Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State vs. Boise State - Postgame Quotes
1/13/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 13, 2005
Opening Statement"We got a group on the floor that had a little more grit and had some good chemistry together. We started getting stops, got rebounds, took better care of the basketball, attacked the zone better and started making plays offensively. Our depth is really, really helping us."
On the impressive play of Carl Ross
"Today we went down to our 11th guy, Carl Ross, and what a tribute to that young man who hasn't played many minutes in the last five or six basketball games. If you're in practice everyday you see a positive attitude. Carl works his tail off. I always tell Carl, `you never know, you never know. You just got to be ready when I push your button, I need 00 to show up on the register.' He was a big reason why we won that game tonight."
On being undefeated when Ross plays more than one minute
"As I've observed, we're undefeated when he's played [more than one minute]. It's a gut feeling (when to play him). It's always a feel thing for me, it really is. It's just an observation on my part. I substitute according to situations at the time or a feeling that I have in my gut. I'd say there is a chance that he's going to play (on Saturday). He just makes things happen. He's a positive energy when he gets on the floor and good things tend to happen."
On the depth of the team
"Our depth is really helping us. I'm glad we have the depth we have because we keep rotating until we finally get a good mix on the floor, a good chemistry on the floor, and hopefully its doing a good job of wearing teams down. They started missing shots down the stretch. Maybe that was because of our defense and our depth."
On the shooting slump of Ja'Vance Coleman
"Actually, Ja'Vance (Coleman) plays the way he practices. His practices on Tuesday and Wednesday were good practices. He and I have talked about that (slump) and the best way to get out of it is to work harder. As Ja'Vance learns and starts to understand that everyday he needs to bring his hard hat, everyday he needs to bring his lunch pail. Just work his way through things because he can still improve as a player. But he played the way he practiced."
In closing
"It was a good win. A good win that sets up for a really good game on Saturday (UTEP). I'd like to see 16,000 fans there. We have the No. 1 team in the WAC coming in (UTEP), a good basketball team. You've got a team in Fresno State that you'll enjoy watching play. Win or lose, we're going to enjoy watching us play because we're going to make it interesting and we're going to make it fun."
"I think we're going to play hard Saturday night and our guys are looking forward to that game. Right now we want to play as hard as we can and get better as a basketball team."
Boise State Head Coach Greg Graham
"They (Fresno State) have a good team. They have some guys that can shoot, confidence shooters, and guys that score with the ball. I think the presence of their big guys was a big thing. We're getting better and I think our kids are getting more confident in what they are doing. We always talk about just keep attacking the plan. We got behind because we missed shots and we got back in and starting making shots. That eight-minute stretch, which included three turnovers on the fast break, and then we missed some wide open shots. Just some things showed up tonight that hurt us."
