Marquette University Athletics
Marquette vs. Texas Southern - Notes & Quotes
11/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2008
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Postgame Notes - MU vs. Texas Southern
- Game two of the 2008 Chicago Invitational. MU defeated Chicago State 106-87 in the tournament opener (Nov. 17). MU will conclude action in the eight-team event this weekend at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Ill. MU will play Northern Iowa on Friday, Nov. 28 and Dayton on Saturday, Nov. 29.
- Marquette never trailed en route to its fourth consecutive win to open the season.
- MU had five players score in double figures led by senior Jerel McNeal with 20 points. It's the fourth time in as many games that MU has had at least four players tally double figures in scoring. Junior Maurice Acker led the bench with 10 points, while junior Lazar Hayward (18) and seniors Wesley Matthews (13) and Dominic James (11) also scored in double figures.
- Senior Jerel McNeal (4-of-7) and junior Maurice Acker (3-of-4) combined to connect on seven of MU's season-high 10 3-pointers. As a team, MU was 10-of-23 from beyond the arc for a 43.5 shooting percentage, including 6-of-12 (50.0 percent) from the perimeter in the first half.
- 85 points by MU is the most allowed by Texas Southern in four games this season.
- With three steals tonight, senior Dominic James moved into 6th all-time at MU in career steals. James now has 189 steals in his career.
Postgame Quotes - MU vs. Texas Southern
MU Head Coach Buzz Williams:
"I don't think we played near as well from a consecutive perfect possession standpoint as I think we have. I thought the last 7 minutes against UWM and the first 16 against UWM in the 2nd half, I think we did really well on both ends of the floor. I thought tonight it was very spotty on both ends-on offense and defense-obviously in the 2nd half. I know that 64 (percent shooting for Texas Southern) is awful, but that number was higher than that for most of the 2nd half, and we can't have success letting teams score they way did. I thought Coach Harvey had his team ready to play. I thought they competed every single possession, and I thought that tonight we were not as consistent as we have been. Today was our best shoot around. Since last Wednesday, we've been really good. I thought that how we practiced, was played out in the game. Since Saturday, we've been really good in practice, but that did not come out near as consistent or in consecutive possessions as we needed to.
Williams on offensive and defensive rebounding by Texas Southern
"I think the number is skewed. I thought that in the first half, they shot 33 percent, and had 6 offensive rebounds. But when you shoot 64 percent, there is not a lot of rebounds to go chase. We put so much emphasis on offensive rebounding that we didn't get near as many stops as we usually get. This is the worst field goal percentage defense we've had in a game. It's also the worst field goal percentage we've had in a game. Our offense has to be derived from our defense, and when a team shoots 64 percent, we're going to struggle on offense just as well."
Williams on: Is it good to get this kind of game out of the way early?
"I think when you really get to the guts of each of our opponents up to this point, they've all been really good at something different. Obviously, with TSU it was offensive rebounding, but I thought that in the 2nd half, we were much better attacking, whereas in the 1st half, it was to some timing. I think it is good to have to gut through this, and I left some guys in the game longer than I typically leave them in because I wanted to see them gut through it. I have a pretty good sense of what our 3 perimeter players and Lazar can do, but I think those other 5 players that are healthy right now-those guys got to figure it out on their own in the same way. That's why the matchups were the way they were at certain times on both ends of the floor, but I also think that as good as those 4 guys have been up until this point, those other 5 guys have got to close the gap a little bit to take the pressure off of those four. At the same time, we can't deceive ourselves into thinking that Jimmy Butler can't be an important piece of what we're trying to do-same with Mo (Maurice), same with Cubi (Cubillan), same with Dwight(Burke) or Pat (Hazel), although I think Pat has been pretty accountable for the minutes that he's played. I thought we had to gut through some things, and we had to gut through it, and not with the personnel that we would always get through with. That grows us up. That grows all of them up, even me.
Coach Williams on Maurice's impressive play
"I think Mo, and it's not just Mo, it's our team. When you say Mo with some pace, we're probably about ready to have a good possession. I think that Mo was able to put some things together tonight that we need him to put together every night."
Lazar Hayward quotes:
"We kind of got our bad game out of the way now. We always consider ourselves a mature basketball team. We take what we got today. We know what we did bad. We've all been playing together for three or four years so we don't even need to talk about all the things we did wrong because we already know. It's good to have that kind of game because we know the things we have to do to get better."
"I thought that all our guys had good pop to them and this week we had four consecutive really, really good practices. Buzz told us the same thing today but there's really no excuse for [TSU's shooting percentage]. There's really no excuse for that at all. We can't let that happen or we won't win at all."
"We weren't attacking, we weren't being tough. We were more worried about them playing zone and not us doing what was necessary, getting certain gaps, making the extra pass, and just being tough. That's what we didn't do."
"After this game and our opponents see that, I don't see why our opponents wouldn't throw [a zone defense] at us. I think we'll definitely learn from this and it probably won't happen like this again. We just have to watch for them. We're a mature team and we're a smart team, and we just have to be able to attack and play tough."
