Jan. 17, 2001
Opening Statement
It was a good one - it was one I was nervous about, one I was concerned about. I think Cal is a very goodbasketball team that's just going to get better and better. We feel good about what happened. If you wantto put a label on this game, it has to do with experience. We have a pretty experienced ballclub that ispretty poised when we play well.
Q: Can you talk about the emergence of Justin Davis?
One, I think it was a good matchup - well, I don't think (Cal's Sean) Lampley is a good matchup - but Ithink in the Oregon game and then in this game, against smaller and quicker forwards, Justin was criticalfor us in that regard. We feel that with Curtis (Borchardt) and the Collins' inside, we are in pretty goodshape against the bigger guys, but it's the smaller, quicker guys that sometimes gives us problems.Obviously, Justin is pretty explosive, so he'll go up and get a board that you don't see others get by gettingto the ball quickly. He did that, then he had the nice lob off the wheel pass which he went up and got, andthat got the crowd going a little bit. He's getting better and better - it's just a matter of experience.
Q: The beginning of the game, there were a couple of emotional incidents. Did you say something toyour players?
I told them to not get caught up in that stuff. We're in our place, we're playing well, we've got a lead,don't get caught up. Unfortunately for Jarron (Collins), it cost him his second foul. It was bang-bang, hegot two fouls right in a row, so he had to sit out a little more when we would have liked to have had him in.That's the tragedy of that situation, it gives you a second foul, so I told the guys to just play basketball andnot worry about that other stuff.
Q: How did you handle the press?
We should have torn it up, but they pressed late and we had some different guys in the basketball game,and we should have taken advantage of it on the offensive end. We were a little shaky in terms ofcapitalizing on the offensive end. We got the ball in the middle and had a 3-on-2 and didn't capitalize.Obviously, we're going to see pressure in different situations, and its something you need to continue towork on. We need to get better at making people pay on the other end.