Feb. 28, 2012
Opening Statement:
“I thought the key to our win was our defense. That certainly was the difference. Obviously the highlight was Chris’s acrobatic three-point play followed by a really good defensive stop. We got some key stops when the game was on the line and we needed to. Obviously Jordan played an outstanding game offensively with 19 points and 11 rebounds, his second career double-double. It was a good, hard fought win for our team.”
On our defense:
“We just encouraged the guys to stick to our fundamentals. We reminded them what we thought were a couple important keys and USC missed some shots too. Its not like it was entirely us but it was overall good defensive effort over that stretch.”
On getting the ball inside:
“It wasn’t just at the beginning but we tried throughout the game to get the ball inside. Its not as easy as it may look because they do a good job of fronting the post, they pressure the ball, and they have good help side. When you do get it in, they really collapse and it gets crowded in there. So when you put that all together, they make up for whatever they lack in overall size right now with great team defense. They’re good at that. They’re obviously a tremendous defensive team. They always are.”