Dec. 13, 2010
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Post-Game Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Milwaukee
Kohl Center – Madison, Wis.
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan
On Green Bay center Alec Brown:
“I thought they did a great job of finding him, and we were doing some things off of the dig to protect the rim. At times we got caught, where we were beating on a driving line so our bigs helped and then they found him. On the offensive glass he went on the glass, you can’t make a 7-foot-1 guy shrink. His height was definitely a factor and he used it well, he played a pretty good game, I think the stats will tell you that too.”
On going inside then out for better 3-point opportunities:
“I think those last five minutes, as we were spreading the floor a little bit; usually it depends sometimes on the angles, hands, about grabs and things like that. Usually you’re working with a lead trying to get to the free throw line, or make people pay by being aggressive. We did it sometimes, we didn’t do it all the time, but our points per possession were pretty good, we got to the line and for the most part we hit them. Our 3-point shot selection was excellent.”
On Mike Bruesewitz play tonight:
“He’s got energy, sometimes it gets away from him in some decisions but I’d rather have to tone somebody down than get him excited about what they’re doing. That’s why guys like Mike can play for me, guys like that have always been able to play for me. It’s intelligent aggression, being active, so without his play we wouldn’t be the team we are right now.”
On the backcourt’s performance tonight:
“Well, sometimes you drift; I thought we drifted just a little. Very first possession we don’t get the separation, we think the guy’s further off us than what he is, so you get a five-second call. Sometimes that happens and you just have to catch yourself, and when you get into those moments you’ve got to find ways to get out of them. Jordan Taylor ends up with a 6-to-3 ratio and he starts out in the first 10 seconds with a turnover. So for the rest of the game that’s 6-to-2, which is 3-to-1, so he did okay. He would like to have it back but at least he understands that you have to make sure you get enough separation so the officials aren’t spreading their arms, not where the guy is close enough so the count can stay on. And Josh Gasser, three state schools in a row, you know how hard and physical they are. He is a freshman, and I think he is really one of those guys who is really looking forward to what’s going to happen here in these next 10 days.”
On the frontcourt’s 3-point shooting:
“And Jared’s (Berggren) a better 3-pointer shooter than all of them. It’s an advantage when you shoot them with confidence, and you know that within the offense you can do that, but we obviously want points on the inside also. Sometimes it’s the way teams are playing you, you just have to keep probing and finding ways. We did a nice job of finding some offensive rebounds, to use some clock again at the end, like we did in Saturday’s game. So I like that aggression, I like that Green Bay played extremely well, and as soon as they started hitting some shots, it cuts into a lead in a hurry, and we got it back by getting to the line.”
Post-Game Quotes-- Wisconsin Players
Senior F Jon Leuer
On Wisconsin’s defensive play in the first half:
“We stepped up our energy on defense and you could feel that we were getting them to take tough shots. A lot of times, they were in late shot clock situations, so we made them force up some shots. Any time you can make a team do that, their (shooting) percentage is going to go down.”
On Bruesewitz being an X-factor:
“Any time we can get good production and get things going like Mike and Keaton did tonight, it’s just another dimension for our team. Multiple guys scoring in double figures, four tonight, that just puts pressure on the defense. You don’t know who to help off of, we shot the ball well tonight, and that opens up lanes for Jordan (Taylor) to drive. We’re a pretty dynamic team when we have all of these good parts working.”
On Wisconsin’s momentum swing after his dunk in the first half:
“We kind of built some energy and some momentum. We knew that was a point in the game where we wanted to make a few good plays happen, and we knew we needed to do that. It stretched out our (defense) right at the end of the half.”
Senior F Keaton Nankivil
On Green Bay freshman Alec Brown:
“I thought he was a pretty nice player. We knew he had good touch from the midrange, but he definitely proved that he could score down low. He had a few jumpers over guards and we had to switch off the different screens. He played hard and I thought he was very skilled.”
