University of Richmond Athletics
Men's Basketball Postgame Quotes
12/02/2005 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 1, 2005
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
Richmond Coach Chris Mooney
On Richond's Defense
"Obviously this was a very good win for us, from being where we are right now and having the opportunity to host a Big East team. Our defense was terrific and worked for a really long time. I thought we handled all the ball screens that they do. I think they went about ten minutes before they scored in the second half. We weren't planning for that, but it was terrific. Our defense was the key to this game."
On The Offense
"We saw some progress with our offense. Our guard play was good. Kevin really played well. I think he is really learning when to be aggressive and how to make the offense work for him, rather than being passive."
On The Princeton Offense Tiring Out The Opponent
"I think that can happen. We're just trying to play and get our best shot and I think it's something that does happen. It's very hard for teams to guard us. If we're used to and capable of running our offense for 25 seconds, most defenses aren't prepared to defend for 30-35 seconds. I thought that did show.
On Playing Three Games In Three Days (In Louisville)
"It's not ideal. Scheduling is tricky. We tried to get this game Wednesday and Seton Hall wanted Thursday, and they had better reasons than we did. And now to play to go out there and play three games in three days is tough. It's not like I can go out and give our starters a break tomorrow and be ready to go. It's a difficult stretch. Another difficult thing is that we are playing two games in one of the best venues for college basketball, but the first two games it's a neutral court, so it's likely to be empty or only a couple hundred people. So you need to be focused and motivated on your own, and that's always test. That's a test for a team and I hope we're up for the challenge."
Richmond Junior Peter Thomas
On Making Seton Hall Play Defense For A Long Stretch
"They were tough on us, they were pressuring us, really getting in on us and playing hard defense. As we kept running our offense, eventually they broke down after 20-25 seconds and we got some really good looks."
Richmond Senior Kevin Steenberge
On The Offense
"That's idea of offense I think, it's discipline. Finally, we are getting good enough at it and comfortable enough with it that we are able to run it through. We're not panicking. When we get the shot clock down under 10 seconds, we're not going to chuck the ball up. We understand that 10 seconds is a long time, we still have plenty of time to score. So, for them to have to come out and have to guard, it's frustrating for them."
On Richmond's Match-Up Zone
"We call it `our defense.' It's basically a match-up zone with man principals. It's tough to play against from what we've seen. At first it takes a while to get used to; you kind of got to forget the rules that you learned with man-to-man defense. It ends up looking like a hybrid man-to-man, match-up zone, and at times like a flat-out zone and seems to be giving teams some trouble. I know historically it has. Certainly, with Air Force last year, it gave a lot of teams a lot of trouble. So, it's nice that it's coming along. The offense is starting to work and the defense is coming along and we are starting to get comfortable with it."
On Being Comfortable With The Offense "It's just time. It's really just getting into the season a little bit. And being a senior, for a couple of us, it felt like being a freshman again. It's really weird trying to get used it. Mentally, playing and physically, everything. You just feel weird because you are completely relearning the game over with a new coach. So, I definitely think it has to do with a comfort level.
On Playing a Big East team
"For all the younger guys, they are still going to feel that `oh wow, it's the Big East team,' whereas the older guys, we've experienced that before. Tonight, a lot of it was coming in calm. We were comfortable tonight. We're really starting to get there."
On Being Comfortable Shooting 3-Pointers
"Sure, when they go in I'm comfortable. The first two felt good and they were misses, the third one felt like a miss and that's the one that went in. I have to get used to that, normally, when a shot feels good, it goes in when you're down low. But when I'm out at the 3-point line, I chuck it up and it feels good, and it doesn't go in. But I'm starting to get a lot more comfortable. I know if I miss it, I'm not going to get yanked out of the game by my jersey and thrown at the end of the bench."
Seton Hall Coach Louis Orr
"I don't know what happened the first ten minutes in the second half - not scoring a basket. We were down 15, we just can't go through those kind of droughts. It takes so much out of you. We had opportunities. We got shots. We've just got to make some baskets."
On Richmond's Offense
"We played against this system before. I thought for the most part, we didn't do a bad job. We gave them some second shots. We gave them some long rebounds. In terms of statistics, they scored 60 points, but we didn't make any shots. You've got to make shots to stem the tide. We couldn't score. I think it was more our offense than anything. I don't think they carved us up with their offensive game. They are going to score some back doors and make some shots, but we just didn't play with intensity. We just didn't score."
On Richmond's Match-Up Zone
"They play a match-up. We pretty much ran our man offense. Donald Copeland was aggressive and he got into the lane and tried to make something happen. It really didn't happen. We only had four assists for the game and he had all four and all four were from him in the lane. We just hit a drought offensively. I give the guys on the court credit, especially in the last six minutes of the game. They just kept competing. It wasn't pretty, but they were competing. And they didn't drop their heads. We've got to learn to have confidence and intensity on the road."