January 03, 1998
TEXAS A&M POST-GAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH TONY BARONE:
"Oklahoma State dominated the game. I thought we played a good first half, played intelligently and had good shot selection. We did some things early we should not have done. As the half went on I thought we played pretty hard, but they hit a key bucket just before half to break our back a little bit. They set a good screen on a back pick and scored to go up six. We were down 11 with 15 minutes to go and I think we struggled in trying some physical things on offense. We didn't get good looks. And they hit every three they shot in the zone. That blew the game open. They shot well but you have to put some pressure on their shooters. They do a good job and that gives them a good look at the basket. Coming in we were very concerned about their quickness. They present tremendous problems with Peterson, Adkins and Mason. They are very physically strong with the basketball. I was impressed with their toughness with the ball. We have to step back and evaluate and we have to bounce back. We got dismantled pretty well. We've tried to play full-court pressure all year. In the first half we turned them over and had 16 points off turnovers. So we felt we gave up some points but we did a good job of getting deflections. We had 19 deflections at half time and that's pretty good. But we did not maintain that intensity in the second half."
SHANNE JONES:
"In the first half we played a lot better defense. In the second half, they (OSU) stepped it up and hit a lot of three's. Nobody on our team wanted to step up and make a play. We just need to execute our offense. That was the main problem. We just didn't execute. I don't think our confidence is shaken. We need a win over anybody right now. We just need to play to our capabilities and good things will happen. The season is not over. We started out like this last year but we have a much better team this year. We needs to keep our heads up, stay together, come back and practice hard."
CALVIN DAVIS:
"Oklahoma State is a good team. I thought we tried to rush the ball inside and that caused a lot of turnovers."
OKLAHOMA STATE POST-GAME QUOTES
DESMOND MASON:
"Going into half time, we knew we had played about as bad as we could play and we were still up by six. It was a matter of executing our offense. They got a lot of offensive rebounds in the first half and we had a bunch of turnovers. We just had to settle down and get into our offense. We knew we could hit our shots if we could execute. I think we shot the ball like we are capable of shooting it today."
ADRIAN PETERSON:
"Breaking their press was just a matter of us taking our time and not getting excited. We settled down and broke their press pretty easy. I think our press breaker works pretty well against any press. It was just a matter of us settling down and taking care of business."
DOUG GOTTLIEB:
(on whether people will now take OSU seriously after road wins against TCU and A&M) "I hope not. I don't want people to get ready for us. We're just going to go out and keep playing hard. I don't know about the other guys, but I like being the underdog. We'll probably be in the top 25 this week and that's great and all but it doesn't matter. We don't care if nobody knows about us. They'll know about us when they play us and that's all that matters."
HEAD COACH EDDIE SUTTON:
"We can't play much better than we did in the second half. Of course, when you shoot the basketball well it covers a lot of shortcomings you might have. When you don't shoot it well, it sort of magnifies the problems. I was asked if I ever had a team make 17-of-20 shots in a half and I probably did at Arkansas. But we haven't since I went back to Oklahoma State. Both teams were a little sloppy in the first half. I got on our team pretty good at halftime about turning the ball over like we did. But in the second half, we played about as well as we are capable of playing. We are certainly not 35 points better than Texas A&M. We really haven't been shooting well from three-point range, something like 27 percent. I knew we were better than that and it was certainly pleasing to see Adrian Peterson step up and hit some today. He's probably our best perimeter shooter and he hasn't been knocking them down. Defensively, we did a good job of helping when the ball got inside. I think that frustrated some of their big people. Our entire team played really well in the second half. We'd beat a lot of teams if we played like that. We are better than what we were last year and we are certainly better than what people had predicted we would be. I thought we would finish in the middle of the Big 12. If this team continues to work and we don't get anybody hurt, then I think we have a chance to play with a lot of people. There are a lot of games left, though."
"This was, what, the 13th time I've been to G. Rollie White Coliseum and I've never seen it this quiet. Reveille wasn't there, the band wasn't there. I didn't get motion sickness when I looked across to the student section like I used to when they would start the waving. This is one of the toughest places to play when its full like it used to be. We've had some great games in here. Hopefully, it won't happen too often because Tony and his coaching staff and players certainly deserve better support than what was there this afternoon."