Post-game Quotes
2/10/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 10, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes
Tulsa Head Coach Doug Wojcik
Opening Statement...
"For anyone that heard how I talked about this game coming into it, they would know that it was going to be a hard-fought game. Southern Miss just plays that way. Amazingly, we got off to a very slow start. I thought we competed after the 10-minute mark of the first half. I thought Gary Flowers really hurt us during those first 10 minutes of the game.
"Then we turned around and played a great second half. Looking back at the score, it's amazing that the only other team that scored more on them in a conference game was in their first [conference] game of the year against Marshall. It was pretty par for the course. Give them credit they really rebound the basketball and they make you defend for 25 seconds, and then if you give up an offensive rebound it's 50 seconds. That slows up the game quite a bit."
On the slow start and fast finish...
"I think Ben [Uzoh] is starting slow, but he's always been somewhat like that. He came back and got 13 points in the second half, and also had nine rebounds and six assists. He played a whale of a game. I thought he did a good job of executing the zone offense when they went zone on us. We had one possession where we didn't, then two when we got really big baskets. We do need to start better, but I do think it is par for the course against Southern Miss. Give them credit for their defense."
On the second half...
"It's pretty amazing. You shoot 31 percent in the first half and come back and shoot 65 percent in the second, and shoot 50 percent for the game. We had actually worked all week, and sometimes they forget, that they kept fronting Jerome [Jordan]. He kept trying to fight the front and I told him at halftime - Do you want to go and shake Coach Eustachy's hand? He coming so far off the block, and then we finally did a good job in the second half of going over the top. Joe Richard threw the first nice pass over the top and we had some others along the way that softened up the defense."
Senior Jerome Jordan
On TU's strong finish...
"It was well-needed because we struggled the whole game offensively. We just had to do it on the defensive end, and then try to do a few things to throw them off a little bit. We were able to do well down the stretch on both ends of the floor to seal the game for us."
On getting C-USA blocks record...
"It was a good feeling just getting that first one. I was trying to push it a little further, but unfortunately they just didn't come my way."
Junior Justin Hurtt
On grinding out a win vs. Southern Miss...
"That's what Coach [Doug Wojcik] had talked to us about, how they were just going to grind the game out. They don't average a lot of points. They just play really good defense. They're going to slow other teams down. So we were ready for that. We just came out kind of slow, but we ended up coming back."
On when TU got into their game...
"[In the] second half, we just really played well, even defensively. We knocked down shots. Some of those threes, some of those drives to the basket, those really got us going. The "and-one" Jerome [Jordan] got really helped us get going."
Senior Ben Uzoh
On TU starting off slow again and finishing with a run...
"That's something we're good at, but we definitely have to get off to a better start. I don't what it is, but definitely need to find out. I need to do a better job finding that balance between running the team and being aggressive when I see that we're stagnant like that."
On TU's potency in the last 5 minutes of the game...
"They [Southern Miss] do a great job defensively. They took away our inside game for the most part of the game. We found a couple of plays that worked well against what they were trying to do and we kept going to that because they had to respect what we were doing. We were able to get it inside. They went zone for a little bit and we were able to execute well against their zone. We just toughed it out. It was ugly, but we got the win."
