University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Post-Game Quotesheet
1/10/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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POST-GAME QUOTESHEET
Clemson at Pitt • Petersen Events Center • Pittsburgh, Pa. • January 10, 2015
Clemson 71, Pitt 62
Quoting Pitt Head Coach Jamie Dixon
Opening Statement:
“Congratulations to Clemson. Obviously, we are not happy with how we played. They played well, we didn’t. The obvious number that stands out is rebounding. We addressed it. We talked about it. Interestingly enough, it was our big emphasis going into this game – as it always is – but we made an even more impassioned plea and emphasis on the rebounding. To get beat this bad on the glass is even more difficult to realize. They defended better than us. They executed better than us offensively. We anticipated seeing the zone. We thought they were a man-to-man team, but they’ve been playing a little bit more zone lately. We prepared for it, and I thought we, at times, attacked it pretty good. We’ve come up short in that area and certainly with the offensive rebounding. We like to get offensive rebounding with good execution against the zone. We didn’t do that today with five offensive rebounds. A disappointing performance by us, and we have to get ready for Florida State. We can dwell on it or we can get ready for Florida State, and we’ve vowed to get ready for our next one here.”
On the significance of Clemson’s 7-0 run following a tie game at 44:
“Their big guys hurt us inside with post-ups, at times. And then offensive rebounds, 14 of them, caught up to us. You’d like to get them back on the other side and we didn’t do that. You can see [rebound and the run] go hand-in-hand. You’re making up the difference and outscoring them, and that’s what we did. As that happened, [the game] turned the other way [with] rebounding and then the score turned back the other way. We talked about it. I don’t think our double-team was very effective. I don’t think our press was very effective. Our man-to-man, straight up, wasn’t very effective either. I think they shot 47 percent. There’s no way we can have a team shoot 47 percent against us here – and then the rebounding. The numbers certainly don’t lie."
On how Clemson managed to outrebound Pitt:
“I don’t know that they’re that much bigger. They’ve got maybe an inch on us at a couple of the spots. We’re bigger at some of the spots as well. It shouldn’t be [size], certainly not that big of a difference. I think shot selection hurt us too, more so down the stretch, which made the margin 19 with a couple minutes left. But then some shots at the end which weren’t needed made the margin even more. I say again: shot selection, getting to the weakside glass – we didn’t get it done, and then they beat us to some long ones. They beat us to two free throw rebounds, too, which is not a good indicator.”
On why Clemson’s zone was effective:
“We knew they’d sag; we knew they’d keep it in front. I still thought we got pretty good penetration, maybe at different spots than the top of the key, but I thought we got in the lane some but obviously not enough. I thought it was a really compact zone, you could call it. I don’t know that we did a good job of penetrating against it. I thought there were times when we did. In the second half, we got some looks and some penetration, but it wasn’t enough for 40 minutes.”
On key personnel used for post defense:
“It’s interesting. We tried Sheldon [Jeter] at that spot a little bit. We played Jamel [Artis]. It’s probably something that we have to look at, though Jamel was our leading rebounder at the same time. We think Jamel is good against the zone. We think Ryan [Luther] is good against the zone, too. We’ve got to look at something because what we did didn’t work. I’ll take responsibility for that because I thought we had the right guys to go, but the zone made us do some things a little differently I think. It just caught up to us.”
Quoting Pitt guard Cameron Wright
On the difficulty of coming back when you get outrebounded by 17:
“It’s very difficult. We have to give Clemson credit; they came in here and kicked our tails on the glass. It’s pretty obvious that when we lose the rebounding numbers, we lose the game. It’s very difficult when that happens.”
On what attributed to getting outrebounded by a large margin:
“We have to go back and look at the film. Positioning wasn’t good. They came out here and did a great job and got it done on the glass.”
On if he feels more comfortable since returning from his injury:
“I most definitely do. I’ve been in the gym every day, I feel good and my foot feels fine. It’s a daily process and my teammates have been really accepting of that and helping me get back in the process. In terms of my foot, I don’t think about it, I feel great.”
Quoting Pitt guard James Robinson
On what made Clemson’s zone defense tough to score against:
“They were aggressive in the zone and they rebounded well out of the zone. Those two things bothered us.”
On the struggles the team had shooting the ball:
“We would have liked to see our shots go in, but at the same time the more missed shots there are, the more offensive rebounds and opportunities there are for put-backs. We didn’t really accomplish that and that made it even tougher to score. Our lack of rebounding carried throughout the game.”
On what he can attribute the missed shooting opportunities too:
“I thought we missed some open ones, but we didn’t have that many assists, so that had something to do with it. Usually we get assists that come from penetration and kick-outs, so we have to get our assist numbers back up and I think that will help create more open shots.”
On what they have to do better as a team against zone defenses:
“Just penetrate a little bit more and create shots for others. Rebounding as well. I feel like when other teams are in a zone, it’s hard for them to match-up and find a man to box out, so if we crash the boards a little bit harder on the offensive end, we can get second-chance points for those missed shots.”
Quoting Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell
Opening Statement:
“I’m really proud of my players. I thought we competed extremely well. Tonight, [we] came back off a tough loss at Louisville. I thought we played really well. We had a late start, and got back really late. We didn’t practice much on Thursday—actually didn’t do anything. Then we came here having travel problems. To wake up and compete as hard as we did was a testament to how hard our [players] want to win this game. I just thought we played really well. We made shots, which we haven’t done in a long time. We executed really well in a lot of different areas. Mixing our defensive [styles] up was effective and we beat a very well-coached team today.”
On switching defensive styles in the first half:
“We didn’t play really well the first four minutes defensively. We tried something different, with screens, and made a mistake on our part because we didn’t practice it. We were just a half-step slow so we went to zone [defense] to see if it would slow the game down, and if it would help us. It did. Then we started playing well offensively. When our guys play well and produce like they did today, it energizes [the starters].
On how the team’s height aided the team in their win:
“That’s part of our offense; it’s not everything that we do. We certainly wanted to throw the ball inside today, especially when [Pitt] started pressing us. I think we did a good job and had a good mix: we made some three’s today and drove it inside. Pitt does a good job of trapping so we were prepared for that. I think we made some adjustments that were good for our team.”
On rebounding:
“It’s key. We outrebounded Louisville the other night, 40-37. Our guys are playing hard and trying to be aggressive. I thought our motion offense was good at times. It had [Pitt] spread out, so when shots do go up, you’re not standing right next to the guy to block out. There’s more space to attack the glass. Our guys were hungry tonight.”
