Thursday, November 24, 2016 Post-Game Quotes – Nebraska 80, Dayton 78
Nebraska Coach Tim Miles – “I was proud of my guys. I thought we controlled the game most of the night. We had a tough last four minutes obviously. Dayton’s frontline pressure was really good and we got a guy who hit two huge free throws for us (Glynn Watson Jr.), and a guy who was a monster inside (Ed Morrow Jr.). You’ll see us develop into a tough-minded team who knows how to win. That’s really important in our league and it’s really important for our guys. I’m just really proud of them tonight.”
On setting the tone defensively? – “You have to have the other team go after us, and hope the other guys don’t make enough shots to beat you. Their guys really stepped up and made some shots and got us in transition. But at the end of the day, we were really good offensively. I think that helped us a great deal. When I look at Dayton, we got them in the paint, where I thought we could. We had an excellent team effort that set the tone defensively early and ran an excellent offense early.”
On the various runs throughout the game? – “I probably won’t sleep tonight. You knew with Dayton’s transitions that they are one of the fastest teams in the country. They inbound the ball from out of bounce and go down the floor very quickly. They’re not as fast as UCLA but they’re as fast as Creighton and the other teams that we will play as we go down the way. You just knew we were going to end up in runs, and their role guys ended up making a lot of shots. That’s when we knew we had a problem in our hand.”
Nebraska Guard Glynn Watson Jr. on the runs throughout the game? – “I think everybody knows we were going to both make runs. They made a run, we made a run, but our team showed we were mentally tough. We stuck together and never got mad at each other and that was the biggest thing.”
On the final sequence of the game that led to his game-winning free throws over Dayton? – “I saw the Dayton defense backing up on me, and I was just thinking that I had to make a play. Coach believed in me to make a play, and I knew he wanted me to attack. So I attacked the basket and got the foul.”
Nebraska Forward Ed Morrow on the runs throughout the game? – “I just think we pick each other up on the floor, and we just continued going at them. We never really let up.”
On tomorrow’s game? – “We need to come out and get a win tomorrow. That’s the expectation and the goal and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Dayton Coach Archie Miller – “Hard fought game at the end. Give Nebraska credit on a good win. We’re not playing anywhere near hard enough or disciplined enough, on defense in particular right now, to be successful against good teams and the competition that we’re playing. We do have a tough mindedness about ourselves and I think towards the end, you can see they had a one-point lead with all we went up against, I don’t think we’re afraid to keep competing or playing, but we’re just not playing well enough right now, especially on the defensive side of the ball, there’s just too many breakdowns.”
On taking the lead with 8 seconds and no timeouts and Watson’s drawing of contact to regain the lead – “There’s always situations in a game, we didn’t need a timeout, on a game-winning basket, we got a tap-in or whatever it may have been, we got up one, sprint back and establish your defense is primary one. I got to give Glynn Watson Jr. credit, he drove in a straight line to the block and anytime there’s contact on the block, you’re going to get the call, the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t see the play, I don’t know what happened at all, and I just know this: you have to be able to guard the ball. Our perimeter right now isn’t anywhere close to what it’s been in the past couple years in terms of just keeping the ball out of the paint, guarding the basketball. We’re just too spread out. We’ve got too many guys not taking enough pride on that end of the ball.”
On Dayton’s slow start – “Its disappointing.”
On Sophomore Xeyrius Williams – “I was happy for Xeyrius, he got in the and mixed it up. He’s having to learn his way through. He’s having to find his rhythm. I think he’s nervous to start the games when he’s getting in there, but big thing for him is: today he showed he can shoot the ball. He just hasn’t been able to get going and I think those shots that he took today are the good ones. He also had nine rebounds, which was good to see. So I was proud of Xeyrius, told the guys after the game, I thought he did a lot of good things in many moments and if he can stay with that, he’s going to make our team better.”
On battling back from 14-point deficit and what if learned anything new about his team – “We didn’t learn a whole lot new, other than the fact that we create a lot of these situations. A lot of these guys have been in big games and they know how to finish and they know how to keep competing and I think just being down and staying with it. We had a couple plays go good for us and we finally got a couple shots to go and we were able to manage it. We’re just not rock solid enough in any area right now to hang our hat on and say this is how we win. We’ve have some great comebacks in our last two games, but in our last three games in general, its been hard for us. Our inside guys are getting all the minutes, they’re basically playing those amount of minutes for the first time, so I’m real anxious to keep those guys going. Glad we play tomorrow. The best feeling in the world is having a game tomorrow. We’ve got to be ready to go and ready to get off our feet here and keep getting better and figure it out. We’re a team right now that’s trying to find an identity. I think we came into the season and we had a lot of expectations and we had a lot of confidence in some things, but right now there are just certain things out there that don’t look right to me and its not one guy, its every guy. We’ve got to be able to really get back to the little things and being a little bit better at some of those and then we’ll have a chance. We can’t give a team 7-for-7 to start the game. You can’t give a team like St. Mary’s at home a 15-4 lead. You can’t get down at Alabama, 12-2. At the end of the day, I think its being ready to go at the start and being ready to go on the defensive side of the ball, if you turn the ball over and do some things on offense, that’s fine but you got to control what you can control. In my mind right now, especially tonight defensively, we weren’t going to be good enough to win that game, the fact that we got the lead tonight was amazing.”