Jan. 31, 2007

Recap |  Box Score

Ohio Head Coach Tim O'Shea

Opening Statement:

The biggest difference from recent games is that we shot the ball so well. It was great to see [Jerome] Tillman hit those first couple of threes. It gave the whole team confidence as far as scoring the ball. That has been the struggle of late, shooting the basketball. We've defended well enough, we were just in a terrible slump.

On the first half:

Tonight it seemed like our confidence was back and the shots were falling. It made all the difference in the world. I think Toledo is outstanding. They are coming off a seven game winning streak and I thought they played really well. I thought both teams played well. At halftime I said to the assistants and my team, that was a great half, both teams played well. Both teams were making shots and it was a one point game.

On Toledo:

I knew we had to play well to beat [Toledo]. I had watched enough tape to know that they were legit. They played a tough non-conference schedule...but they are a terrific team. Basically they are the same team that went to the championship game last year in the tournament. They have three outstanding seniors and we were coming off a very disappointing loss on the road. This was really a must-win for us.

On Ohio confidence:

I thought Tillman making those first couple of threes and then Leon [Williams] making that bucket inside to go up 8-0, our confidence was there. All of a sudden the ball was going in the basket and I that was infectious throughout the team.  Even though I thought Toledo played really well. They were making shots and were making tough shots for most of the game. We had our confidence tonight and we played with a little bit of a swagger. We played with that sense of...there really isn't any other word for it, confidence.

On Sonny Troutman:

Sonny has always been a barometer for our team since he has been here. When he plays well rarely do we lose, and tonight he played as well as he has ever played. Just look at that stat line...he played great. He really stepped up.

On the road:

Hopefully we can make some shots on the road and come away with a couple wins now. It's very important for us to get some road wins.

Ohio sophomore Jerome Tillman:

On fast pace of the game:

We used this game to get back on track, we dropped three in a row [on the road] that we knew we should have gotten, so we tried to use this as a motivator to get us back on track. We have to worry about Central Michigan on Saturday, we just need to keep getting better and better and play more as a team. We were starting to get a little more individualistic, but tonight we played more as team, we've got five guys in double figures. If you continue to play like this we'll be pretty hard to beat.

On poor record on the road:

When we get focused and put our minds to it we can do whatever we want to do. We just have to bring more focus, even more focus than we had tonight, so we can come out with the wins and get this thing back on track.

On feeling of breaking Toledo's streak:

Personally, I think it was due. I feel like we can play like this every night, it's just some nights we just need to bring that focus and energy level and commit to stopping people on the defensive end and taking good shots on the offensive end.

Ohio junior Bubba Walther:

On handling Toledo's pressure defense::

Personally, I feel like the pressure was the same during the whole game. They're going to get their steals and their turnovers and I think at the end of the half I think we lost a little bit of focus. At halftime we just kind of calmed down, I don't think anything was said. We worked on a certain press breaker form before this game, but I don't think we really even used it. The second half we just went to our basic flex look and just screened. We saw open shots that we had to make and we did.

On Ohio's offensive strength::

Our strength is inside, Jerome [Tillman] and Leon [Williams] average a double-double in the MAC every game. I think tonight it just shows that if we are hitting, I don't think there's many teams in the MAC that can beat us; but we really need to just do this on the road instead of every other game.

On improvement on shooting:

I'm been shooting terrible the past few games. I've come in the past few nights at about 11'o clock and just got about a few hundred shots in. Then tonight in warm-ups I'm usually just goofing around and tonight I was really focused and I think that carried over into the game.

Ohio senior Sonny Troutman

On switch to point:

I'm trying to become comfortable as the season goes on. Right now it's still a little shaky here and there, but for the most part I think that I am handling it pretty well.

On getting his hand more on the ball tonight:

I really hadn't noticed. I guess sometimes they put a smaller defender on me and I feel like I can get to the back and get it over him better than a three-man.

On the tempo of the game:

We just wanted to play how we play, we didn't want them to force us to get out of control, like if they press on us we don't just want to dribble pass and run it to the basket and try to get a shot. We want to bring it out, pull it out  and do what we want to do and get the ball in the post so if they out press us and we get bombed, if we have two turnovers in a row we come over and throw up a miss, it's basically like another turnover. We want to bring it out, slow it down, set it up and get what we want.

Toledo Head Coach Stan Joplin

Opening Statement:

You have to give OU a lot of credit. I think they played much better than we did. You score 80 points and they have 91, that's a shame. You score 80 points against the zone, and you give up 91. We couldn't check a dead person today. It was bad. I think they competed more then what we did; our guys have to learn how to handle success. We played a lot better defense in a lot of games then what we did tonight. I'm very disappointed in our defensive effort. We play a lot of matador defense and that's been our strength for awhile and tonight it wasn't there, and that's one reason why we came up short. We were trying to trade baskets with them, we never got into a defensive flow; and you can't do that on the road you have to play good defense on the road, and we didn't play good defense. We gave up both the jump shots, big throws the baskets, and we got to get back to the basics again.

On uncharacteristic play of the Rockets:

On the road I think that's a little more typical, I think it's tough to win on the road. I keep telling the players you have to be ten points better on the road and obviously we weren't tonight. I just thought that it was uncharacteristic of how we play for a long time, I mean how there was no sense of urgency. It started out we gave up two three's right off the bat, we didn't play our pressure defense, we didn't show, we didn't rotate, we showed bits and pieces, but we didn't do it on a consistent basis; and you can't do that on the road. Where you have to get energy from your fans, and their fans gave them some energy, and on the road you kind of have to take your fans out of the game, and we didn't do that.