No. 3 Wisconsin vs. Green Bay
Nov. 19, 2014
Kohl Center – Madison, Wis.
Recap | Box Score | Notes
On Wisconsin’s second-half defense on Sykes:
“It was a better job, but he did defer too, he found his teammates, he made some pretty good passes. You know, he’s not a one-man show, not on that team. He looked to find some teammates, he made some pretty good passes, I don’t know how many assists he ended up with—one?—well maybe like in hockey he made the pass that led to the pass to get to the basket. Don’t you get assists in hockey that way? But no, he seemed like he was giving it up more and I thought our guys did a better job. We rotated three different guys on him, he’s pretty good.”
On the joint performance of Nigel Hayes, Sam Dekker and Frank Kaminsky:
“That was a pretty good job, those three guys did obviously. They worked, this was a good team. Needless to say, they’re picked to win their league for a reason. I thought we had to play extremely well tonight to beat them like that, to create somewhat of a cushion.”
On Nigel Hayes’ improvement:
“He’s a young man that put in an awful lot of time in the offseason on his own. He’s on our security tapes here—what I mean by that is, the security tapes are on 24/7. I caught Nigel in here real early one morning, dribbling a tennis ball with one hand and a basketball with the other. Does he think that they’re going to change the rules and go with a smaller ball? No. It was a dexterity thing. He also shoots a lot of shots. It’s just another year older, another year wiser. My answer is that he’s another year better, and look out, he’s young yet.”
On the overall improvement of the defense:
“You know what, there were some areas that I think we’re showing signs of getting better. I really don’t know, not even Trey Burke, not our Jordan Taylor, I mean Yogi (Ferrell) is very fast, but have you seen anybody with that kind of blur off a dribble Sykes has? I thought we did a much better job at recognizing a defensive lapse, weakness, flaw, and doing a better job of covering it up, which means, as I told the guys, every year, you can learn a lot while the game’s going on. I think in these three games, our guys have done that, learned a lot about the players on the other team, the guys on the bench watching, what are their tendencies, where are they going to, a lot of ball screens, a lot of dribble drives, a lot of staggers, whatever.
To go into the game off the bench, either off of rest or just coming in for the first time, and those are the ways that you can get a little bit of an edge on other teams if your players are doing that. If they’re mentally focused on the game and what they can do better, if they ever get a chance to get out there on the floor because you can get some good views. I can’t kneel down like I used too for the guys to look over me—I try to move a lot so they can see by me—but you can learn a lot during the course of the game. I thought our guys in these three games did that so far.”
Wisconsin Players
On if they can get the combined 64 points out of Kaminsky, Dekker, and Hayes every game:
“We’re going to try. We have a lot of weapons on this team. It’s a pretty deep team. Things were clicking on the right cylinders for us tonight. We went out and everyone had a pretty good game, I don’t see why we can’t do this more going forward.”
On what kind of test this was going to be after UW-Green Bay almost made the NCAA Tournament last year:
“Well, Green Bay is a really good team, make no mistake about that. They are a very athletic team, I would say more athletic than us. You watch them during warm ups, and I was kind of enamored with it. Keifer (Sykes), can’t say enough about Keifer (Sykes), the stuff he can do on the court. I haven’t played against a guy quicker than him.
“They just work hard, play hard… they have a lot of guys, a lot of tools they can use. That’s going to be a team that can make a deep run this year. I’m fully prepared for them to be in the NCAA tournament. To get a win like this tonight, to play that well in the second half, it says a lot about our team. Staying the course, and trying to work for forty minutes.”
On the defensive adjustments in the second half:
“I think we kept him in front of us better. When he gets that step, even a quarter of a step, a half step… this guy could take… I don’t know, if he gets an inch by you, he’s gone. You can’t recover after a guy with that speed. We kept in front of him, corralled him more in the paint, made him shoot jumpers instead of getting all the way to the rim, which he was doing in the first half. Just trying to make it a little more uncomfortable for him and taking those contested jumpers, which is a jumper shot. If we can force those, it makes us better.”
