Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball plays host to Austin Peay on Sunday
11/18/2010 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 18, 2010
By Tyler Wooten
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Southern Illinois head coach Chris Lowery met with the media on Thursday as the Salukis prepare to host Austin Peay at 2:05 p.m. on Sunday.
Q: "How do you bounce back from the disappointing loss?"
"We just have to bounce back. We knew we left some plays on the floor and we did some uncharacteristic things to what we've been doing leading up to that game. We just have to move forward -- confidence is a win away."
Q: "Any losses aren't good, but that had to be a tough one to swallow..."
"It (the timeout technical at the end of overtime) was a tough call -- I would not want to be the referee in that situation. We've seen it where the whistle gets swallowed and you go to double overtime. We're not in control of that. But the game was lost before that, and that's what we tried to convince our kids. They made a lot of mistakes. We made way too many turnovers, we didn't attack the zone correctly, and it showed."
Q: "How encouraged were you that you played well enough defensively to win that game?"
"We held their best player to zero points for a majority of the game. When you look at their percentages, that's where we wanted them to be. For us to give them 11 more shot attempts than we took, that's just not acceptable."
Q: "Does the transition defense need to get better?"
"We have to get better transition defense. We're watching too much. We're watching when the ball goes up instead of getting back, and that's something they're (Northeastern) good at. They got a lot of points off of our turnovers in transition. The way you limit that transition, obviously, is to not turn it over. We have to get shot attempts up, and that's something we have to continue to work at before we play again."
Q: "The team has been plagued by turnovers thus far -- what are you telling them to try and keep the number of them down?"
"To be patient. A lot of our turnovers are from going too fast and rushing to make a home run play. We keep talking about hitting singles instead of home runs and valuing the ball. We're so caught up in trying to make the right play sometimes we miss the easy play."
Q: "Who do you think is the best guy you have that can break a zone?"
"It was John Freeman, he did the best job. We had a couple times where they called a travel on us where we made the right moves. It's unfortunate -- our guys were trying to make those right moves and when you get traveling called on you four or five times then it made us stay back, and we didn't want to attack unless it was at the end of the shot clock."
Q: "John brought the ball up for you a lot in that game because the other two point guards (Kendal Brown-Surles and Mykel Cleveland) were into foul trouble. Is that something we'll see again?"
"I think so. He's done a great job in the exhibition games there. Right now he's obviously our best passer with making the right decisions. Our point guard situation has to get better. I thought we were going good until we got into foul trouble and then we became really passive after that."
Q: "Could you talk about the progression of the new transfers to the team?"
"Mamadou Seck and Troy Long are having the most progression -- they both play hard. I think Troy was a little gun-shy, I think he needed to take some more shots than what he took when he was open. Mykel has a way to go, and we're going to keep pushing him. It's been two games. We know we have new guys but we know we're closer, and the way we responded was by coming out and practicing hard and seeing our mistakes, not in a critical way, but as coachable and correctable."
Q: "How has Austin Peay been this year?"
"Austin Peay has played great. They're 2-0 on the road, seven out of their first eight games were on the road so they're really battle-tested once they get in their league. They won at Saint Louis and at Chattanooga and those are obviously two tough places to get victories at."
Q: "How much zone do you think they'll play?"
"They're going to play zone. We attacked the zone the right way the first 10 minutes of the second half, but after that, things kind of fell apart for us. When you get up 10 you can't have that many turnovers in a row, and a lot of them were unforced, which led to them being able to set up their zone. Austin Peay is going to play a zone and they're going to press us -- they're going to do a lot of different things."
Q: "They also won their first two game sin the final seconds -- how important is it to try and get a good enough lead that it doesn't come down to the last possession?"
"That's what college basketball is about. Anytime you have new guys there are going to be close games until they figure some things out. Fortunately for them, they caught Saint Louis with a bunch of new guys in the game at the end, and with a controversial call they went to the free throw line with three seconds left to win. And then, they hit a three with .2 to win at Chattanooga. They're a little bit older and they have some veteran players that made some plays down the stretch for them."
Q: "Could you talk about your plans for (Davante) Drinkard? Why did you pull the redshirt off of him?"
"We didn't pull it off of him, we were waiting for him to get some things right. As a freshman you have to do some things right in other areas before you can do them on the court. He's got to continue to get better, and he will. We definitely need him to get better. He gives us a lot of energy and he is very tough."
Q: "Is the turnover situation right now due to the team just not having played together enough?"
"Not really. We've played some good teams that have had success. Obviously, Illinois is an NCAA Tournament team and these guys (Northeastern) finished second in their league last year. We just have to see progression, and slowly. It's not going to happen fast with us. We would rather have it slowly than fast and get burned out at the end. We're going to keep coaching them and make sure they're doing the right things, but the turnovers definitely have to be eliminated."
Q: "It's a long season, but how badly do you need a victory?"
"Like I said, confidence is a win away. We have to focus on the good things that we did in that game. I can't be panicked or down in the dumps or anything because they'll feed off of me, and that's the type of energy they'll have. I'm obviously upset because I didn't want to lose that game and I didn't want to lose like that, but you have to move on. And we're learning from that -- whether he called timeout or not -- how important the bench is and how we talk at the end of games. We really learned how important it is, whether we called it or not. The attention span has to be tremendous at the end of a game."
