at Washington 87, Brisbane (Australia) 43
November 08, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 2, 2001
WASHINGTON HEAD COACH BOB BENDER
General Remarks:
"There were a lot of nervous people out there tonight. We talked about that last night and I told them that it was okay to be nervous whether you are a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. That was what it looked like, we were nervous. Once we settled down and some guys got their feet under them we did some pretty good things. You can already see that we are a much improved team. Better free-throw shooting helps us immensely. I don't know if that is an indication that we will be a better free-throw shooting team, but at least for the first night it is an improvement. Defensively, we have to take more advantage of our athleticism. We are a little bit tentative right now and we picked up some fouls and we need to be able to play throught that."
On Doug Wrenn:
"This is an important step for Doug to get him back on the court in an organized setting."
On Senior Center David Dixon:
"I am really happy with Dixon, you can really see a difference in his game. The fact that he was going to get the ball out of his area and pursuing rebounds and loose balls, shows you what the change in his body has done for him."
On Freshmen Mike Jensen and Jeffrey Day:
"We saw some good things from them that we haven't seen in practice. We have been on them in practice about two things and that is blocking out in rebounding and staying in a stance and defensively being in the right place. The offense is going to come, that is probably where they are waiting to have some succcess to give them confidence. I know they can score but they did some things tonight defensively that they haven't been doing in practice."
On playing time:
"We didn't go into the game tonight with a plan as far as rotations, we wanted to play everybody. We wanted to get a few guys on the floor with different groups, but it was overall scripted. As I told the team, people earned things prior to this evening by their performance in practice. We are going to do that again before we play on Thursday. We won't just put one group together, we will let them compete and see who really steps up after one game."
BRISBANE HEAD COACH ROB SCHEIBNER
On Washington's win:
"Washington is very athletic. Their little guys are quick and get right nin your face. We played allright the first half, except for the last five minutes. In the second half, we couldn't make a shot. If they've picked Washington to be at the bottom of the Pac-10, then we're in for a long road trip." (NOTE: Brisbane has games remaining against Oregon and WSU, as well as other non-Pac-10 teams.)
On Washington's defense:
"They are going to use their athleticism to get out and pressure the ball. We just didn't make any shots."
On the Huskies' athletes:
"Doug Wrenn is a heck of an athlete, as are Massingale and Allen. Their big guys have a nice, soft touch."
On preparing for the game:
"We had no idea what we were preparing for. I had a few of my good players pull out after the Sept. 11 attacks, and we had to replace them with young players. We didn't really know anything about Washington until we got their media guides yesterday."
On Terik Brown:
"Terik was disappointing. I don't even know if he scored. He played against us last year and has been playing in our league."
