Jan. 23, 2016

Recap | Box Score | Notes

Utah State head coach Tim Duryea

On what caused the game to slip away:
"After the first seven to eight minutes, I thought we competed really hard, I thought we did some things better here, better than we've done the last couple years. I thought we were pretty good for about the next 20 minutes or so and then we hit a drought when it was 42-41. We fouled too much during that period and obviously we missed way too many wide open jumpers, more open jumpers than we have had here in the past two or three seasons combined, and we just couldn't make them. That was really the difference, if we hit our open shots. We came up with a lot of good shots, but when your starting wings go 2-of-18 from the floor, it's hard to win that way."

On SDSU's tough defense, especially during the second half:
"We just have to figure out a way to avoid those (scoring droughts). It seems like one of those hits us every loss we have. You can go back and point to a six or seven minute period where we only score two points. A lot of that is because we are very jump shot oriented, small, and we just have to make shots consistently throughout the game. You can't have live ball turnovers against them, you just can't."

San Diego State Head Coach Steve Fisher

Opening statement:
"We had some stretches today where we were very impressive. We now need to keep them longer and our not so good stretches shorter. I know we can do both. We were really good out of the gate and had the big early lead and then we turned the ball over 10 times in the first half. We gave up offensive rebounds, 10 in the first half and we didn't make our free-throws, we missed two one-and-ones. A five point half-time lead, coulda, woulda, shoulda, when you shoot 56 percent or whatever we were, 53 percent, was a five-point lead. We started the second half the way we ended the first half. They scored four straight possessions, four out of five. They rebounded. The only miss they had to take a lead and after that we had a long stretch where we were very good, where we took care of the ball with three second half turnovers. They only had three offensive rebounds in the second half, and we did what good teams do to win: make them take tough two's, limit them to one shot at the basket, take care of the ball, get a good shot every time down and make your free-throws. In the second half, for 16 or so minutes, we were good at that. In the first half, for 12 minutes we were pretty good at it. We're proud to be 7-0, and Utah State can score the ball. They've got lots of guys that can make baskets so it doesn't surprise me when they score baskets, but we've got to do a better job not letting them get second chance baskets and we have to take care of the ball. Those are my two biggest gripes about today, but I liked how we rebounded and responded. I thought (redshirt freshman forward) Zylan Cheatham did some things in the first half that fall into the line of all the negatives that I don't want, and in the second half, I thought he was really, really good. (Junior guard) Dakarai Allen, who doesn't have a good stat line, I thought he came in and was really, really good with his defense, his helping off the ball. To cap it off, (senior forward) Angelo (Chol) had his best game as an Aztec. Angleo Chol had his best game, I think, for San Diego State. He was a factor for us, so for those of you who say we don't have a center who can score, now we have two centers who can score, and I like that."

On junior forward Matt Shrigley's return:
"I love Matt Shrigley. He, from the moment he had the surgery, was committed to doing whatever he could do to get himself ready to play. We all feel sorry for ourselves, and I'm sure he did for a period after he found out he had the ACL injury, but he worked so hard. If you want to get a quote from someone on what he saw in an athlete, talk to Tom Abdenour our (athletic) trainer because he was with him everyday. Dr. Behr told me on Thursday, 'The ball is in your court. He was structurally sound, physically able to play. You test the knee the way we test it and this is normally what you see nine to 12 weeks months out,' that's what he told me. 'Don't worry about playing him If he's capable of playing,' he said 'That's on you.' I didn't really think I'd play him nine minutes, I thought maybe three minutes, maybe six minutes but he played nine minutes. It's nice to have him back, for sure."

On senior forward Angelo Chol
"He seemed to be smart-aggressive with his play. He moved to where he thought the ball would come on the glass when the shot went up, and then he caught it sure handed. So often he gets over anxious and he catches it and all of a sudden he either dribbles it or the ball bobbles a little bit, but he appeared to be a little more sure handed today when he caught the ball. I think sometimes you make your first one and you feel good about yourself and that helps you. I believe that was true with Angelo today. He was very good for us at both ends of the floor. He did a nice job defensively and his stat line is pretty impressive."