Feb. 17, 2004
Opening Statement:
First of all, I don't know who will be in the starting lineup and we won't determine that until after practices this week. That part of it isn't as big a concern to me as it is to you (the media). The starting lineup will be from among the six guys, unless Oregon will let us start six. Then we'll start with six (smiles).
Are you taking suggestions?
No. If I were, certainly not from this group (laughs).
Some stats from our team that are pretty interesting ... when you look at the conference games, we are finally at 50 percent from the field, 39 (percent) from three-point range and over 80 (percent) from the foul line. We've outrebounded our opponents on offensive boards by 23 even though we have fewer opportunities percentage-wise. We have considerably more steals and blocks, and there was a while where that wasn't the case. It's certainly an indication that we're getting better in terms of shot selection and taking better care of the ball than what we were earlier. I'm happy with that.
Defensively, can we get better? Yes, we can get a lot better, but I think we are getting there. The thing that Chris (Rodgers) has giving us is a guy that gets a lot of pressure on the opposing ball-handler and makes it difficult to get the ball to the operational zone. It's extending what they are trying to do offensively. That's a key for us. Your defense really starts with the guy that's picking up the ball.
We haven't swept a road trip so far this year. Certainly, that will be a challenge for us to get that changed. It's important for us to continue building the momentum as we get closer to tournament play.
Is there a point in the season where you make a concerted effort to push towards the postseason?
That's something we hit on all year long that if you leave the practice court and you are not better than when you came on the court, you are wasting someone's time - mainly your own - and hurting your teammates. I think we are getting more productive that way. I think the stats from the conference show the improvement. If you look over the last six games, we have only one player in our top six shooting under 55 percent (from the field), which is really an amazing number. In the last six games, we are something like 83 percent from the line. You can see things happening. We just need to have that continue.
Is it harder to get the message across defensively when you had such a strong offensive performance last weekend?
When you defensively are creating so many problems for your opponent, it's lost in there. But there were some really major cases of lack of communication that led to lay-ins. That's something we can't afford. Yes, we can afford it if we're running a team out of there, but if it's a one- or two-point game, you can't afford those kinds of lapses. Those are lapses, unfortunately, that you have more from younger players than you have from older players.
Yes, we gave up far too many lay-ins, especially in the second half, Saturday to UCLA.
(On the other hand) We've never come close to scoring 50 points off an opponent's turnovers. That's the reason we had the gap we did.
Playing up at Oregon is always a challenge . . .
Our guys know how tough it is to play up there. The freshmen don't at this point. It's not something I worry about with Mustafa (Shakur). The others have been there two or three times.
They (Oregon and Oregon State) are in a real battle for postseason play. Those games up there to both Oregon and Oregon State are very important games because Oregon State is tied for last. As we know in our league, which is ridiculous, it's not a Pac-10 Tournament, it's a Pac-8 Tournament. Two teams don't get in.
