RECAP | GAME BOOK (PDF) | POSTGAME VIDEO INTERVIEW
Opening statement
"This is a good win. I have a ton of respect of [Washington State head coach] Ernie Kent. I've known him for years and followed him when he was at Oregon. I have friends who are on his staff. Let me tell you, I have a great staff. Those guys really work hard. They did such a good job of getting these guys ready for this game. It was great. They're good, good guys and I'm so blessed to work with them. Our kids played so unselfishly. What a fun game to play today. We didn't play perfectly. We have a lot of stuff that we'll keep working on. We'll go back and look at it to find the stuff we need to fix, but they won it. They played hard and they played together."
On the performance of senior guard Tevin Broyles
"He did great. I really challenged him at halftime because I thought there were two or three times where we got late in the shot clock, he cut the offense short and attacked in when he probably could have held on a little longer and could have gotten a second look at it. We really scored well late in the clock. Our guys did a great job of late-clock scoring and out of timeouts. We took shots that were within us. [Washington State] is a tricky defensive team. They'll give you some good shots and if you take the good shots, you're going to lose. You have to wait to get the great shots against them. We were able to do that and I was proud of them."
On the play of junior forward Travin Thibodeaux
"He's doing really well. He's playing with a lot of heart and with a lot of attention to detail. They guys didn't care if they scored two points or 22 points. They really bought into the team package and what it would mean for our team and our goals in March to get this win and take another step forward."
On who deserves the credit for this win
"There are so many people to thank for that. Our administration has done a great job. We have finals starting on Monday and our academic staff has done a boatload of work. Our athletic director and our president have always been supportive and behind us. I'm thankful for them for helping us see this through."
On switching defenses to keep Washington State off balance
"We didn't want them to get into a rhythm offensively. They're a rhythm team. If they can get two or three things going at one time, they're going to be in a good rhythm and they're going to have a lot of fun in what they're trying to do. They can get on a roll and they can get going in transition. We tried to mix up our defense to try and camouflage some of our deficiencies a little bit to keep them from getting into a rhythm."
On the solid performance again of Erik Thomas and Christavius Gill
"They're such tough, hard kids. They keep working and keep grinding and I'm so proud of them. But there were some guys today that came in. Cheeseman came in at a key time. We gave him a run at key time today and he was good. He was good in that zone. He's a great communicator and he's very cerebral. Reed and Rosa gave us big shots. That one Jorge hit in the first half was massive. Then Jiles came in and gave us a quick blow when we needed it and did a good job. I'm really pleased with where this group is at."
On the lessons learned from the three-game road swing earlier in the season
"We said early on that that trip was going to expose some cracks in our wall. There were some things that we had to fix and some things got exposed. Our guys got humbled and they were willing to give up their own agenda a little bit – not that they were selfish by any means, I don't want it to get twisted. They weren't selfish but there were some things that we had to do a little bit better as a team in order to get what we wanted. They did that off of that trip and I'm proud of them."
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