Oct. 30, 2012

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Kansas 88, Emporia State 54

October 30, 2012

Postgame Quotes

Kansas head coach Bill Self

Opening statement:

“I thought we did some good things. We tried hard and looked pretty athletic. I thought we shared the ball. We had 23 assists on 31 baskets. Andrew (White III) had five or six turnovers by himself. I thought everyone else did a pretty good job taking care of the ball. Defensively, we tried hard. We don’t know how to guard all actions, but there weren’t that many break downs. Our freshmen did well. Perry (Ellis) did really well. He just naturally gets the ball in the basket. Anrio Adams was terrific. We haven’t had anyone heat up the ball like that since Jeff Hawkins. Landen Lucas in his minutes was the most productive guy that we had. It was good to see those young kids play well. We saw how athletic Ben (McLemore) and Jamari (Traylor) are. There were some good things that happened tonight.”

On using many different lineups throughout the game:

“We may have set the NCAA record for substitutions. We were trying to make it difficult on our radio team. Our conditioning is not unbelievable, but not awful. Elijah (Johnson) can’t get tired. He’s probably the most key performer that we have. We can go to Naadir (Tharpe) if Elijah is not in there, but still he needs to be a 33 or 34 minute guy. I think that he proved to himself tonight that he needs to push a little harder to get to where he can play that long. We didn’t get off to a great start today at shootaround, so it was good that everybody had a good attitude this evening.”

On the play of Kansas sophomore guard Naadir Tharpe:

“What Naadir does best is shoot. He doesn’t shoot enough. In the first half we went on a 26-3 run or something like that, and Naadir was a big part of that. He’s fast and he can shoot, but sometimes he defers too much. He did a lot of good things tonight.”

Kansas freshman guard Ben McLemore

On the dunk on the first play of the game:

“It was a designed play. It was called 1-4-High. If the defender plays up, I just go backdoor. It was a great play. I started the game off with that, and it got our team going with some energy. We just got it going like that.”

On what made the difference between the teams:

“We just went into the locker room and just told ourselves we were going to go out there second half and just bring energy and effort. That’s what we did.”

On his put-back dunk:

“First of all, coach was just telling me I need to crash the boards more often and stuff like that. When I had my chance to crash the boards, it came off perfect timing and I just dunked it.”

On the play of Perry Ellis:
“I think he definitely could do better. He’s a great athlete. Coach wants him to do better, and we as a team want him to do better. He’ll get an understanding on what he needs to do. We’re just going to keep working as a team, and we’re just going to go from there.”

Kansas freshman forward Landen Lucas

On McLemore’s put-back dunk:

“I thought it was pretty cool. We like those big plays. It gets us off the bench and gets us energized. To see him do that was definitely exciting.”

On his rebounding tonight:

“I feel like the way I can contribute to this team is to come in and rebound in the minutes that I am playing. I feel like I did the best I could tonight, and I’ll continue to crash the boards the rest of the season.”

On the play of Perry Ellis:
“Honestly, I feel like for him he could do even better than that. We all know that, and I think Coach is always pushing him. You see these numbers he has now, but I feel like he could do even better than that.”

On how it felt to play his first game:

“It was exciting. To see that kind of crowd for an exhibition game, you don’t get that anywhere else. It’s definitely just an exciting feeling for me to get going and get into the game. I feel like in the second half I was able to get into a rhythm and really get a feel for things.”

On what he needs to improve on:

“The biggest thing I probably need to improve on is on defense. I probably just need to be more versatile on what I can guard so that Coach doesn’t feel like I can only guard one position. I can guard multiple kinds of bigs. I think that could definitely maximize my playing time.”

Kansas freshman guard Rio Adams

On whether or not he had nerves tonight:

“No, not really. I lost those jitters during Late Night in the Phog. I am just ready to play and do what we got to do.”

On the defensive intensity:

“It’s most definitely a want-to, and that is mainly what’s going to keep me on the floor. That’s going to be a big thing that is going to separate me from the other guards. We have a lot of guards that can score that are a lot bigger than me as far as the ‘2’ goes because I am a combo. I just feel like for me being on the court I have to give more effort on defense, and I’m going to keep trying to do that the whole year.”

On the rebounding of Landen Lucas:

“He’s doing a great job. It’s showing off in the games, as you can see, because he has really been emphasizing it in practice. He’s working on it a lot in practice, and it’s going to show up in the games a lot.”

Emporia State head coach Shaun Vandiver

On Tuesday’s game:

“Emporia State men’s basketball took a right step toward getting better. It wasn’t the result anyone ever dreams of coming into this facility. I’ve been here a few times as a player and never walked out the victor, but as the head coach of ESU men’s basketball, after our game against Tulsa and today, I think we’re in the right direction. I’m very appreciative of Coach Self and the staff for this opportunity.”

On what impressed him about Kansas:

“The way they shared the ball and the way they moved the ball. When the game got out of reach, their ball pressure took us out of our flow and our rhythm. On offense, the ball really never touched the ground too often. They got side to side and got open shots. I think they went on a stretch where they banged three three-pointers in a row. Naadir (Tharpe) banged two of them. Travis (Releford) banged one. I’ve been to their practices four or five times in the last year, and I had the chance to see Jamari Traylor bang heads with (Thomas Robinson). He was one guy that never backed down. Is he as skilled as Robinson? No, but he still is a redshirt freshman. I think their size and length can cause a lot of people a lot of trouble. If you sit back and look at the way they’re just so unselfish with the ball, it’s not about the ‘me,’ it’s about the ‘we’ with the Jayhawks. I think they’re very dangerous and very deserving of their ranking.”

On what he hoped to get accomplished with the game:
“To get better. I thought we got better in the second half. We only committed seven turnovers. We got pounded on the boards after we won the boards in Saturday’s game. We came up short on this one, and we didn’t back down on open shots. I liked our motion offense and our passing game offense. We screened, we cut, we set up cuts, we came off cuts, we set tight screens, we got open looks and we didn’t make shots. A lot of it was credited to their defense. We sped up. They had us out of rhythm, had us out of our flow, so at the end of the day, if we just share the ball, limit teams to one shot and really just focus on getting the ball from side to side, I think it’ll be a good season. I told my guys, ‘In an ideal world, you’d love to come here and win the game, but if you win this game and lose 20 in a row, no one is going to remember this game.’ It is what it is.”

Emporia State junior forward Gavin Brown

On what he saw from his team during the game:

“Basically, we didn’t give up. They went on a run where at the time we were up, and the next thing I knew we were down 31-15. We kept battling. We’ve got a lot of young guys, and they’ve got a lot of young guys, too. We just kept fighting and playing as a team. Nobody lost their head and we just kept it together as a team.”