Coach Slessinger's Quotes Following Tuesday's 88-54 Loss At USC

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Overall thoughts on the game
"They were 26 percent from three coming into tonight's game, and we caught the wrong end of that tonight. Part of that was a little bit of the coverages we did. Schematically, we probably should have gone over the top of some of those ball screens and done a couple of other things. They had guys, statistically that have not made shots all year and a good bit of last year, that made shots, that made shots and that's frustrating for our team. Over the course of the game, that was probably the difference."
 
On the rebounding effort against a much bigger team
"We made [rebounding] a big emphasis. We had 16 offensive rebounds and got out-rebounded by five on the defensive side. A big piece of it in that bad run in the first half was we didn't get to the free throw line. We shot 31 shots inside the arc during the first half. For the game, we had 53 shots inside the arc. When it was all said and done, we got eight free throws. They're big but I thought we attacked well. We had a lot of opportunities and it just didn't happen. We didn't get to the line and that's frustrating because offensively, we worked it down and scored late in the clock. There were a lot of things where we needed to get to the line and we didn't."
 
On the performance of Erik Thomas
"He had a balanced night. I wish he could have found some scenes earlier and quicker to get in and get some of the looks that he needed. We had some good stretches, but the bad stretches were bad in that we couldn't ever get a break, get a stop and get a basket to counteract. There were some bright spots in this game. We've been on a long road trip and we knew these were going to expose some cracks in what we were doing and what we were trying to fix as a team. We've made some improvements and some good adjustments. It just wasn't enough on Saturday night or tonight, unfortunately."
 
On what he takes from this road trip
"We know that this is a long run for us. We're building more for our tournament and for our league. I've been in this league for a long time and you can't win the [conference] tournament and go on to the NCAA Tournament if you don't play games that get you better. You've got to go on the road and put your guys in these kinds of environments. That's what we're doing. We know that in the long run – into February and March – this game will pay off. The tough game at Washington State, the tough game at Utah State and the tough game at Northwestern are all going to pay off. It'll make us better over the long haul. We've got two huge ones at home coming up in Florida College and our friends from uptown [Tulane]. We know we have to be locked in and try and sweep two at home."