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football Edit

Quotes: UW-Cal-Poly

Washington Head Coach Lorenzo Romar
Opening Statement
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I was very pleased with our guys' effort tonight. I thought with the exception of the last three minutes where the game was out of reach, I think our guys put out the best defensive effort of the year in terms of our concentration and focus. Executing our defensive game plan, I thought our guys did a really good job. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a team that makes the game slower and they are very deliberate. If you're impatient, you don't guard several positions or you're not able to get up and down on possessions they can wear you down mentally. I thought our guys did a great job of not allowing that to happen. And we stayed with their shooters. We were very concerned with their three-point shooters, guys did a good job of contesting their shots and we were eventually able to pull away.
On having a full roster available
It helps. Andrew (Andrews) came in and although he's limping a little bit and not 100%, he came in and gave us a lift. He did some good things for us. We were able to rotate guys a little more; I thought our guys were able to stay relatively fresh. There are some teams that sit back half court and not pressure you at all, sometimes a team can go out like that with five guys, but the way we want to play makes it a little bit difficult when you don't have the reserves and give guys breathers. We had that tonight and I think it gave our guys a little bit of a breather. Doesn't mean that will happen every game.
Did you see what it could like rotation wise, defensively a little bit more from this game?
You could see just some good things. We take the Seattle U game, the first 12 minutes of Jackson State and now this game, now there is a pattern going the other way. It's a positive way. I think this makes us head in the right direction. Are we there yet? No. But what we did, the way we went about our business is more like what we would want from our team.
On C.J. Wilcox
He was all over the place. Five rebounds in the first half is what he did. CJ was pretty patient. There weren't a whole lot of possessions, I think they were on pace for 30 possessions in the first half but yet he comes out with 10 points in the first half after all of that. He did a good job of not allowing the system to get him out of the game. He was very focused and into the game. He was able to do other things.
On Aziz
He was very aggressive once he recognized that they were double-teaming him off the dribble he was a little more effective. Also, our guys got him the ball in certain positions when he could score before the other team came. But he was very active and almost got another double-double.
Guard Abdul Gaddy
What Romar said at practices:
Just to get more scrappier. That's the Husky basketball team. We feed off guys like Desmond (Simmons) and Aziz (N'Diaye) back there - two of the toughest guys on our team and two of the toughest guys in the conference. If we're all just feeding off them on how they play defense, it makes us better and it makes us tougher and more gritty.
On causing turnovers:
We wanted to be in the passing lanes but we didn't want to come out to high. The main thing was to keep those guys in front and get as many deflections as possible and make it tougher on the score, but not extend ourselves. They were really confident themselves. We didn't got out there and try to do too much. We were just in the right positions at the right times and ended up getting a lot of possessions and a lot of turnovers because of that.
On rebounds:
We feed off Des and Aziz with that. They always tell us that guards have to come back and rebound. We have to make sure we box out and get the long rebounds. CJ did a good job of getting rebounds today. All of us guards are working on coming back and make sure we box out and get rebounds because it'll help them guys get more rebounds. It's about team rebounds, not just about one person.
Guard C.J. Wilcox
On the game:
We thought we felt like we took a step further today. We made a little bit of progress and hopefully we can keep building on it. Especially coming off a game like we did the other night, (it was important) to have a good game. I just wanted to come into the game and do a little bit more and help Des and Aziz out. Coach is always honest about helping the big guys out because they can't be the only ones that rebound.
On practices:
(They were) really intense, getting after each other. It was probably one of the best practices together that we've had all year.
Cal Poly Coach Joe Callero
Difference in the Game:
It's a pretty easy one to look at, they had 11 offensive boards, we said it in the pre-game talk and to the tv stations and talking to the local media. I think we can defend the ball and I think we can eventually find a way to get a rhythm and score the ball, 62 isn't a great output. We had that 5 minute drought, the baskets that really drained us came from their offensive boards. N'Diaye, the 7 foot kid, just went over the top of us and snatched four offensive boards, they were critical ones because they were long and we had got a stop and they had missed and they were about 6-8 feet from the hoop and he reaches up to about 8 feet high, he's a seven footer, about 8 and half, 9 feet with his arms so it was up there. Brian Bennett did a pretty good job there but we gave up 11 offensive boards, and we only got 3 and we were out-rebounded 30-17, and that's the game in a nutshell. You look at some of the other stats, certainly we would like to shoot better than 44 %, they shot 51%, 44-45 can probably keep us competitive in a game, but you got to get those stops so you have those extra possessions.
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