courtesy of Jack Alden

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"I think we are getting better defensively. We decided not to go to any zone today just to try to work on our man and continue to improve. If you take out the four-, five-, six-minute stretch there in the second half, other than that I thought we were really good defensively. In the first half, the Wallace youngster, we didn't get anybody any help and he was one-on-one with our big guys in there. Drew came across and blocked one that was evidently goaltending. He might have missed that one, but he didn't miss many. We didn't get back and do the things we wanted to do against him, but still felt pretty good about it defensively. I felt pretty good about everything except that six-minute stretch in the second half when we had some guys in there who just quit thinking, quit using their brain, quit using their heart for a little bit. "The crazy thing was, none of those guys (Gooden, Gregory, Axtell) scored in the second half. Drew took a couple of ill-advised shots in the second half, and Luke missed some real good ones in the second half. Kenny never really got involved in it. I asked Kenny, 'Is there any pain in the foot,' and he said no, so I was happy about that. We missed some good shots that we had, yet I thought we were really active on the backboards. In the first half the rebound totals were 22-22, so Barry had to be pleased with his club, too. "Nick Collison has been playing really well, and I decided to put him in there (starting lineup) as opposed to Eric, but I may change 'em back the next game, and probably will change 'em back the next game. Eric really struggled at Ohio State shooting the basketball, and really struggled early again today, but he stuck with it, and at least was doing some good things on the backboards for us. I think he had two or three blocked shots for us, too. He made a couple (of shots) at the end. I think he's just gotten too tentative. The crazy thing about young kids is, two weeks ago today was maybe his most effective, his most aggressive offensive game he's had all year, and now we're sitting up here saying he's struggling. "Their press was more designed to slow us down as opposed to taking the ball away, but we still did some crazy things. We called a set play out of bounds on the side, and Drew throws it out of bounds because he throws it where Jeff Carey was standing, but not where he was supposed to be. But still, I like (a) 23-11 (turnover margin). "Nick Collison had another solid game, and Kirk did a good job of finding him a couple of times on the secondary phase of the break, and gave it to him inside. And for the most part he took the ball to the basket. I liked that part, especially when you look at the stats and see four assists and only one turnover, because we've got to stop our big guys from turning the ball over. "I'm looking forward to (the conference season). What I'm really looking forward to is having great practices Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday so we can get a little better, and hopefully be a little more consistent over a 40-minute period, because if you don't, you're not gonna win in our league. It's a heck of a league, and I've been really impressed with some of the teams and what they've already accomplished."

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