Marquette vs. Utah Valley State Postgame Notes-Quotes
11/12/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 12, 2007
Utah Valley Head Coach Dick Hunsaker
"I thought it was a nice early season test for the Golden Eagles. We were competitive, they wore us down and I thought really turned up the defensive pressure late in the game, and we just simply didn't have enough juice to continue to manufacture the offense. They just really disrupted us. I thought their aggressiveness and their offense just wore us down.
"I think that Tom Crean does a great job with his kids. They're tremendous players. I thought they played with tremendous poise, never showed any signs of concern. I thought they always anticipated that they were going to end up being the victor. I never saw any area of tensing or tightening in the ball game. I thought they kept a lot of pressure on us defensively. We just weren't able to sustain that. That's why it's a power struggle on the backboards."
On his play...
"After the last game, we just really wanted to come out there and prove that, me personally, that I can rebound and play with the best of them. I think I showed that tonight and I just try to go out there and do my job, which is defend and rebound."
On who will work on the inside...
"I see it as a chance, it's not just me though, it's everybody on the team who is on the front line. We all have to pick up the slack. There's not any questions about whose going to be the big man on the inside or the big four, big five. I really don't like to look into that too much. I'm going to try and do my job the best that I can."
On second half defense...
"At halftime, we as a team, before coach got into the locker room, had a talk and decided that we were going to go out there and make stops. They got a couple of easy three's in the first half that we really didn't plan for. We kind of broke down, but in the second half everybody made it a point to get out there and to make those stops. We did that tonight."
Dominic James
On the second half change...
"Our offense really wasn't going early on, so we wanted to come out in the second half with a defensive mentality, create a little tempo. We wanted to start with Jerel on the point guard, make it hard for him to hinder the ball and run the offense, cause they're the type of team that are going to make you work for every possession, they're going to make the shot clock run down and make you lay down defensively and give an easy shot. That's what happened in the first half. We wanted to stick with our concepts, going into the second half and pick up the tempo, try and create some tempo for the defense."
On teams forcing MU to shoot threes...
"I think that we did a lot better job in the second half working the ball a little bit more, sharing the ball, attacking the zone, and getting guys open shots. As long as we're taking the open three's I feel like it's not going to be a problem and it's going to increase our shooting percentage from the three. It's a challenge and they get us sometimes, I guess that's where you see a lot of the threes that we shouldn't be taking. As long as we keep penetrating, keep utilizing the guys down low, because I think Lazar Hayward did a great job against the zone, getting in the middle and going to the basket. As long as we keep going inside and out hitting those open threes, I don't think its going to be a problem."
Head Coach Tom Crean
"Well for two early season games, it's been two very good tests for us to figure out how to win at home, to figure out that defense is going to make the difference, rebounding has got to become an itch for us not something that we're trying to get to every night, but something we know we've got an edge, we're a long way from that. We're going against some excellent guards in the last two games out of three nights. Two people that I definitely think have NBA prospect potential when you look at George Hill (IUPUI) and Toolson tonight."
"I love it, we've got some competition that's going to be created in practice right now between Dwight and Ousmane and I believe Ousmane will rise to the occasion and Dwight Burke, I'm anxious to see if he can keep progressing. He had his career-high at the first TV timeout and he was in the media room for the first time in three years, so thanks a lot. It'll make it harder on him. But he is working hard and he's starting to understand his role."
"Dominic getting over the hurdle, getting that 1,000th point when you're aware of it, it can make those points come a lot harder and he did a nice job. I was glad to see him go to the foul line to get 1,000 and 1,001. I think this is excellent, you always want to win by more, you want to feel like you played better. I think we're early season team right now that's figured out how to win two games at home. I think it gives us great preparation to go into Maui next week and play three games in three days."
- Hitting his ninth point of the evening from the free-throw line, Dominic James became the 38th player in Marquette's history to reach his 1,000th point. He is the first player on Marquette to do so, since Steve Novak did in the 2005-06 season. James is the seventh player to reach the 1,000th point mark in the Tom Crean era.
- Dwight Burke had a career night. He hit Marquette's first field goal at the 17:06 mark. Burke tallied a career-high 12 points and pulled down a career-high eight boards for the Golden Eagles.
- Four Golden Eagles reach double digits. James led with 13, Burke and David Cubillan added 12 and Lazar Hayward posted 11 points on the evening.
- Marquette out-rebounded its opponent for the second consecutive game, pulling down 39 boards to Utah Valley's 33. Jerel McNeal grabbed nine rebounds, Burke tallied eight and Wesley Matthews pulled down seven.
- Marquette again dominated down-low scoring 36 points in the paint, holding the Wolverines to just 20.
- MU's bench shined for the second consecutive game, outscoring Utah Valley's, 23-13 (49-14 on the year). Cubillan and Hayward led the bench production shooting four-of-eight and five-of-seven from the field respectively.
