Recap | Box Score
Wisconsin vs. Illinois
February 9, 2010
Post-Game Quotes
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan
On ending the Badgers' 51 home-game winning streak against unranked Big Ten opponents:
“Well it means our guys have been playing well. They’ve made shots and they’ve played D and they’ve taken care of business. If it was so easy how come everybody else doesn’t do it? Yeah, it means something when it comes to guys taking pride in what they do.”
On defending the pick-and-pop against Demetri McCamey:
“It really wasn’t a pop where he goes out to the three… He hit some jumpers. The defensive job our guys did on everybody else, I thought was pretty solid. How many teams have we played where those guys had those jump shots, had those opportunities and not shot that percentage? But sooner or later it catches up to you and when a team does that… we weren’t scoring at the other end. The problem is when you’re not putting points on the board it just doesn’t look good. But you knew it had to happen sooner or later where we were going to go dry. We just picked a bad time to do it. If it was earlier in the game maybe you have something to come back from. I thought defensively, we did a decent job of getting them out of that, but McCamey’s deep threes, he hit two of them on our center on Keaton (Nankivil). It’s not very often you see guys come in and shoot like that. So I give them credit. They made the shots with hands in their face and we didn’t.”
On the Badgers’ cold spell at the end of the game:
“When we were down 4, 5, 6 points we were pulling it a little quicker than maybe we would like but we didn’t have any other choice because we were playing against the clock. We’ve taken those shots and made a high percentage of them. And we were on pace to do our 23, 24, 25 threes… but we were 33 points on 29 shots. We drove to the basket several times. I thought we were going to get to the free throw line with some penetration and contact. I think our guys got a little gun-shy when we didn’t get to the free throw line. I think that did affect us and you just have to be tougher and play through that.”
Trevon Hughes
On Demetri McCamey’s offense:
“Basically he made the long ball all night. If we would stop that, he would be out of the way, but be effective off the ball screen and make tough plays. When we stopped him, he was able to hit [Mike] Tisdale and Tisdale would make the big shot.”
On unsuccessful drives:
“I believe my teammates had good looks, I was forcing things. I wasn’t getting the calls because I was being just aggressive. If I would have finessed everything, I probably would have gotten the call.”
On Mike Tidsdale’s height:
“I wouldn’t say his height was a factor. He wasn’t blocking any shots. We just weren’t making anything in the second half.”
Jason Bohannon
On Wisconsin’s final 10 minutes of shooting:
“We were right in the right position until the end of the game. At two and a half minutes we had to start fouling, and they got away from us. Even though we weren’t converting shots, we were still doing other things that were keeping us there, and we just have to find a way to make those shots.”
On getting back on track:
“We have to get ready for the next game. We have to put this behind us and realize there is another very good team coming in on Saturday. We have to be ready to play. It’s just the nature of the Big Ten; if you lose a game and you are still focusing on that game, you will lose the next game down the road. We have to look ahead and come ready to play.”
On Illinois getting back in the game:
“Anytime you get a team down by 10 points, you want to make that deficit even larger. We didn’t do the right things for a period of time where [Demetri] McCamey hit a couple of shots, I think three three-pointers in a row, and that got them back in the groove. Anytime you have a player struggling like that, you want to keep pushing it and make him make tough decisions, and we didn’t do that tonight. We let them get back in the game.”
Keaton Nankivil
On Mike Tisdale:
"I wasn’t frustrated. When he kept putting up shots and hitting them, eventually you just hope that the odds go in your favor, as far as shooting percentage goes. But we played it one possession at a time. It can be frustrating just because he was knocking them in, but I just took it one position at a time.”
On the loss:
“We are not going to let one loss get to us. There is a lot of season left. There are a lot of things that can happen. As much of a cluster the Big Ten is, there is no reason to dwell on one loss. We just have to go out and play and do everything we can to get back in a good position.”
Illinois Head Coach Bruce Weber
Opening statement:
“Obviously it’s a great win for our team and our program. To come back after Michigan State on Saturday with [ESPN College] GameDay, the excitement, the win, and then to come here and keep your poise and keep your focus and start slow but somehow find a way to just grind it out, I couldn’t be more excited and proud of our kids. I know I get after Demetri [McCamey], but after the start he was sure good and made plays. [Mike] Tisdale struggled with people being physical on him on the inside, but we were able to get him some open shots and he was able to make some shots. We talked the whole time that it had to be a 40-minute game. I’ve seen [Wisconsin] down against Penn State, down against Michigan, but they always find a way to get back in the game. We just made enough stops when it mattered. We talked about keeping them on their heels, and it seemed like they were on their heels, and we were on our toes most of the last 10 minutes of the game which is how you’re going to win games on the road. Great for our kids. We’ve improved defensively; we’ve improved in a lot of ways. Now we’ve got ourselves where we’re a little bit of a contender, but we have a long way to go and a very tough schedule ahead of us.”
On the way Demetri McCamey has been playing:
“I can find things to yell at him about, I promise you. He still gets lackadaisical on defense and he got really tired out there. I called timeout, took him out, sat him down that entire timeout and another timeout so he’d have some legs at the end. The turnovers early, I was sitting there worried. Here he comes off of Player of the Week, they’ve been fouling them and I was going, ‘oh boy, this is what we’ve been going through for three years.’ Every time he does something good and you compliment him, he seems to go back to his old ways. He had a slow start and some turnovers and some bad decisions and then he got clicking and had a great finish to the half. He did some big time things throughout the game; he’s really playing like we’ve wanted to. He sees things, is leading us, talks. If he could guard that would really help us, but right now we’re happy with what he’s giving us.”
On how big this win was:
“It’s amazing just what Bo [Ryan] has done here. Someone asked me today how do they do it, and you know, the arena is great, the fans are great, but it’s Bo and the system and the players. The players believe in his system. They usually grind it out and make it a possession game and the crowd gets into it and they’re able to win the game down the stretch which you’ve seen them do so many times. Tonight we were just fortunate. I don’t know if we wanted it more, but we made the plays and the balls bounced our way. What he’s done here has just been amazing. I’m from here and watched some bad basketball growing up as a kid, but from Coach [Dick] Bennett to now Coach Ryan, you have some pretty good basketball.”
On what you did to limit them in the paint:
“They seemed to rely so much on the three-pointers. One of the things we talked about was being aggressive on the ball. We got more aggressive on the ball and make them dribblers. They really hurt us with threes at the beginning of the game. Maybe they fell in love with the three because they didn’t make them late. But once you make them dribblers, you have to give help. We were able to respond and make the plays. They don’t really go inside much. I hope it was our defense. I know we were bad early, but we’re much better now.”
