Oregon State - USC Post Game Notes
January 04, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 4, 2009
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OREGON STATE HEAD COACH Craig Robinson
Surprised on the win:
"I was hoping there would be a day, but I did not mean anytime specifically. As you know, I have been trying to keep the pressure off these guys by saying that we just want to keep getting better. I still want to do that even though we won this game. The part to me that was surprising was that this was a tough first weekend. We had to play two of the most athletic teams. We were hoping to keep the momentum we had going from the second half of the UCLA game and then just see how the chips fell. We came out and really played our butts off. I was very pleased with how they played. Did I know this was going to happen Sunday when I said this on Friday? No, I definitely did not."
Being down by 15 in the second half:
"You have seen our team make a progression now enough times. Initially we did not know how to come from behind, keep a lead and we have gotten better at all of these. So when we got down 15, I was not thinking it was over, I was not thinking we did not know how to come back, I was thinking if we had enough gas in our tank to come back. It was the second game of the weekend and the guys were tired. I had to play some of the guys a little bit longer than I wanted to because of foul trouble, but I never thought we couldn't execute our stuff. We fought back and I can't tell you how proud I am with our guys. That was a tough team, a tough game and that was an area we have wanted to get better on, toughness."
OREGON STATE SOPHOMORE Calvin Haynes
Emotions on the game:
"It feels good, it feels great. We went through a whole season not winning a pac-10 game and this is a great start. USC is a really good ball team. They went up in the second half and we fell back. We came back to win and it feels great. We are no longer the same team as last year. Today we proved to everybody that we can execute down the stretch of a big game and get it done. All we can do is get better and better."
OREGON STATE JUNIOR Roeland Schaftenaar
Emotions on the game:
"There is not much to add to what Calvin said, it feels great. It is our first Pac-10 win, we were in a lot of close games but we came back and did it. It is a great feeling. It is great for the team and now we need to move forward from this. The fans were great, it was really loud and they made us play better and gave us a lot of energy."
USC HEAD COACH TIM FLOYD
On the game overall:
"Craig should be really proud of his team. They were down by 15 and came back with a great force in the second half. I felt they took great shots. They guarded hard when they were down, and I felt we guarded just as hard when we were up. They did a lot of good things out there. More than anything, their defense forced turnovers. We made some poor decisions with their half court trap. We missed a couple free throws that cost us. They played with more intensity than we did."
On USC's execution:
"Our plan was to foul with seven seconds to go. That was the first thing that didn't happen. We did not get the foul on Haynes to put him at the line and let him shoot one and then try to rebound it, hope they fouled, and go down to make it a free throw contest. We didn't get the foul. They took us out and you have to give them credit for that. They took us out. They kept us at the half court line all night long, and we had trouble getting it down to the baseline and playing off the baseline. Again, you have to give them credit."
