Arizona State Men's Basketball Postgame Quotes - vs. Oregon State

Arizona State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Bobby Hurley
Opening Statement…
“I thought we took a step in the right direction today and I’m really excited about how we defended, especially in the second half holding them to 22 points, we did a really good job on that end of the floor. Happy with our bench. There’s a lot of things they did that don’t even show up on the stat sheet. I think we had 18 out of 22 assisted baskets so on offense that’s what we’re striving for and we’ve been pretty good at that. We played well, so happy to see the sharing of the basketball.”
 
On improvements defending the three…
“I thought we were rotating well, closing out well. It was definitely something we discussed at halftime. The one we left Pope on their out of bounds, everyone kind of went to the cutter and he shot one right in front of our bench with no one around. We just had to do a better job of contesting those and I thought we did that.”
 
On shot selection balance…
“I thought we had a good balance. Getting to the freethrow line is huge, if we can, and we were able to do that and I’m excited about that.”
 
On Gaffney’s length playing at center…
“For this type of team, this opponent, it made sense. Both of their bigs, when they went to Rataj and Bilodeau, they could both make threes so it made sense, from a match-up standpoint, to go that direction. It’s the best Alonzo Gaffney has looked in weeks so I’m really happy. He’s had a good couple days of practice and he has a renewed kind of energy about him and he defended very well. He’s kind of what I was focusing on when I was telling you like a lot of what he brought won’t show up in a box score, with him being able to switch and move his feet against guards and the way he played defense, especially in the second half, was really good.”

On what Devan brings to the team offensively…
“He was a live wire tonight and was just going to the offensive board. He’s getting in passing lanes, he was communicating well on defense with the switches when we needed to. He brought the appropriate leadership to the team and experience when you’re struggling a little bit, going through a tough time. I thought he brought the right energy to the game and did all those little things we need him to do. It was great for him to see him play that way tonight.”
 
On Oregon State’s approach in the first half…
“Some of it, like I touched on, was that we left Pope open for three. Maybe we had a few other examples of breakdowns but you’ve got to give credit to Oregon State and what Wayne has done with a young team. He’s got some really good young players to build around in the future. Bilodeau looked like a freaking Dirk Nowitzki on the one shot like one leg, step back, contested, you know. They made a few shots too, late at the buzzer. That’s their style and those are demoralizing when you guard for 25, 27 seconds and then someone hits one as the clock’s winding down. So we had to fight through some of that in the first half but I liked overall where we stood. No one was really in panic mode.”
 
On if winning brings anything positive to the locker room…
“Nothing against anyone in this room or anywhere else, but unless you’ve played at our level and experienced what it feels like to go through a tough stretch and lose a few games, no matter what you say and do in practice or what the players do in practice there is inherently a loss in confidence. Tonight was a reintroduction to winning and knowing how to win and close an opponent out. I’m hoping that there’s going to be a carryover effect now that we can all breathe. Because I’ve been through it as a player and I know it as a coach and a player. You lose these games, some heartbreaking, some not. You lose four in a row and feel like, “are we ever going to win a game again?” no matter how good of a season you’ve had. Happy for the guys, feel good for them because they've had a great season and they could get this out of their system and get back on the winning track.”
 
Arizona State Men’s Basketball Guard Desmond Cambridge Jr.
On the impact of winning a game…
“I definitely think it’s a sigh of relief. Coming off of four losses, it’s just been a whirlwind and just to get that dub, it was just a sigh of relief. I feel good even though I feel bad because we had to gut that out, it was a close one. Nothing’s going to be easy, so we gotta just keep putting them together.”
 
On going through a four game losing streak…
“We definitely went through some growing pains. Four losses back-to-back, that’s hard mentally on us. Just to stay consistent in practice, keep a good energy, good attitude. But we figured it out, we just kept sticking to it and we didn’t change anything. We did get closer as a team, we are holding each other accountable, being able to take constructive criticism from each other and I think we grew in that. Because this game, it wasn’t easy and we have mistakes all around and we figured out how to get the win.”
 
On offensive flow of the game…
“I think that goes to show how much we connected over this losing streak because at the end it doesn’t matter who makes the shots, who takes the shots, we just want good shots and we trust each other. We see each other working out everyday, so we know what we’re capable of and just making the right decision, making the right pass. If someone gets a shot that we think is a good shot, then everyone is aware what is going on. So as long as everybody is on the same page, that’s all that matters.”
 
On the cohesiveness as a team and extra focus on making the right passes…
“Not really because at the end of the day we’re all good individually, we all have different skill sets that we want to show. But at the end of the day, this is a team sport. We got a lot of transfers who are all playing with each other for the first time and we have growing pains and those losses really made us focus in on just being more connected as a team.”
 
On being able to lead the team through a losing streak…
“In my freshman and sophomore year, we go through losing streaks. I’ve seen it plenty of times, the team just fractures, people start getting selfish, people start thinking about other things besides winning the next basketball game. Just being the leader on this team, being an older guy, I’m actually very vocal at the start of the season and as the season has progressed, I’ve kind of laid back. I want everyone else to grow as well, so I think those four losses woke up some guys to let people know that it’s not easy and you have to stay consistent with everything and it just made something glare.”
 
On the approach going into the Oregon game…
“Take it one game at a time. They’re very athletic, very tall and so that’s probably the only emphasis in terms of focusing on them. But at the end of the day, we can compete with any team in this league and in the country really is all about us. Making the extra effort, having the right energy, having the right mindset, having the right attitude and I think we did that today amd as long as you have that, the skills, it’s going to show itself. We got some really good guys, so I’m excited to see what we do Saturday.”
 
Arizona State Men’s Basketball Guard Devan Cambridge 
On the relief of winning after a losing streak…
“It feels good, that was actually our last win, so our last one was Oregon State. So, it felt good. Sucks to lose we’ve been practicing hard which made it hurt even more because in a game, it wasn’t translating. We were practicing hard, having good practices and then when we got to the game, it was bad. Like communication defensively, I feel like we got back to our defensive tendencies and our scouts and we did pretty good on that today.”
 
On being able to lead through adversity…
“I have one-on-ones and stuff like that you know everybody has their own problems personally like it could be school or anything. So I try to connect with everybody to see what they’re going through, especially with me and my brother like he says the things people are scared to say like get on somebody and be that leader. That’s what we needed, some young guys not having won much, I’ve been part of winning programs. I just try to have my voice in there, I feel like everybody listened. We had a couple of meetings, like five meetings for those four games, I feel like everybody listened and locked in. Players, coaches, starters, we had all different types of meetings.”
 
On his impact to the game…
“I talked to my brother about that because he thought it was just him and I was like no, no when I score double digits. But it feels good but it doesn’t really matter about scoring, I’m happy if I get a dunk every game. Just playing defense, just doing the dirty stuff that the team needs."