Sunday, November 27, 2016 Post-Game Quotes – Portland 96, CSUN 78

Coach Terry Porter on performance of team throughout tournament – “I thought our performance was pretty good obviously as a team we came down here to try to perform and get some wins. The early games, obviously UCLA played great Dayton is a very senior oriented team and has been tournament tested. I thought our guys competed. Tonight it was just them continuing to come back and respond after two earlier games. We did some good things we didn’t turn the ball over as well, we got performances from our guards, Alec Wintering and Jazz, and also from our big man Phil. He did a great job of getting some rebounds and plugging things up for us. He was able to convert some much needed baskets at key times in the stretch.”

On performance of Alec Wintering and Jazz Johnson – “I foresee them really being some of our main scorers. We have an opportunity to really take advantage of their skillset. So I see going forward them being our leading scorers for the most part. We really try to get those guys in pick-n-roll situations and really take advantage of other perimeters and allow those guys to really play down hill in pick-n-rolls.”

CSUN Coach Reggie Theus – “Honestly I think our guards got their butts kicked. 36 points is a phenomenal game for them. They played very well, these are two very difficult guards to play against because they shoot it and they get to the basket. It’s not all jumpers they finished around the basket. Early in the game they got four offensive rebounds. That got us going the wrong way a couple of run outs. In the end we got a hard run and our guys pushed it seven to eight. When you have guys that can line you up, guards that have great command of the ball it is difficult to play against and it makes the game easier for them.”

“I’m pretty sure we were the underdogs in every game. I think we battled in every game except for one. We had a long deep conversation in the locker room just now. We have to understand there is a lot of basketball ahead of us. If this stuff happens to us in late January we are going to have a problem. We need to be better defensively and we need to start rebounding a little better. Tonight we outrebound these guys by a few, but not early in the game we did not do our job rebounding. We were down by nine fairly quick”.

“We have to get better defensively. Tonight was a little bit different, it was more of a one on one battle It wasn’t a team defense.”