Feb. 7, 2011
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BJ Holmes & |
Audio from today's press conference is available to the right in mp3 format. Select quotes are available below.
HEAD COACH Mark Turgeon
Do you look forward to playing these games against old friends?
"Not really. You know, I've got a lot of respect for (CU coach) Tad (Boyle), and a lot of the success I've had as a head coach is because of Tad. He was a great recruiter. Times like these, what I'm going through right now with this team, Tad was always the best to help me get through it. I've had a lot of success with him. But hopefully this is the only time that we'll ever have to play. Hopefully we won't have to do it in the future. I just hope we win. I'll have to hear it from all our friends if we don't. We've got a group of buddies coming out and they'll be at the game. It will be good to see them. Tad and I aren't really looking forward to this game, to be quite honest with you."
How does this stretch compare to the rough patches you hit in conference play in your first two seasons?
"Yeah, this reminds me a lot of those. Last year we really didn't have a rough patch. The hardest part was when D-Ro (Derrick Roland) got hurt. We were adjusting our lineup, and we lost by 20-something at K-State. We really just weren't very good and obviously K-State was. We really never had a down time last year. I know we were 3-3 at one point in the league last year, and lost at Oklahoma State, but the guys were continuing to get better. This reminds me of our first two years. We had stretches where it wasn't a lot of fun and you weren't playing the way you were capable of playing. The league's too good to do that. Hopefully we'll respond like those other two teams did. That's the key, if you respond the right way. We've got 5 of our last 8 on the road, and we've been an okay road team, but we haven't been great. Hopefully we'll become a really good road team here down the stretch."
Obviously you hated the result on Saturday, but did you see some signs of good things? Maybe B.J.'s game and the late comeback?
"Yeah, that's two in a row for B.J., he really played well. That's encouraging. I thought Kourtney gave us his best minutes of the year. That was the hardest I'd ever seen Naji compete. I could care less if he missed all his shots, with the way he competed. We all know Naji's going to make shots. Those were two really good signs. Yeah, we did some things down the stretch. We competed. Our last eight minutes of regulation, and all of overtime, our defense was really good. You think about their three baskets in overtime, one was a runner where the shot clock was going down, and the other two were offensive rebounds. One was on me and one was on the team. We've got to have those rebounds. But they really stepped up defensively. We looked like the A&M of the first semester and part of the second, so that was encouraging. They were at like 67 percent field goal percentage with 12 minutes to go in the game. I've never seen anything like it. So we got better down the stretch. I thought we really executed well...we all know we missed free throws and we missed a lot of wide open shots. We've just got to get their confidence back and make those plays. It's just such a fine line. I've just felt so bad since the game ended Saturday. And let's say they don't get an offensive rebound for a basket, or we hit the shot at the buzzer. That's the difference. It's such a fine line and we have to figure out a way to get on the other side of that line."
Does the fact that your previous teams shook off bad stretches and finished strong give you confidence that it will happen this year, or is each team unique?
"Each group's unique. We've got to have a lot of guys step up for us to finish strong here. I think our leadership's been pretty good. It's a hard team to lead, but I think we're getting there. And we're pretty humbled right now, which should make it easier for me to coach and easier for the leaders to lead. But we need players to get better. We need effort like that out of Naji every game. We need Kourtney to continue to improve. We need Ray Turner to get healthy. He's not healthy. I don't plan on playing Ray Wednesday, don't plan on even suiting him up. We've got to have guys get better. You either stay the same, or you go the other direction, or guys buy in and get better. For the most part our teams have bought in and gotten better as the season's gone on. This team...we'll see. We're pretty humbled right now, so it'll be interesting to see if the guys really focus in these last 8 games and really try and improve. That's all I'm asking for. The outcome was awful Saturday, but man, they showed me some signs that there is some fire in there and they still believe in what they're doing. Our execution was really good against the zone and we got some great looks. Our help defense and rebounding was good there in that stretch when we came back. There's hope we can still do it right, we've just got to individually keep improving and buying in and being committed. If that happens I think good things will happen down the stretch."
Did BJ's minutes at the point guard position Saturday kind of encourage you or give you some things to think about?
"Well, that was just because they zoned. Certain teams guard us a certain way. We ask BJ to do a lot, and in the zone there's not a lot of pressure so you can get into your offense a little bit easier. We kept shooters on the floor, and that's what we were trying to do, and it worked for us. But we've got to be a deeper team than we were Saturday. We got a little bit fatigued. Khris had to play 43 minutes. He came up short on some shots late in the game, some free throws. Shots we expect Khris to make. So we've got to be a little bit deeper than we were. But you coach to win the game, and I felt the guys we were playing were the guys that could help us win the game. We just came up a little bit short."
Can you talk about the challenge of Burks and Higgins at guard for Colorado?
"Yeah, they're fantastic. (Alec) Burks is an unbelievable player. They're really good at home. They're tough matchups for us because they're tall guards. They're big. Really, the whole team's hard to guard. Their fours and fives can drive and shoot it. (Marcus) Relphorde, their starting four, is shooting 43 percent I believe from three. They're just a really hard team to guard. They're averaging 81 points for the year. They scored 78 against Kansas, and that shows you how good they are offensively. That shows you how tough it's going to be, especially with the way we've been guarding. We're really going to be challenged, and hopefully they'll have an off night. You've got to keep Burks off the foul line as best you can. He's averaging seven free throws a game. You have to keep him off the line and make him shoot jump shots over hands as best you can. Then we have to make them guard us at the other end, execute and be more efficient offensively than we've been most of the season. They're good, really good players."