Video: Ernie Kent after ASU

Opening statement:

For us, right now it’s about getting the team back to full strength. It would’ve been nice to have Josh out on the floor. Getting a Valentine back, particularly with the way he played, he makes such a big difference in the game. Not having that automatic double-double on the floor, that’s a big clog for us. Because not only does it knock you out of whack in terms of your ability to score and rebound, but just your swag, your confidence if that’s what you want to call it. It’s different. It’s almost like the UCLA game where Ike and Josh didn’t play well and you have a bunch of guys figuring out what they need to do when their two leaders aren’t out on the floor. Well not having Josh hurt us tonight, but I was happy the way Val responded. I don’t know Josh’s status yet. We’ll know more about that tomorrow morning. Conor’s getting x-rays. I’ll know more about that later today and then Junior’s groin made it through the game. We need to get him back healthy as well, too.

(On Ike Iroegbu lack of minutes)

I thought he was out of whack. He wasn’t getting a lot of things done on the floor and we’re trying to get guys in the game, get more energy. And sometimes when you lose your running mate like that, that tends to happen. You tend to press a little bit … But he was not, in 28 minutes, there was not a lot getting done on the floor, so you try to find different ways to get things done and that’s why. But 28 minutes is still a lot of minutes for him.

(On Charles’ assertiveness)

I didn’t know it would be Charles, quite frankly. But the spot I’ve been searching for is that three spot. Because Charles has actually been pretty good at the point guard spot, but it sure was nice to have another scorer on the floor. His game, Valentine’s game. We can get healthy again, there’s some good things brewing if we can get everybody back at the same time.

(On the free throw margin)

Probably a combination of all of those things. Everything you just talked about. It’s indicative of how we play, it’s indicative of not pounding that ball inside, not attacking the boards enough. I think teams we play have a lot of attacking guards that get in the lane with the new rules. And the calls that are made, they are what they are, so you can always look at games and think a few calls could’ve went one way or the other way. But generally speaking, when you go back and look at tape, officials are doing a pretty good job. They have nothing to do with the game. It’s really about your production and everything. I look at that as saying, we’re a team that doesn’t attack as much when you talk about beating people off the dribble. Where you’ve got some other teams in this conference that really have guys who can beat you off the dribble.

(On players developing reputations with officials)

No. No. Officials don’t look at games that way, so they call the game the way the game’s supposed to be called, so it really is not them developing any kind of reputation at all. I think you might find that officials may understand style of play by certain teams and that’s just knowledge on their part. But in terms of affecting the game with guys and the way they’re doing things, that has nothing to do with it.

(Was this a must-win game?)

It was a must-win game for us, no question about it. But when you get the news that you’re not going to have Josh, it changed the dynamics of the game considerably. Then with Conor going down, Junior banged up, there were some concerns going into the game about guarding them and that was a problem. And I happened to play guys so many more minutes than what they normally do. So unfortunately we had the injuries at the wrong time, there’s nothing you can do about that, that’ a part of the game. I’m just hoping that we get them back at the right time, whenever that may be down the road here.

(How exhausting has this streak been?)

I think the fact that when you watch this team and how they bounce back, and I’ve said this before, the exhausting part happens on gamedays when you work so hard throughout the course of the week or weeks and you get no reward for it. That’s the exhausting part for them and for us. But the character-building part of it and the growth of the program part of it and the process of it is, do you come back to work everyday and put your time, put your effort in and your energy in and stay together and all those things. Yes, we’re seeing all of those things out of this team. So when I look at this team again, I’ve mentioned this before, we got completely manhandled by Arizona last year on this floor. We were never in the game. And I think the last time Washington State was down there, they scored seven points in a half. We go down to McKale this year and play them tough for a half of game and come back her at home and you feel like you should’ve won if you’d played just a little bit better. That’s progress for us from where we were and you’ve got to look at it that way. Again, it’s about where we’re trying to get to and this team needs to grow some more. We know we might need another piece and hopefully it’s one of those guys coming in the door. We also know we need to get tougher, we need to learn how to win, but you’ve also got to look at where we started at. And we’ve been on the job here less than two years. And we’re moving the program forward. We feel like we’ve got a lot accomplished, but we’ve got a lot more we need to get done and we’re well aware of that.