On how he was able to find success against this team:
“I was just trying to take what they gave me. They were playing off and they weren’t respecting my shot and rightfully so going off last year’s film and all that. So it was a smart decision to play off me. And now with my new expanded game that I have, I take what the defense gives me, and that was a couple jump shots. I got some layups. I only missed four free throws which is shocking because I felt like I missed nine. But I tried, and I’m okay with that.”
On his work in the off-season and time spent getting better, along with the difference from last year to this year:
“It was just the hard work in the off season. The confidence on the court comes with the hard work that you put in in the off-season. If you don’t put in that work, then you go out there and you’re a little hesitant about things, you’re not sure, but I made sure that I put in the time in the off-season so I’m just going out and having fun.”
Green Bay Head Coach Brian Wardle
Opening Statement
“For us it was a tale of the last five minutes of the first half and first five of the second, were not good, was not a good stretch for us and kind of changed the whole game. We talked for days about how Wisconsin is a very good team. They penalize you for taking bad shots or turning the ball over and not finishing at the rim. And we came out, the last five minutes of the first half I thought it was about 20-20, and we were in foul trouble, so I had to go deep into my bench and we didn’t finish that half off the way we could, down nine.
“We came out in the second half, missed a couple shots right at the rim and then boom, made a couple mistakes and they hit a couple threes and the next thing you know, you’re down double digits and you’re just trying to scratch and claw to try to get back into it. They’re a very good team. You’re not going to come back at them at their place. When they have a lead like that, because they don’t turn the ball over very much, and then they’re usually … I know they missed some free throws tonight but that’s uncharacteristic of them.
They shot 39 free throws to our 18, made 24 to our 12 and they killed us on the glass. We’re going to have a hard time beating a team like Wisconsin, or a lot of teams, with those types of numbers and the difference in those numbers.”
On if Green Bay’s number of fouls was frustrating:
“No, we try to prepare for that. Anytime you’re on the road, you’ve got to prepare mentally as a player and even as a coach that sometimes the whistles not going to go your way sometimes. But we foul, we fouled sometimes. And they’re good. They dropped their shoulders, they drove us hard. A foul is a foul, if it’s called it’s called. There is nothing you can do about it, you’ve got to move on.
“Our front line, we needed to produce more. Keifer (Sykes) needed more help in this game and I felt it was hard. (Greg) Mays couldn’t get in a rhythm. Alfonzo McKinnie, it was hard to get in a rhythm when you’re playing off the bench, especially second game of the year, they’re not used to how they’re have to respond. But a foul is a foul and it was called and that’s how it is. You’ve got to be resilient, you’ve got to move forward and it’s a good learning lesson for us.”
“(Nigel) Hayes is good. Hayes is really good. He has improved. He’s a big, strong mismatch because he’s kind of an inside-out forward that can do a lot of things. He hurt us. We did our best to prepare for him.
“You obviously can’t simulate the size, they’re a very big starting lineup. They move the ball. When Hayes is making threes he’s a tough matchup. In the second half, matchup wise, I thought we had to go quicker and more athletic on (Frank) Kaminsky to guard him on the perimeter better. So I had to put big Henry (Uwadiae) in to guard Hayes. And that came back and Hayes, bang, bang, two 3-pointers that really opened the game up. So that’s where they’re difficult to guard and they can make up pay.”
Green Bay G Keifer Sykes
On if he felt as though he had to put the game on his shoulders:
“No I think early we were playing solid. We came out attacking and like Coach (Wardle) said, when we started getting fouls, we’re a fast paced team, we’re an explosive team, and those fouls slow us down, take us out of rhythm. And you can see the energy getting drained out of us, especially with the crowd how it was and how they were making big shots, and it just drained the energy out of us.
“And to start the second half, it’s hard to come out at halftime and get a push on those guys, because you know they’re going to start well. So like coach said, the fact that we missed those two layups, it was hard to get back once you dig yourself a hole against the No. 3 team with two pros,
Nigel Hayes is also a pro, so it’s definitely tough to make your way back off of those guys.”
