Nov. 29, 2000
Head Coach Mike Montgomery opening remarks:
I think it's a tough situation for Riverside. We're awfully big, but I do think that Riverside plays really good basketball in terms of style of play. It's just tough for them to get a good shot off, and I think our size caused them problems. One thing, we got done what we wanted to try and get done. Some of the guys had not gotten much playing time in Puerto Rico and we were able to get some significant minutes for some guys. Unfortunately, we had five guys that weren't able to play. I didn't intend to play Jason and Jarron [Collins] that much, but I didn't have much choice - I only had three post guys. So I played [Ryan Mendez] at the post some. I would have loved to have [Curtis] Borchardt would have loved to have Justin Davis. Kyle Logan got scratched in the eye in the first half and lost his contact and couldn't play. He's another guy I would have loved to get some playing time for, but I got Tyler [Besecker], Julius [Barnes], Teyo [Johnson] and Matt [Lottich] some playing time and I think that's important. We just need to get healthy and get our whole basketball team together. I think that will really help. We were a little sloppy, we shouldn't have had 16 turnovers, but Riverside is scrappy. They played until the end. Now we have a couple of days before we play Long Beach [State on Saturday, Dec. 2] which should be a good test for us down on their court.
Q. Can you talk about starting off the year 4-0?
Actually, five [wins]. I like that better. We came off a pretty good year last year, we had some good players and we expect to win some games. We had a good test three times, at least twice, down in Puerto Rico. Certainly for Riverside just coming into Division-I, this is a tough place to come and play given this set of circumstances. We're just going to try and improve. We have got to improve every time out, if we don't we won't be good enough to compete in our league. We've got a lot of work to do and we have to get healthy.
Q. Your defensive numbers were really good, how much of that is because you have the team where you want them to be?
Well, it helps to be big inside, although we knew they played five-out motion. You take your big people away from the basket, but actually our big people are fairly athletic and we got some shot blocks and had a board advantage [47-26]. We're not near where we need to be. The veteran kids, it's funny, they know how to do stuff right. Were they just better when they came or did they learn stuff here, I don't know. They know when to tag off flares, they know when to tag off doubles, how to get off and toward the ball. Ryan's not the quickest guy, but he does a good job defensively. We just need to get some of our younger players brought along with the defensive concept. That's the chore right now.
Q. Can you talk about Jason's development?
It's just been an injury thing with him. He's a very effective player. I think we're figuring out how to utilize him a little bit better. I think he's very comfortable in the starting role and having his brother play together with him. We need him to be dominant, we need to make people have to defend him. He's a big hoss in there. He's more confident. I think he's in better shape, and he has a year under his belt from last year. The first two years, he didn't play much. He's like a sophomore in terms of playing time.
Q. How important is it to have a tight, down-to-the-wire game before you face Duke [on Dec. 21 in Oakland]?
Well, I don't ever want to have one, if I can avoid it. There will be games like that. I guess my response to that would be that I don't want to get into a game where I might lose it just to get experience for somebody. I'd avoid it as long as I could. The first game we do it, then we're going to have to deal with it whether it be tomorrow or whether it be a month from now. I don't know that much is to be gained from that. Although, there are going to be games where we're going to be pretty tight on our rotations - we were a little bit that way against Georgia. We made a nice little run before the half and got a pretty good lead, but it definitely changes the psychology of things.
Q. How long do you expect Curtis to be out?
He's going to practice tomorrow. The doctor asked that we keep him out until Thursday and Curtis feels like he can practice. It's just a pain thing, it's not a structure thing.
Q. And Kyle's eye?
He didn't have a contact, he couldn't see. That's really too bad, here's a game he could have played 10 or 15 minutes and I go down the bench to get him and get him some time and he can't play.