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Wisconsin vs. Northwestern
Feb. 21, 2010
Post-Game Quotes
Wisconisn Head Coach Bo Ryan
On what changed to bring the cold stretch in the second half: “Well there were a lot of factors. I think defensively they changed some things which we expected, that’s what the scout team was doing the past couple of days. If you get tentative against what they do, the shots get a little bit tougher. We went through quite a stretch there where we just weren’t getting shots where we were stepping into our perimeter shots or touching the post enough. Finally down the stretch we did because they were very aggressive.
“That was the best I’ve seen Northwestern play their half court defense. They were reading well, they were flying, they were very attentive to detail. They’re better at that now. The game down there, if it wasn’t for Pop (Trevon Hughes) getting hot, they had shut out a lot of things, and plus defensively we had shut out a lot of things. We tried to take away their three’s. You had to give them some credit they got some bounces and scored off the bounce going to the rim. We bailed them out a couple of times; a little undisciplined.
“Our preparation was to take away some things which I think we did. They just made better plays sometimes going to the rim. When they were scoring, we kind of didn’t get our possessions on the other end to keep the distance. If another team is scoring and you’re scoring, which is how it was in the beginning of the game, sooner or later someone’s going to hit a spell where they’re going to go dry. Ours was at a certain point of the game and theirs was at a certain point in the game. The difference was being patient enough at the end to get fouled and to the line, because they were very aggressive and, for the most part, we hit our free throws.”
On Jon Leuer’s presence defensively: “There is the experience we get back on the floor in those situations and that’s why he was out there. Plus, even with that tape on his hands, his hands in the post are the best of all our bigs. He made a couple good catches in there. He made an offensive rebound or two. His activity inside, defensively and offensively, was a big factor down the stretch.”
On John Shurna’s play today: “I thought he was reading what the defense was giving and what the defense was taking away. He was very opportunistic. We’ve had games where guys were like that too. Where the defense is trying to take something and their counter happens to be better. He’s developing as a player. I’m sure when other teams see this they will have to do different things against him. It’s nice to see the development of a player, he just didn’t have to do it today. He’s a great young man and a great player.”
On Jason Bohannon’s poise down the stretch: “They were doing a pretty good job of taking things away, not just with him, but other things that we had been getting. His experience is huge. Trevon (Hughes) got into foul trouble which disrupted him somewhat. It’s not that in practice you can say ‘You’ve got two fouls so now you’ve got to sit for X amount of minutes.’ Sometimes you’re tempted to do that in practice where you keep a guy off to the side and say, ‘Okay we don’t have him now and go through x amount of possessions.’ If in practice you sit a guy for 13 possessions, what you’ve got is you’re thin on either side and you just can’t do that in practice. You just have to teach guys not to pick up fouls like that. His hand brushed someone’s head and his hand never should have come down and that’s what got him one of his fouls. You pick up those and you go to the bench and you learn from it.”
Wisconsin Player Quotes
Jordan Taylor
On coming back from Thursday’s game to win today: “When we take a loss we just try to come back and get the next one. Coach is always talking about go to what’s next so we try not to dwell on the last game. Once you lose one there’s really nothing you can do about it. We just try not to compound things and that goes for games as well as mistakes on the court. If you make one mistake we try and make up for it the next play.”
Jon Leuer
On ending his second game back with such a big block: “The block was just trying to make up for all those free throws I missed, I don’t know what I was thinking there. I just felt I had to make a play and I saw [Michael] Thompson penetrate and I felt I could get over there quick enough and I did. I’m feeling pretty good as far as my second game back. I feel I still have a long way to go. Every day I’m just trying to get better and get in more of a rhythm with this team.”
On the fluidity of this game versus playing his first game back at Minnesota: “Anytime you’ve been away from the game for five or six weeks, it’s an adjustment coming back. You kind of have to feel it out. The more experience you get and the more games you get under your belt the easier it becomes anytime you play. I’m just taking it day by day right now and just trying to get better to help this team.”
Jason Bohannon
On having Jon Leuer back in action: “It’s very nice having a big that’s long and can go up to block shots. If we get beat off the dribble, which Coach doesn’t want to happen, but if it does then we have some type of recovery which is really nice to have. Jon did a very good job coming over from the weak side today and he got some very good blocks.”
On letting Northwestern back in the game in the second half: “We were a little disappointed that we didn’t push it to a further lead. Anytime you have a 10-point lead you want to push it to 15, then 20 and so on. Northwestern played very well in the second half. They did some good things defensively and they made some big shots also. They got hot at the right time and made a run at the end of the game and thankfully we had enough to hold on.”
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
On last calls on John Shurna rebounds: “I don’t know about that call. When John Shurna went to the backboard, it was probably a charge on his fault, but they didn’t call anything there. Then he was solo and he missed it, and that would have tied it. Then he had a nice drive to the basket, got right to the rim, and called a timeout with about 10 seconds left and got right to the rim again and missed. I don’t know what happened with the last call. The guy had two hands on the ball, I had no idea what happened there, but it was a big call at the end there.”
On defensive response in the second half: “We started out in a match-up and they hit their first nine shots, so we had to change that. We played some 1-3-1 inthe first half and they still made about half of them. I thought we just needed to be a little more aggressive coming from the wings, from (Drew) Crawford and Shurna. We had the chance, and I think they did a pretty nice job. We certainly played better defensively in the middle of the second, I thought.”
On Davide Curletti in the middle of the zone: “Luka Mirkovic had not played well in the middle all year, he wasn’t planning to start. I thought (Curletti) did a pretty nice job. He hit a three, made a pick-n-roll layup. He should have had another one, but I thought he gave us some nice minutes in there.”
On Northwestern’s overall play: “We have to start playing better because we haven’t been playing well. You hope that by playing better you gain some momentum in the last three weeks and along the way win some of these games. I think (Michael) Thompson did a nice job because he didn’t shoot the ball at all, our offence was doing OK and he didn’t have to. Then at the end he made some nice plays. Shurna did a nice job. He just put his head down a couple of times, got right to the basket and finished, almost the whole second half.”
“We played offensively well most of the night and defensively in the second half. We had very few turnovers. If you want to win on the road, you can’t turn the ball overall you have to make your foul shots and we missed a bunch of them, but I think this is a good team.”
On Wisconsin’s overall play: “Wisconsin is a tough team, they had a nice lead on us. They were playing extremely well and usually teams make runs and they were able to hold us off.”
