Missouri Postgame Quotes
2/28/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 28, 2004
Missouri Postgame Quotes
MISSOURI HEAD COACH Quin Snyder
On today's game...
"This was a tough game. We knew Kansas State would really be ready to play and they were. The first half was a battle and at half time we just felt that we needed to attack the rim and the second half we started out really attacking the rim. Rickey's (Paulding) play kind of punctuated that when he had that dunk in transition. When you do that, by driving the ball and a good defensive team will come help, then we started pitching it and guys were hitting shots. We felt like at some point we'd have a game we'd hit some shots and that came at a good time. Rickey, we told him at halftime that he needs to look at the bucket more, he had four assists in the first half and he needed to be more aggressive because they were really sagging in on the posts and he did that and obviously Jason (Conley) did that as well. I think those two guys are playing with tremendous confidence right now and they're making each other better."
On the Missouri team...
"Our team right now is finding some chemistry, and we've got a tough road ahead of us. I feel like I'm happy for our guys because when you play that way and share the ball, you don't care who scores. Coming in today we've had five different guys lead us in scoring the last five games. That's just a testament to how unselfish our team is."
On being down by 10 points in the second half...
"This was a different type of game than the game we had the other night at home. You're not going to have the energy from your crowd. You have to have confidence in order to win here and the thing that's important to me is that we're gaining confidence in the right things. At that time when we were down by ten, our team was talking about defending and that's when we started getting more stops, when you get stops you get out in transition and defense can give you confidence. It can pull you together. It's the one thing you can control. We couldn't always control the way we shot in the second half, but I think the defense is something they're really starting to take ownership in, as well as the boards."
JUNIOR GUARD Jason Conley
On how they've been playing...
"We still have that fire, that flame that everyone wants to have. We just have to keep doing it, this was a huge win on the road, but we're still not satisfied."
On being down by 10 points in the second half...
"We've been down by that much all year, whether it's at halftime or different points of the game; we're used to it. But, now it feels great, we're fighting so hard that now when we're down by 10 points we see it as zero to zero. We just keep fighting for it."
On who's responsible for their six-game winning streak...
"This has been a team effort. I'm around a great group of guys. They feed off of me and I feed off of them and that's how the game is played."
SENIOR FORWARD Rickey Paulding
On his dunk in the start of the second half...
"I think it was a big play for us. We were attacking the back in the second half. We felt like they were really packing in defensively at half court and I just wanted to get to the basket and kind of opened up things for us. I got a little boost of energy and I just wanted to be aggressive and shoot my shots. We had to make shots for the lane to open up and then we could drive."
On his attitude in the second half...
"Just to attack, in the first half I didn't want to be a jump-shooter, so I was less aggressive and the second half I threw up a lot more shots."
