being sloppy and just taking it for granted, thinking that we could score whenever we want which sometimes is not the case. Sometimes you have to run your offense and once we realized that we did ok."
On being in the Top 25:
"It doesn't really matter at this point. It's always great to be ranked, to be noticed as one of the Top 25 teams in the country. But Coach tells us that it really doesn't matter where we are right now, it's where we are at the end of the season. So we're just trying to keep building and keep moving up."
On halftime adjustments:
"We didn't do a whole lot different. I think we picked up the pressure a little bit, moved it up, just tried to get the game going faster for us. We were finishing a lot more plays in the second half. That was the biggest key, we were finishing and we were still playing the defense we played in the first half."
On playing a four-guard lineup:
"I liked it. Sean [Mosley] is a real strong guy and he's capable of playing the four. That gives us a lot of options to ball-handling and we can switch a lot of things, because these guys are probably about the same height, same size out there so there's a lot of flexibility since Sean can play the four."
On Eric Hayes' performance:
"He definitely helped us out a lot because we couldn't hit a shot in the first half... He hit a couple of shots down the stretch that loosened the defense up a little bit... We got easy baskets down the stretch."
On the differences between this year's team and last year's team:
"The main difference that I notice is with this team is closing games out down the stretch. I think we do a great job of coming out in the second half and picking up the intensity, of having a large lead down the stretch and closing the game out. With a better lead, starters come out of the game and we have guys come in from off the bench. They come in with the same intensity and that definitely helped us out a lot because we need guys to come in if there's any situation. Like if there is anybody in foul trouble, Coach has faith in putting anybody off the bench... so that's one thing I notice from this team than last year."
On the two freshmen big men:
"They've really done a great job right now. I talk to them before games and practice and I say just go hard after every loose ball and every rebound and I promise you, you'll stay on the court. They both are doing great jobs right now and I'm trying to keep pushing them and pushing them. They're going to help us down the stretch and we're definitely going to need them."
