No. 20 Arizona 74, Washington 69
January 12, 2002 | Men's Basketball
#20 Arizona 74, Washington 69
January 12, 2002
Bank of America Arena
Post-game Quotes
WASHINGTON HEAD COACH BOB BENDER
General Remarks:
"I feel bad for our team with the outcome of the game. We played so hard and with so much energy and then they hit some big buckets and the guy they look to, Jason Gardner, hit two threes that were the most important down the stretch. We kept battling back and giving ourselves a chance. It is a tough loss in that it could have gotten us back to .500 before going on the road and giving us our second win in the conference. The fact is we didn't get the win and the bigger challenge is in front of us to go down and play the Bay Area teams. Like I said, I feel bad for the team just because we did do so many good things to give us the chance to win."
On the end of the game stretch:
"I thought our guys did a good job managing the end of the game, we didn't just start launching threes. We did a good job of going to the bucket when we still had timeouts. The ball couldn't have been in better hands in going to Curtis Allen, who was wide open."
On going to David Dixon more in the second half:
"We had actually talked about that in the first half, the importance of going to David, even though he missed some shots early on. Even though he might have missed some shots inside,because he can get out of that. If you limit those, they become monumental. He did a good job in the second half, and that is the David Dixon that we had early in the season and we will get better as a basketball team when he plays like that night in and night out. We need that back from him."
On Arizona's zone defense:
"In the first half, it was almost as if it was the first time seeing the zone. It was if we were going back to the USC game where they were trapping the corners and we were reluctant to go to the baseline and get movement through, so we were constantly passing the ball around the perimeter. Finally, in that second half we had good movement . I don't think we had much success with the three overall, and that hurt us mentally in attacking the zone."
On Gardner's two late threes down the stretch:
"On one three that he shot, we got lost, and on the other we helped him off of him and he just just floated to the open air and we had no shot of getting back to him. He created that cushion, but I thought we did a good job of making him work tonight, but then again, that is what he can do. He made great shots which he is always capable of."
ARIZONA HEAD COACH LUTE OLSON
General Remarks:
"Any win on the road is a good win in this league with the way things go. The Huskies did a good job. Wrenn was really outstanding and Curtis Allen did a good job running the team. We were concerned about their three-point shooters and I think for the most part we did a pretty good job of keeping the pressure on. They came back really tough on us a couple of times when it looked like we had some breathing room. That's the way this game is it seems like everyone has a run you just have to hang in and wait for your opportunity. It was good to have Ricky Anderson with only two fouls. He has been playing under 20 minutes because of fouls, tonight it was Walton we had to protect. Stoudamire and Gardner hit some really big three pointers down the stretch that really made a huge difference and then they stepped up to the free-throw line and hit some there that kept the breathing room for us."
Play of the freshmen:
"It's not important for me to go through games like this. There were times when we had four freshmen on the floor with one junior and that is a little bit scary. We have said for a long time that if we can just buy them some time and get some experience then we are going to have less problems when we get into that situation of one junior and four freshmen. I really feel like Salim (Stoudamire) right now is definitely not playing like a freshman. He has done a great job for us. (Channing) Frye's first half was really good but he played like a freshman the second half. As long as we can keep Salim doing the job and be able to get one of the inside guys to step up we will do okay."
Using the zone defense:
"We really have been having problems stopping penetration. We changed up between the zone and man trying to keep them off balance. It also gave us a better chance to of stopping their penetration. Wrenn is a really difficult guy to stop penetration on. Allen is so quick with that cross-over. We just did a better job of keeping their offense further out on the floor. The danger with that is letting them get their three point shooters open but I thought overall we did a good job of communicating where their shooters were. They're going to get some but as long as their percentage is down where it was tonight we will be all right."
