Oregon State Post-Game Quotes
November 30, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 30, 2012
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No. 10 Kansas 84, Oregon State 78
November 30, 2012
Sprint Center
Kansas City, Mo.
Head coach Craig Robinson
Opening Comment...
"It's really an honor to be able to play a game against a program like Kansas. I know it was big for these guys, I know it was big for me and I know it was big for the Oregon State community. So we want to thank Coach (Bill) Self and his staff for setting this game up. We really were able to kind of test ourselves against one of the best in the country.
"If you want to beat a team like Kansas, you can't miss as many foul shots as we did and you can't miss as many easy shots around the basket as we did. Having said that, I have to love the effort that my team put forth going down 14 and then going down again 10 or 11 or something and coming back to be within three with minutes to go. I'm really proud of my team and it's hard to say that because I always use this term `it's like kissing your sister' when you lose a game and you say it was a good experience. That doesn't mean anything in this business. You have to win the game and you have to do the things you need to do to win the game, including stopping guys from blowing by to the basket."
On the number of easy baskets by Kansas...
"We typically don't do that. One of our points of emphasis this year has been to get four more stops a game. We had been accomplishing that up until this point. We just have to do better. I thought they ran some good stuff. I thought that we missed some assignments at times and you can't do that when you're playing a No. 10 ranked team."
On the Beavers fighting back throughout the game...
"I liked how our guys never gave up. They knew how important this was so they just kept grinding. That's what we call it. We just keep grinding and we try to get stops and capitalize on the stops."
On his offensive game plan against Jeff Withey...
"The difference between our offense versus normal offenses is that when we have a skilled center, we like to bring them outside and create certain kinds of matchups. It's not like we were trying to change anything because of Withey. What we wanted to change is not driving in there and having him block shots. He only had three (blocks), so I feel kind of good considering he had like 20 the last game. We didn't want to take it in there and let him tee off on us, but our usual offense is to bring our center high and let him make a play for us."
Junior guard Ahmad Starks
On playing against Kansas' defense...
"We wanted to put pressure on their guards, because those are good guards. We wanted to kind of tire them out and get them in foul trouble, but like Coach (Robinson) said, we were running our normal offense. We saw that we could bring Withey a little higher and away from the basket, so we tried to exploit that a little more."
On if he thought he would have a big game against Kansas...
"Not necessarily. Those guys are big. I laughed when I was looking at their guards; not in awe, but they're like 6-4 or 6-5 and big, athletic guards. They're good, so you look forward to the challenge and you just go attack them."
