Nov. 23, 2008
Iowa Head Coach Todd Lickliter
On tonight’s game:
“We had a great idea of what they were going to do but until you get out there and experience it and you start trying to make adjustments, it’s not quite the same. For our guys, this has been a really nice challenge and adjustment.”
On Oakland:
“They are a good team and they do unique things. Offensively, they are fairly similar to what we’ve been seeing, a lot of dribble drives and we have seen our share of that, but defensively it’s a little different situation. I thought in practice, to be quite honest with you, we handled it very well. But practice isn’t quite the same speed or level of play as when you’re handling someone with that defense. There were challenges and the thing about this team is that they are very conscientious.”
On working and improving:
“As I’ve explained to them, there is nothing that can be done about what just happened. You have to do the next right thing, and we’re learning from it. So we have to get through some of that and we have to balance the great concern that they have, their conscientiousness, and their ability to attack. We have to get that balance and poise and aggression. I think we will. It’s been a really fun group to coach so far and we’re going to keep getting tested. We just have to keep preparing and keep getting better.”
Oakland Head Coach Greg Kampe
On the loss:
“I was very, very disappointed in our performance today; we had the game exactly where we wanted it going into a Big Ten arena. I’m really disappointed because winning on the road is hard enough and we had a chance to do it but didn’t get it done.”
On their schedule this week:
“It’s been tough, really tough. You can tell by our shooting, we were 6-for-11 free throw shooting. [Jonathon Jones] led our league in free throws but struggled tonight.How many shots did [Erik] Kangas have bang in then bang out? It’s going to make us better though. If I’d have known our best player was going to break his foot the day before this trip, we would not have made this trip. We are on the road for three weeks and we can’t change things in practice. We’re struggling now but we need to find ways to make baskets.”
On Todd Lickliter:
“You have a great coach, but you guys are still a long way away in this league. We play a lot of Big Ten teams and you have ways to go. But Lickliter has a hell of a freshman class. We did exactly what we wanted to do on defense-we made them shoot the shots we wanted them to and they made 10-of-25 of them. Your coach is a great basketball coach. He will win here, he’s got some challenges, but you’re lucky to have him as your coach.”