Dec. 23, 2009
Box Score
Head Coach Bo Ryan
On pulling away in the first half: “I thought we responded pretty well. Boy, things were disjointed on both sides. I know Robby (Jeter) probably feels the same way, but if not it probably kind of looked that way to me for both teams. We finally settled in offensively and got our looks. Jon Leuer did a great job of positioning. His teammates found him and Jon was the guy that made us go offensively. And you know we had a chance there to separate but those three or four wide open threes. If one or two of those went in I thought for the second half there that would really put us in great position, but we just couldn’t knock anything down. How long were we at 51-38? How many minutes? Some of you guys always pay attention and nobody’s offering up. Or within two or three points of that score. Six minutes? Sounds about right. I was going to say six minutes. I said that in the locker room, by the way. But I was guessing.”
On what caused the drought: “Guys were playing hard. It’s an in-state game, a short trip for them. We’ve played each other every year so it’s kind of like an Iowa-Wisconsin, Northwestern-Wisconsin, it’s a regional type game that way. So you pretty much know each other. I’m thinking that everybody was happy to be out on the court and getting a game in after taking care of business in the class room. I just think it was a couple of stretches that weren’t very kind to us, and there were stretches that weren’t very kind to them.”
On UWM’s performance: “Their bigs can separate and shoot, they can post. Rob was one of the best post players at his size. And don’t say, “Oh yeah, he can say that because he was Division III.’ We beat Division I teams and Rob Jeter posted people up a lot bigger than him and scored. Rob, I know he does a great job with his post guys getting touches and getting buckets and if they can also stretch and shoot the three, which they have at times, they’re going to be tough to handle. They’re going to catch some people some nights where both the inside and outside works. Ricky Franklin’s better with the ball this year, he’s a better player and his young guys bring the energy. I think people better get ready for UWM. I think Rob and his staff has done a great job with them.”
Bo’s effect on UWM moving away from the relying on 3-point shooting: “Well I think there’s a stick to it. They’re willing to buy in and not do what a couple of guys have done in the past where he couldn’t count on them. It looks like he can count on these guys, like they’re tough-minded individuals. They want to play, they want to listen. That’s a pretty good combination for us coaches. We know we can get guys [to become] better and I can see Rob has done that with these guys.”
UW Player Post-game quotes
Trevon Hughes
On the flow of the game: “I think we have good defense. It took us—both teams—out of what we wanted to do. We kind of knew each other, playing like older brother, younger brother in the backyard is how I think it was. We know how they play, they know how we play. We couldn’t get something together.”
On what Jon Leuer has been able to do lately: “He’s being more aggressive, like he said, and is trying to get in the post more. I think those were the main differences that we were trying to get him to do from last year. He’s basically our leader in the post. We have to give him the ball because he’s producing for us. If it’s not broke, why would you try to fix it, and he’s been producing ever since he stepped on the court the first game this year. Just to have someone in the post like that really helps us.”
On focusing on the game with finals and the holidays: “It definitely isn’t hard. Basketball is what we do. I don’t think it’s hard. We just had a bad game but came out on the winning side. Except for Jon (Leuer). He had a good game.”
Jordan Tayler
On the 9-1 run at the end of the first half: “I think we always try to be aggressive and there are times in the offense where we can look for penetration and we’re more open than other times, but I think we went on a little drought for a while. I think that Trevon (Hughes) as one of the leaders of the team, looks, if we’re in a drought, to get us out of the drought. I think in that instance it was the flow and the driving lines were there.”
Jon Leuer
On becoming more aggressive and comfortable as the season goes on: “I’m just trying to be aggressive and make plays when they’re there. You can’t force it. We have guys on this team that, if they key in on one guy, they can hurt them. That helps a lot. We’re unselfish and we move the ball, and right now I’m just trying to be assertive and make plays when they’re there.”
On what you’ve done to change your game from last season: “I’m definitely trying to post up harder than I did in my first two years here. I’m really trying to establish myself down low. We have guards that get the ball down there and I just try to be efficient. It’s the easiest spot to score. When you’re that close to the basket and you’re able to make plays, good things will happen for the team.”
On the Jordan Tayler adding to the depth of the team: “It’s been a huge lift. Not only scoring, he can penetrate, he can drive gaps, he can find people, he draws help. It always seems like he makes the right decisions. Having that coming off the bench is a huge lift.”
Milwaukee Head Coach Rob Jeter
Opening statement: “I thought the first half, looking at the shooting percentages of both teams, you knew that one team was going to cool off a little bit. Or at least you would expect one team to cool off a little bit, and unfortunately it was us. To go down to shoot the percentage we shot… and they shot 34 percent, too (in the second half). But the difference for us was when we needed to make a few of those shots to get the lead into the low 10’s, the ball just wouldn’t go down. We didn’t have an answer for Jon Leuer and that was the difference. Once again, when you look down at the stats and you see a team that makes more free throws than you attempt, you’re usually not going to win that game. And then the rebounding. Second chance points really did us in.”
On the team’s cold streak toward the end of the first half and beginning of the second: “Well they kept us off the free throw line, that was part of it. You can survive some cold shooting stretches if you’re still getting to the line. We were doing the right things: we were trying to get the ball in the paint, we were touching the post. We were posting hard but we just weren’t coming away with foul opportunities. That’s kind of what you expect when you play a Bo Ryan team. They’re just not going to beat themselves. They’re going to play hard, play together and those shooting drops like that make it very difficult to pull out a win like we were trying to pull out tonight.”
On Leuer’s play: “Well, he plays at such a great pace. I think what he does well is he creates space. When you’re guarding with a big player, there’s always going to be enough space for him to comfortably shoot, unless you have a bigger player that can get into him and take away that space. He’s so comfortable when he turns and shoots and you can tell that he’s used to playing against guys who are smaller than him and he just turns and shoots over the top of them very comfortably. He’s getting better at playing against guys that are bigger or just as big because he steps off into those soft areas in the court and he’s able to create that two to three feet of space. That’s all he needs to get a clean look and he’s making those. He’s very unique. There’s not a lot of guys who make those in-between shots that consistently. We talk a lot about 22 percent shots, those are the shots right inside the 3-point arc or right in those soft areas that you kind of want teams to shoot from, but he makes those. He’s unique in that way.”
