Quotable: WSU can’t hang with ASU
COUGARS
FROM TEMPE -- Here's the rest of our quotes to pass along after WSU's 69-57 loss at Arizona State on Wednesday night. Read on.
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KEN BONE
(Did you talk about playing with more pride at halftime, like some players said?) "It’s not what I talked about in regards to pride, I just talked about let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing all year. Let’s keep fighting and battling and see if we can get a run and get a good opportunity. That’s who they are. They’re just trying as hard as they can and do whatever they can to fight and scratch and get a win, but we got beat by a better team tonight."
(On ASU's defense) "I thought Arizona State’s quickness and just their aggressive play was very effective in us not getting a lot of good looks in the second half. I thought the first half we got some good looks, we just didn’t make shots, 3-for-10 from the arc. But the second half I think Arizona state deserves a lot of credit."
(On Jordan Bachysnki hurting WSU late) "It’s almost a situation where you pick your poison. If the concentration is on stopping Bachynski, then you can’t really put pressure on the ball and hope for any turnovers. So we chose, 'let’s get after it, let’s see what we can do to create some turnovers,' which we did, and created some opportunities in transition. But when they were able to handle our trapping and our pressure, at the end of the day there was Bachynski under the hoop. So it was kind of pick your poison at that point."
(On Brock Motum getting going in the second half) "Brock did a good job of hanging in there, I thought, mentally. Didn’t shoot a great percentage, that’s for sure, but he was more productive the second half than the first.
(On ASU's 3s in the first half) "That really hurt us. They got on a roll and buried some shots and scored a lot within about a 3-minute period."
(On ASU's shooting) "I thought they did a great job. I’ll have to look at the video to know what we did wrong, but just sitting there watching them was, wow, they were clicking on all cylinders during that time."
DAVONTE LACY
(On the difference in the second half) "We had more energy and I think our pride finally kicked in. I know we don’t like to lose, but especially losing by that much, just that’s when pride kicks in and I know for a fact I don’t want to lose by that much. I’m going to do everything I can within my power. We have guys on our team that feel the same way."
(On how they can start the game with that same energy) "I just think we’ve got to find people that are going to do it. I think the five we had in there showed that we weren’t going to quit and that’s why he kept us in for so long. I know me, Royce, Brock and Will, those guys aren’t going to quit. D.J. and Richard, we’re not going to quit and we know that and that’s why he played us."
(On ASU's defense in the first half) "We had trouble getting through screens and they hit shots. We played bad but you have to give credit to Arizona State, they’re a really good team, top three in the conference, it’s a good team but you can’t get down to a good team like that on the road. It’s hard to fight back."
(Did it seem like there was someone on you every time you came off a screen?) "That’s how I felt too but I’ve just got to find ways if they’re playing me like that to get more screens or make plays for other people and use me as a decoy. We did that in the second half where we set better screens and we made plays where they used me as a decoy and I made some passes and tried to get teammates involved."
BROCK MOTUM
(On playing better in the second half) "I just stuck with it. Didn’t change what I was doing. I missed a couple of easy ones in the first half and missed some easy ones in the second half too, but a couple went down, I got some rhythm. I don’t think we ever gave up, we never dropped our heads. We just kept playing. Unfortunately we came up short again but the character of the team is pretty high."
(On wanting to play for pride after halftime) "That’s part of it but still taking steps to go into the Pac-12 tournament. We haven’t been blown out by any team in league play. Hopefully we can keep making steps toward making a run in the pac-12 tournament but as Royce and DaVonte said, you don’t want to come to someone else’s place and get blown out."
(On defending ASU) "They’ve got a lot of threats. They can hurt you inside, they hit a lot of shots tonight so they can hurt you outside. When they penetrate and start finding guys it’s hard to defend that. We tried our best and they just had a lot of threats and they knocked a lot of shots down today."
(On what made it hard to score in the first half) "Bachysnki’s 7-2, that’s always a factor. We had a couple of rushed shots. We didn’t get any points in transition again. As I said after the UCLA game, it’s hard to grab the ball and set your offense up when they’re scoring so often so I think if we can get more stops we’ll be able to convert better."