On Bruesewitz’s offensive play this season:
“I haven’t been surprised at all. We get to play each other all summer and I think the difference between Mike his freshman year and now is that he feels so confident in what he is doing now. All summer, he was one of the toughest matchups day-in and day-out with the number of things he can do and how hard he plays. I think all of the guys on the team knew what he was capable of.”
Sophomore F Mike Bruesewitz
On Wisconsin’s shooting:
“I think we were moving the ball and making tough cuts. Jordan was distributing the ball extremely well tonight again, just like he has been doing all year. They were trying to switch and double some stuff, so we just made the extra pass and found guys open. Then we just knocked down shots.”
On his role in opponent’s scouting report:
“We have guys like Keaton, Jon and Jordan that have proven themselves. Jon and Jordan especially of late have been scoring over 20 points over the last four, five, six games. Keaton has been chipping in 12, 14, those range numbers. Definitely when teams look at that, they try to take those guys away. Look who’s left, it’s me or Josh (Gasser), or somebody else coming off the bench. So you want to make those guys beat you. We do the same thing, try to take team’s best options away.”
Green Bay Head Coach Brian Wardle
Opening Statement
“Well, I’ve been in this press room a few times and it’s never been on the winning end. It’s a very tough place to play. Overall from our standpoint, I thought we competed, we do every game. I thought our effort was there, but we’ve got to clean things up defensively. Wisconsin is a very good team and I have the utmost respect for Bo Ryan and his coaching staff and what they do here. They really make it work defensively. You’ve got to have all five guys on the same page working as a unit, you cannot have a guy break down and, if we had one guy lose vision for a second or break down, it seemed like they capitalized on us. It’s something we have to get better at, closing out and contesting shots at a higher level, because it’s kind of a trend that’s hitting us lately, giving up too many 3s.
I thought in the first half we had a five-minute span that really cost us the game. I thought the last five minutes in the first half, where we broke down defensively and we took a few bad shots, killed our rhythm and now we’re down 11 or 12, I don’t even remember what it was at halftime. In the second half, we got down 18 but we battled back, we kept battling and battling and competing, and we started to make a few more shots. They’re a good defensive team so I told them our shot selection is going to be key tonight and unfortunately for those five minutes, I really thought it hurt us.”
On 3-pointers:
“We’ve played a tough schedule so far this year, against some very good shooting teams. Our numbers aren’t good from the 3s. I really have to take a look in the mirror and ask why we are getting 3s made on us at such a high rate. We work on it all the time. We worked on recovering Keaton Nankivil and Jon Leuer, we know that’s a big key, especially for Nankivil to catch and shoot. For some reason we were a step slow, maybe just a little bit hesitant. So that’s something we’ve got to get better at. We’ve had teams shoot 14 to 25 on us this year and I had my two seniors go out and shoot 3s, unguarded, and we couldn’t make 14 to 25. You can have a guy go out there and maybe make 9 to 17, so guarded or unguarded 10 to 17 is a pretty good day shooting it.”
On Rahmon Fletcher’s third foul to out:
“It hurt us anytime Rahmon Fletcher’s out, I want him on the floor. I think our team needs him on the floor. He makes plays, he’s our leader, and he makes us go. So that’s something, to be honest this first part of the season if I had one thing to complain to him about it about it is just being smarter with his on-ball pressure. He’s a very good player on the ball, he creates a lot of problems for the ball handler with his ball pressure, but he just needs to get rid of that one reach or one bump, that foul he’s picked up quite a bit so far this year. It definitely hurt the rhythm, but I said to him, we’re not going to lose this game. I’m going to put him in as early as I need to put him in to keep us in the game and I thought that worked out to benefit us.
But Jordan Taylor is a good player too. Taylor is very smart, very heady, I could tell when he had the ball. I told them we have to keep Rahmon off Taylor because every time we saw Rahmon on him, I could tell he was going right at him. That’s a smart veteran play by him. So it definitely kills rhythm and that’s something we have to get better at and Rahmon’s got to get better at.”
