Nov. 6, 2009
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Missouri Basketball Post Game Quotes
November 6, 2009
Head Coach Mike Anderson
On Keith Ramsey and Truman State…
“I thought Keith Ramsey did really well. He saw the opportunity of a mismatch and he took advantage of it. First of all, let’s take our hats off to Truman, they came in and they showed a lot of grit. But I thought defensively, we really got after it with our pressure.”
On the student section…
“Before I even get started, kudos to our students. Unbelievable. That’s what I’m talking about. When you start creating atmosphere, I want to give them some big props. We appreciate it and our guys really fed off of it.”
On playing their first exhibition match…
“I thought our guys put on a show. Of course early on there, there were some rough edges we need to work on. But it was good to play someone other than (ourselves), and we found out some things we need to work on.”
On Laurence Bower’s double-double…
“You know what, that’s the things we’ve been seeing in practice from him each and every day. The guy’s been getting 14, 16 rebounds in practice and I’m looking for guys that are going to rebound. It was a great night for him, he’ll make a guy’s bad pass look like a good pass.”
Missouri Player Quotes
Zaire Taylor
On the large fan turnout:
“Before the game even started, seeing everyone in the stands was just a great feeling. It makes us feel like we’re going to have a lot of support this year, and I just hope that we don’t disappoint.”
On whether last year proved their system works:
“I think with this team and everything we accomplished last year, it makes it easier to buy into Coach [Anderson’s] beliefs and to get on board. When Coach says something, he’s shown firsthand that he knows what he’s talking about It especially makes the freshmen want to jump on board too. I think that will be the way it is the whole year.”
Keith Ramsey
On how off-season conditioning has helped:
“I think we’re one of the best conditioning teams in the league. That’s easy for us. I don’t think that will be a problem for us. If somebody does get tired—it’s like you saw tonight, we’ve got five more fresh guys to come in for them.”
On his effort:
“I just came in like it was a regular practice. Coach [Anderson] gets on me about being aggressive on both ends, so I felt like I was at a disadvantage to the other guys. I thought I had something to prove and so I did.”
Laurence Bowers
On the playing time for the bench:
“I think it’s really important for all the young guys to get an opportunity. Last year our bench was our bread and butter, and this year we’re going to need our bench just as much. Getting those guys playing time now is really important for when we get into conference play.”
On their good rebounding in the game:
“Rebounding is just a will thing. It’s something you have to want. With us not being the biggest team in the world, we can’t get killed on the boards, because later on when we face players like Cole Aldrich we’re really going to have to work. It’s a statistic that we keep in practice, so we just brought the practice into the game.”
Truman State Head Coach Jack Schrader Quotes
Opening Statement…
“The second half, we’re not very good at certain things right now and we tried to do things that we weren’t able to do. There were times in the second half I thought we fell apart as a team a little bit. It shouldn’t surprise you, if you have the ball in your hand, that they’re going to come after it. We weren’t very strong with the ball. And then a couple very simple adjustments we made offensively, it took about four or five possessions to figure it out. For example, flipping the ball screen so they can’t double on us. Those things we’ve got to get better at. Just real disappointed in the second half in the way we competed. We have a lot of work to do, I know that, so that’s what we’ll be doing.”
On what went wrong in the second half…
“I think, one, we played simple. We didn’t hunt shots. Going back to what we didn’t do well in the second half, we hunted shots we hadn’t shot for awhile. ‘I’m going to go down and take my shot, then you are going to take your shot.’ We didn’t do that the first half. We just made the easy plays and took what they gave us. They didn’t give us much. But at least we made them play some defense. We got out of whack the second half. I know that’s going to happen with this team. I don’t know where the leadership is going to come from. We’re going to have to develop that. We’re definitely not there yet, I know we’re not, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
On where Truman State needs to make adjustments…
“With these guys they need to know that it's not going to happen by magic. It’s a process. These guys last year had poor chemistry and they really didn’t develop the work ethic necessary to get better. So that’s the (team) that we need to be. They need to know that’s what they have to do. You have to stay patient and get better at one or two things at a time. It’s not going to happen in one game, no time table is good. But we have to do those things to get better."
