Nov. 17, 2009
Iowa Head Coach Todd Lickliter
Opening Statement…
“I told you Sunday that Duquesne is really good, I wasn’t lying to you, they are really good. They are a team that played in the post season last year; they are a team that really tested us. It is going to be really hard to win shooting 31%. I told the team before we played ‘what if we do that again, we shot so poorly the other day, are we just going to say well we didn’t shoot it well and use that excuse for it? Or are we going to make every hustle play and give ourselves a chance?’ And we did, we won so many hustle plays today. Give Duquesne credit they made two big threes. When they had to have them Duty and Clark made two big ones and we were guarding both of them. But sometimes that is what happens. It is disappointing to our guys because we had the one point lead and we thought we could finish it out. We got it down, we get a great look, and it just doesn’t go in to tie it. Then we tried to go over the top which we can do with Eric May, he had a 6′ 1” guy on him but I think they brought someone over to deflect it. This team is a really, really fun team to coach. They just fight so hard and they care. These guys will be in tomorrow wanting to look at tape and get better. I hope that they don’t get discouraged because they don’t deserve that, they deserve support to continue to fight. They have a season in front of them and when you play the likes of San-Antonio and Duquesne to start off, that is hard to do. If we fight, we will get better.”
With .8 seconds left…
“We had a couple different options on it we were looking at. You can catch and shoot it but we thought we could get it up at the rim. Eric May is strong and athletic; we thought we could go up. We also had Matt Gatens coming and setting a back screen and flashing so we could go to him. Or we could go to Brennan, either one of them could catch and shoot. But I told Anthony that if he thought he could get it over the top to Eric; let’s just go over the top to him. They had a 6′ 1” guy on him and I think it was a good decision, but it didn’t go and I will have to look at tape to see what happened. Eric is strong he’s able to get up on the rim and we were right there. We wanted to be as close as we could.”
On Brennan Cougill’s three point play to take the lead…
“It was a nice play wasn’t it? The play was real good. He has a great feel for basketball and he cares a lot. I said after last game that I need to get him in more, he’s earned in. We are really excited about Brennan, he is going to have a good career here and he doesn’t want to wait, he wants to do it right now and he fights hard. He made other good plays too.”
On turnovers…
“Their defense is good and it is hard to simulate that. They are long and active, and we think we are going to make plays that aren’t there sometimes. We don’t realize how quickly people recover. But I will say this, I think we had nine turnovers at half and we ended up with 15. Obviously we are making strides in that area. It is very, very hard to beat people if they score in transition and they’re going to score in transition if you throw it to them. “
Duquesne Head Coach Ron
Opening Statement…
“I thought that Iowa did a tremendous job on us defensively in the second half. Like it was mentioned, normally we are an offense that likes to cut and move and get down the floor and score, especially in transition. I thought their guards especially, I thought Payne, was being the catalyst, it really was great for them in their transition defense and they totally changed the way we had to approach the game in the middle of the second half. I think they held us scoreless for like four or five minutes, at least, and we had to go to some different things. Obviously, I’m really proud of our guys. I thought we made two huge shots down the stretch under duress with the defense on us. We just came away with two plays there at the end where we were fortunate enough to make shots and win the basketball game. We had some of those earlier and didn’t make them. I thought (Matt) Gatens’ play at the end of the shot clock was tremendous. We did everything we could to stop that and he ducked under our guy and made a three. I really thought that changed the whole momentum of the game. I felt like we were getting opportunities, we were just missing free throws, which we have to go back and work on. That being said, we did and they took advantage of it, took the lead, and I thought that was just a great individual play on his part there at the end of the shot clock to put us in a hole. It was a great college basketball game. I was proud to be a part of it. From my coaching philosophy, as ugly as it was offensively for us, I’d like to hope we could do a little better job. We have to take a look at Iowa’s defense and really give them credit. I thought Todd (Lickliter) really kept guys fresh. (Brennan) Cougill played some real important minutes and did a great job, especially on the stick back late. When (Jarryd) Cole came back late, he was fresh and bouncy and got (Damian) Saunders fouled out right at the wrong time for us. It’s a great win for us to be able to come on the road and gut one out like this. I know one thing for sure, we can walk out of here knowing that we’re going to be a lot better prepared, having played against this defense, for the Atlantic 10 than we would have been had we not played this game.”
On holding Gatens offensively…
“Well, I don’t know that we really held him. I thought that he had some good looks at it and he just missed a few. I thought we put him on the line a few too many times there in that one stretch. We had the one foul on him on that in-bounds play. I did think we did a much better job on him on the one that he made than a few that he missed. We think he is a very good shooter. Obviously, we gained playing him and (Anthony) Tucker in terms of shooting. We really felt that if we could get some ball pressure on (Cully) Payne and make him work, that was going to be the key to their attack. We got four turnovers, but he had six assists. The three assists he had there towards the end of the game were… you’d never guess that kid was a freshman. You’d think he was a senior with the way he held his composure and made plays and got balls to people at the end of the game. But, again I thought, their big guys there towards the end were really the key. They took it at us. They knew we were in foul trouble. I thought Cougill and Cole really took advantage of what they could down the stretch there and both of them got a big basket that really bothered us.”