Sunday, November 20, 2016 Post-Game Quotes – Davidson 68, Arizona State 60

RECORD-TYING PERFORMANCE – Jack Gibbs of Davidson ties a tournament 3-game scoring record with 71 points with 18 against Clemson, 25 versus Missouri and 28 Sunday against Arizona State. Houston’s Robert McKiver had 71 points in the inaugural event in 2007, including 17 against VCU, 17 vs. Marist and 37 vs. College of Charleston. Gibb’s 28 points in the Arizona State game was the ninth-best single-game tournament effort tying the 28-point effort Friday by J. P. Macura of Xavier against Clemson. McKiver’s 37 points against College of Charleston is the single-game record.

Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop – “We are certainly delighted to come down here to Orlando and get two very good wins against two very well-coached and very good teams to be able to head back to Davidson with two wins against Power 5 conference teams under our belt. It’s a great statement about our guys.

“We had 18 turnovers too. We were shooting a lot of 3s early as we’ve done the whole tournament and our inside game has been pretty productive for us so we went to a different style of attack and put the brakes on our running game. Sometimes when you put the brakes on the running game you’re going to get the ball inside but you become hesitant and tentative. That’s not the way I coach, that’s not the way these guys play so I take responsibility for our shooting percentage because we were not in attack mode.

“They’ve got to learn the inside-outside game, they’ve become a better team of defenders, I’ve got to get the bench to be able to contribute more than they’ve contributed to date. Those are three things that jump out dramatically.”

Davidson guard Jack Gibbs – “In my junior year of high school I shot like 65 percent from the free throw line so I figured I’d change something up. My thinking was the quicker you shoot it, the less you’re thinking about it so I’ve been doing that ever since. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at free-throw shooting.

“They’re a good team. They have a lot of people who can score off the dribble and go one-on-one. The biggest thing we harped on was team defense, being in the right position to try to stop some of their tendencies. He (ASU guard Tra Holder) is good, he’s quick, he knows how to get to the basket and get into your body and draw fouls. Our thinking was if we’re playing one-on-one they might beat us but if we’re playing five-on-five we’re trying to get better as a whole and we made some steps today.”

Arizona State Head Coach Bobby Hurley – “I thought that it would translate to a win if you told me we would hold them to 68 but the results weren’t there because we didn’t make shots/. The guys who had been scoring for us just had poor shooting nights.

“They have guys who are skilled, who can shoot, they usually have five guys out there who can shoot from 3 so that was a priority trying to guard the line. We did our job with how we guarded them, but our offense was very inefficient. In the first half we didn’t score some layups that we usually would make. Then you start chasing them, which is hard. You get a deficit and they start using clock and they grind you up on offense with their possessions.

“And the free throw line killed us today with our inability to get to the free throw line the way Davidson did, which is surprising considering they’re a 3-point shooting team. (Jack) Gibbs had 21 free throws and we had 13 so that doesn’t happen too often in college basketball but it did today to us.

“I took a lot of positives out of today’s game because of how we defended and the activity. Davidson’s a very good offensive team and we forced them into 18 turnovers and held them to pretty low percentages. If we do that sand have that kind of effort on defense, I believe our perimeter guys on offense will come together.”