Dec. 29, 2007
Coach Herb Sendek
Opening Comments:
"What can I tell you? We came back from Christmas, we spent almost all of our time working on our defense, and our offense played great. I thought our guys played a really good game today. Offensively, we were really sharp. The numbers are remarkable. Guys played with a lot of cohesiveness offensively, did a good job in transition. And then, defensively, we did a much better job of covering today. St. Francis is an excellent 3-point shooting team. Their numbers are attention-getting. Except for our effort on number 30, [Grant] Surprenant, we did a really good job covering the 3 today."
On whether defending the 3-point line was a point of emphasis coming into the game:
"Absolutely. We were not at all pleased with our defensive effort the previous two games. We played good defense against Xavier, and then we played poor defense the last two games. Today, we were much better."
On his team's 73 percent 3-point shooting today:
"Guys were really shooting the ball, really efficient on offense today. Those numbers are incredible."
On the play of Eric Boateng today:
"I was really happy to see Eric play so well in the second half. The guys did a great job of getting him the ball. He went up strong around the basket and did a terrific job finishing for us."
On his evaluation of the team with the non-conference season complete:
"I think we're an incomplete. It's just too early to tell. If you gave us a grade, it would be an I. We've played some really good games. LSU and Xavier are great wins. I thought we played really well today. We've had some tough days, like Illinois and at Nebraska, where we haven't played particularly well. We've won a couple of games where we didn't play our best, like last week, Montana State and Idaho. So right now, as we head into conference play, it's an incomplete. The one thing about conference play is, it's a gauntlet. It's 18, plus one, at least, 19 straight games against really good teams. So it's unforgiving. There's no easy way to get well. You've got to earn everything you get in this league. It's an incredible league."
On his expectations for the team going into the Pac-10 season:
"We know what we have to do. It's up to us, how far we want to go in the Pac-10. We've got a couple of days to prepare for Oregon, and we'll take it from there."
On the team's shooting tonight:
"A couple of guys made some shots. Ty [Abbott] and Derek [Glasser] made a couple of 3's. We shot the ball real well tonight. Hopefully we can keep it up going into this Oregon game on Thursday."
On how this game prepared the team for the Pac-10 opener:
"St. Francis is a good team, very good 3-point shooting team. Coach put a lot of emphasis on that these last couple of days preparing for them. They can shoot the ball real well. That gets us ready for Oregon because they shoot the ball real well too. This is a learning experience, and we'll take it from here."
On the team's performance today after being disappointed by the Idaho game:
"It was really huge. That game [against Idaho], we didn't do what we wanted to do. Then, with Pac-10 less than a week away, it was really paramount for us to do this and know that, if we want to compete and do what we're trying to do, that we have to step this up."
On whether his expectations for the team have changed going into Pac-10 play:
"Our expectations are always high. Standards here are high. We've got to keep our standards high. We can control what we do."
On how this non-conference season compares to last year:
"I think we're a little more confident now. Last year, we didn't really know what was going on, we had a brand new coach, and we were still adjusting and trying to figure things out. Now, I think we're a lot more confident. Everybody is a lot more confident."