Related pages Game summary Box score Season stats Possession analysis advertisement [an error occurred while processing this directive]

"We had a good week. We played well and we shot the ball well, even though we didn’t shoot it good from the perimeter at all the first half tonight, we did starting the second half. We’re getting better. We had good balance tonight, and everybody got a chance to contribute and play some meaningful minutes, so that was good from an experience standpoint. It’s been a fun process over the last month or so, and we’re nowhere close to where we can be, but I think we’re gaining on it every day. "We were discouraged, too. (At 1-2 in league) We weren’t discouraged because we were 1-2; we were discouraged about how we lost the two games. In a league, you’re going to lose games. Kansas went 16-0 when they had three lottery picks and two other NBA players on the roster. That can happen. But you’re not going to see very many teams in their respective leagues go unbeaten, or even have just one loss. Since the K-State and Missouri losses, we’ve played better, guys are picking it up and seem to be playing together better and enjoying each other, and are really sharing the ball. "We’re not as good a rebounding team as we showed tonight (55-28), our defensive stats are better than we played tonight, and we played a team that, in all honesty, had to be tired. Think about playing your starters 45 minutes against Okie State, and then traveling. They had to be tired. And it certainly showed in the second half. We ran well again tonight, and it takes a lot of energy to run motion the way they run it, and then having to run in transition the way we ran. So we were fortunate, they probably missed some shots tonight because their legs were tired. "Mario, Brandon, and Julian all played well. Julian didn’t play as much tonight, but I thought he was very effective when he was in there. Julian can have a couple of possessions where you just say, ‘Wow, where did he come up with that?’ What’s encouraging to me is, Mario didn’t score in the first half and Russell was 2-10 and neither one shot the ball well, but they both played it very well. Thirteen assists and two turnovers. That’s some good playing. And Brandon is getting better all the time. He’s getting more aggressive, and hopefully he’ll continue that. We won the game easily tonight, but we can’t get too excited because we didn’t play as well as the score indicated. "C.J. is still our most talented big guy, without question, but he’s got to get his confidence back. He did some good things tonight, but he just gets in his own way. He offensive fouls twice for no reason, and just kind of gets in his own way. But he’s trying, and that’s a key point, and I thought he did some good things in a short amount of time. Darnell was good again, and Sasha was solid. They didn’t have an answer for Sasha early. And I thought Julian did a good job feeding Sasha. "I really like (Bobby Knight). He’s funny. I joked with him, I watched so much Texas Tech tape, and you know he does all the advertising on all the shows, I asked him where I could buy that dog food, and I asked him if I should switch insurance carriers, because he’s advertising everything over there. This isn’t the best team he’s had over there, but you just watch. This will be a team that’s on everybody’s nervous list next year because they’ll have everybody back and they’ll add somebody with recruits. It’s an honor to coach against somebody like that. "We’re going to go lighter this week. We’re going to take off Tuesday, practice Wednesday hard, and then take off Thursday. Then we’ll have two days to prepare for Oklahoma. We’ll work on our stuff Wednesday, two days to prepare for Oklahoma, then we play Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, Monday. So we need to have a rested team. I don’t understand how the conference comes up with some of their scheduling deals, but that will be four games in eight days. We did pretty good when we played three in six, but that will be an even tougher stretch."