Quotes - Maryland vs. Eastern Kentucky
12/12/2009 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 12, 2009
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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On the game:
"They (EKU) were great so I give them a lot of credit. I like the way our team hung in there. They were very confident. Eastern Kentucky had the confidence going in the second half and we had to stay tough - and we did."
"There were a lot of good things that happened out there today. One of them was that we had to play for 40 minutes. This is always a tough time of the year and we're glad to get through this game."
On Landon Milbourne's performance:
"I thought he was aggressive and made some really good shots. Landon's had a pretty good first nine games. He had a couple games where he didn't score as much as he did today but he's certainly been out there and as a senior, he knows what we're doing. He's a very important player for us."
On the challenges faced by EKU's defensive switch:
"Anytime team's change defense, you have to be tough with the basketball to make sure that everyone is on the same page. You take that away if you play good defense and they don't score. The problem that was there for awhile in the second half was that they were scoring every time, which gave them the chance to get back and set up whatever defense they wanted to. They did a good job with it and I thought we attacked pretty well over the course of the game."
On Dino Gregory:
"What he did in February and March for us last year should not be understated because Dave Neal did a great job. But we needed somebody big inside that could control things and Dino did that for us, even though it didn't result in a lot of points. We have guys that will score but we need guys that will stop people; Dino is one of those people. "
On Greivis Vasquez:
"I thought Greivis today was great. He was really in tune with what he was trying to do and what we were trying to do."
Sophomore guard Sean Mosley
On Maryland's inside presence:
"The inside guys like Dino [Gregory], Jordan [Williams] and James [Padgett] definitely are going to help us down the stretch, when we're going to need big guys to sub in and out of the games."
On Dino Gregory's performance:
"Dino played hard, that's one thing I can tip my hat off to Dino. Whether he was getting rebounds or hustle plays, he just knows where to set the right schemes at the right time. Dino is a veteran player and he did a really great job in playing and helping the team out today."
On the team's upcoming finals break:
"I think we can get better as a team, as far as with the weaknesses we have. We can clean a lot of things up. Two weeks off is definitely not saying we're going to take a week off, we're going to practice hard every day, probably starting on Tuesday. We have finals coming up, but then we're going to get after it with a lot of things that we need to work on. A two week vacation is not the idea. The idea is just getting better as a team within a two week span."
Senior guard Greivis Vasquez
On improvement of his game:
"I think, just like I've said, it's mental. It was mental. I proved myself today, that when I attack and drive and get guys involved, and don't think too much about my shot, that's when I hit the big shots under pressure."
On coming off the bench:
"This was a great game for me, just to sit on the bench and see everything from the outside in, look at myself and get back to what I am -- I'm the crazy guy that plays at Maryland that's trying to make plays that sometimes people don't believe in. I'm going to be myself from now on. I'm going to get back to rebounding the ball, being aggressive defensively."
On not starting:
"Coach is a Hall of Famer. He doesn't care, you could be the best player from the whole NCAA. Those are his rules and that's kind of selfish for me to start. So I thought he did a good job just sitting me down and then coming off the bench. It was good for me because I was going through a tough time the last eight games. I respect Coach, and I respect everything he does. His track record is unbelievable, so I have nothing to say. Just apologize to him my teammates and the fans."
Eastern Kentucky Coach Jeff Neubauer
On the game:
"Maryland is certainly a very talented team and an extremely well-coached team. We're really proud of our effort tonight. We did fight back on several occasions, especially getting down early. So that wasn't good for us to get in such a hole but I'm pleased with our effort, the way we kept competing to tie it up at 60 with eight minutes to go."
On using this game for the future:
"The first thing is we didn't handle their zone pressure early in the game. This is the first time this season we've seen zone pressure, so we learn from this and next time we see zone and full-court press hopefully we handle it a lot better. We are pleased that we got better as the game went on. We only had 11 turnovers, but we want to be better early in the game. "
On limiting turnovers in the second half:
"I think our guys just made good decisions. We did inbound up the court so we didn't put ourselves in trapping situations. We do have very good passers out there and they did pass it much better in the second half."
On Maryland:
"I think Maryland's best basketball is ahead of them. As (Greivis) Vasquez gets back to his level of play and as they work (Dino) Gregory back into the rotation, they certainly are going to be better as they go forward. They have invested so many minutes in other guys and those guys are going to play better."
