Arizona State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Bobby Hurley
Opening Statement…
“That was a real battle of two teams that are pretty desperate to win. I think those first eight minutes of the second half cost us. They built a lead and we couldn’t overcome it and take the lead back even though guys out there were fighting like heck, scrambling, and trying to make plays. We just didn’t defend and Barthelemy hurt us in the second half. Dante was a handful. He made a sweeping hook there at a critical juncture in the game. Sometimes a guy is just gonna make a play on you that is better than the defense, because I thought Warren guarded him very well in the situation. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but I appreciated the efforts of the guys tonight.”
On comeback after being down 12…
“We’ve won a lot of games this year and they’ve battled. If you take out USC and San Francisco, these guys have really battled in these games and we’ve had chances to win every one of these games that we’ve been in outside of those two games.”
On Warren Washington finishing around the rim…
“When you’re talking about this type of opponent, they have size and Dante is one of the best bigs in our conference. He has great size and length, even though Warren’s tall, too. I’m not worried, I think he’ll respond. He wants it bad.”
On shots from Luther Muhammad, DJ Horne, and Desmond Cambridge Jr.…
“It comes down to judgment. That one, it was a broken play and looked like we had numbers. It comes down to making the right read there. If you do it all over again, I think Luther just checked in, so I don’t know if that would have been an option, but he was open and he had made some shots in the game. DJ’s shot I didn’t have an issue with, I think he overarched it. Obviously in the last eight seconds we needed to get a three and I thought Dez had a clean enough look that you could live with that.”
On what stands out from first eight minutes of the second half…
“If you want to point to one thing, it’s the fouls. It’s 26-10 at the free throw line. That’s a tough number to overcome in a game. We also lost containment of Barthelemy a few times and on their out of bounds plays he hit some shots and we lost him. It was a little bit of everything. We held them to the 30%’s in the first half and they shot like 60% in the second half.”
On Desmond Cambridge Jr. not scoring until later in the game…
“He was fighting himself throughout the game. He’s had so many good offensive games for us that he’s a threat to run it on like he did, so we're gonna keep rolling with him. I think the play at the end of the first half didn’t help his confidence. He was very upset about the turnover and then they scored a three to cut it to three. He was beating himself up about that at halftime so we had to get him back in the moment. He’s out there competing and doing the best he can.”
On plays leading to momentum for Oregon in the second half…
“You don’t like to give a team momentum. I don’t think you can point to one play and say that’s the reason something happened or didn’t happen, but the game situation is understanding that and just knowing ‘Up six, get the last shot or a layup, otherwise let’s make sure we go in at a minimum up six’.”
On defense…
“You could feel like they were getting loose with the ball and there were opportunities when we cut it to a one possession game that I was thinking maybe we should just play it straight up now but I didn’t want them to be able to cleanly through it to Dante because if we just guarded him straight man they would have pounded it to him and he had a game going in the second half. I thought us scrambling and using the clock on defense prevented them from being able to take their time and then throw the ball inside to Dante.”
Arizona State Men’s Basketball Guard DJ Horne
On the first eight minutes of the second half…
“I think we just kind of lost focus on how we were playing in the first half and they came out and punched us in the mouth in the second half. We just weren’t on our game.”
On turnovers…
“We just gotta play better, I definitely felt like we were turning the ball over too much against a team like Oregon, you can’t do that.”
On taking something positive out of this game…
“At the end of the day, we always want to win. It has been a rough stretch here so seeing some shots go down definitely is a plus for me. But it doesn’t really mean anything when you don’t get the win.”
On how much easier offense is when Frankie Collins gets dribble penetration…
“It’s a lot easier, it takes the pressure off of all the other guards, especially like me and Des, shooters. We could just play off Frankie and try to find open spots for him to get us the ball to catch and shoot. It’s a lot easier."
Opening Statement…
“That was a real battle of two teams that are pretty desperate to win. I think those first eight minutes of the second half cost us. They built a lead and we couldn’t overcome it and take the lead back even though guys out there were fighting like heck, scrambling, and trying to make plays. We just didn’t defend and Barthelemy hurt us in the second half. Dante was a handful. He made a sweeping hook there at a critical juncture in the game. Sometimes a guy is just gonna make a play on you that is better than the defense, because I thought Warren guarded him very well in the situation. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but I appreciated the efforts of the guys tonight.”
On comeback after being down 12…
“We’ve won a lot of games this year and they’ve battled. If you take out USC and San Francisco, these guys have really battled in these games and we’ve had chances to win every one of these games that we’ve been in outside of those two games.”
On Warren Washington finishing around the rim…
“When you’re talking about this type of opponent, they have size and Dante is one of the best bigs in our conference. He has great size and length, even though Warren’s tall, too. I’m not worried, I think he’ll respond. He wants it bad.”
On shots from Luther Muhammad, DJ Horne, and Desmond Cambridge Jr.…
“It comes down to judgment. That one, it was a broken play and looked like we had numbers. It comes down to making the right read there. If you do it all over again, I think Luther just checked in, so I don’t know if that would have been an option, but he was open and he had made some shots in the game. DJ’s shot I didn’t have an issue with, I think he overarched it. Obviously in the last eight seconds we needed to get a three and I thought Dez had a clean enough look that you could live with that.”
On what stands out from first eight minutes of the second half…
“If you want to point to one thing, it’s the fouls. It’s 26-10 at the free throw line. That’s a tough number to overcome in a game. We also lost containment of Barthelemy a few times and on their out of bounds plays he hit some shots and we lost him. It was a little bit of everything. We held them to the 30%’s in the first half and they shot like 60% in the second half.”
On Desmond Cambridge Jr. not scoring until later in the game…
“He was fighting himself throughout the game. He’s had so many good offensive games for us that he’s a threat to run it on like he did, so we're gonna keep rolling with him. I think the play at the end of the first half didn’t help his confidence. He was very upset about the turnover and then they scored a three to cut it to three. He was beating himself up about that at halftime so we had to get him back in the moment. He’s out there competing and doing the best he can.”
On plays leading to momentum for Oregon in the second half…
“You don’t like to give a team momentum. I don’t think you can point to one play and say that’s the reason something happened or didn’t happen, but the game situation is understanding that and just knowing ‘Up six, get the last shot or a layup, otherwise let’s make sure we go in at a minimum up six’.”
On defense…
“You could feel like they were getting loose with the ball and there were opportunities when we cut it to a one possession game that I was thinking maybe we should just play it straight up now but I didn’t want them to be able to cleanly through it to Dante because if we just guarded him straight man they would have pounded it to him and he had a game going in the second half. I thought us scrambling and using the clock on defense prevented them from being able to take their time and then throw the ball inside to Dante.”
Arizona State Men’s Basketball Guard DJ Horne
On the first eight minutes of the second half…
“I think we just kind of lost focus on how we were playing in the first half and they came out and punched us in the mouth in the second half. We just weren’t on our game.”
On turnovers…
“We just gotta play better, I definitely felt like we were turning the ball over too much against a team like Oregon, you can’t do that.”
On taking something positive out of this game…
“At the end of the day, we always want to win. It has been a rough stretch here so seeing some shots go down definitely is a plus for me. But it doesn’t really mean anything when you don’t get the win.”
On how much easier offense is when Frankie Collins gets dribble penetration…
“It’s a lot easier, it takes the pressure off of all the other guards, especially like me and Des, shooters. We could just play off Frankie and try to find open spots for him to get us the ball to catch and shoot. It’s a lot easier."