Dec. 1, 2000
"I think we are probably not as tough-minded in the clutch as Tulsa at this stage of the season. Whether that is the winning tradition or the type of players they have right now, they are mentally a little tougher than we are and I think that was probably a factor in the game. I don't think we got the kind of shots we wanted often enough during the course of the game to give ourselves a chance to be successful. We did a poor job of defending the three tonight, which also hurt us in some critical times during the course of the game.
"I still think we have a great chance to improve. You keep thinking that and you can only go so long before you keep doing it. We are making some strides and, hopefully, that will come to fruition by the time the league comes.
"I can only remember only seven or eight of the free throws we shot. There weren't a lot of them. We have to take care of business while we are playing the game. We turned the ball over too much in the first half. We were negligent in defending the threes at times during the game. I thought some of our defense was pretty good, though. Probably the biggest thing in this game was that our offensive rebounding was almost non-existent. We are not getting any putback baskets and we need to get some of those. Jim Howell has shown some real signs of being able to help us and maybe he'll be able to do some of that for us."
