George Washington University Athletics
Postgame Comments: GW vs. UNC Wilmington
11/29/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 29, 2010
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
November 29, 2010
UNC Wilmington
GW
Postgame Quotes
GW Coach Karl Hobbs
Do you get a sense that this team has no margin for error this year?
"Without question. When we're playing at home, it's almost like if we don't' have an 8- or 10-point lead, almost anything can happen. Every shot becomes so important. Tonight I thought we played hard, with a great deal of effort. It came down to us not being able to finish plays. That's happened to us twice in a row in our building, and we need to find a way to change it."
With Tony Taylor getting in foul trouble early, did you see anything that makes you feel you can deal with effectively?
"Things are going to happen in basketball games, but we had our best moments when he was on the bench. We had a terrific run from being down 12 to being up 8. But we have to find a way to finish plays--we have a fast break, miss a layup, and they make a 3. That's a 5-point swing, and at a critical moment."
How much of a factor was the Seahawks' Keith Rendelman?
"He had a terrific game and did a great job on Joe [Katuka] from a defensive standpoint. But it came down to [Tanner Milson] making the 3s."
GW Sr. G Tony Taylor
Any particular reason why there were so many 3s tonight? "We just have some great shooters on this team. For them, those are usually high-percentage shots. Everybody shot well tonight; it was just a matter of getting them the ball."
Were you deliberately trying to spread the ball around, even though it cut into your scoring average?
"I'm not worried about who scores. We just want to win. Today is something that we have to play through and play smarter as we go along."
GW Fr. F Nemanja Mikic
Was tonight's loss particularly frustrating because you had a good individual performance?
"Every loss is frustrating. Like everyone's said, we have to work on playing hard when there's a couple of minutes left in the game.
Did you feel more comfortable out there tonight?
"I'm comfortable every game when my shots go in. [laughs] I have to give credit to my teammates and the coaching staff, because we worked on moving the ball in transition and finding the open guy."
UNCW Coach Buzz Peterson
Opening Statement
"We went with a small line-up tonight, just trying to get aggressive. In practice after Thanksgiving, I saw a lot of things out on the court. We were trying to practice our zone defense, but I noticed that our guys kept hitting shots. I felt maybe [going small] would be the best thing to do...You live and die by the 3, and two weeks ago we weren't shooting that shot at all; we were holding the ball and working the clock. Now, we're totally different, and we felt like we were getting baskets easier in transition than in the half-court offense."
Were you worried playing Keith Rendelman with 4 fouls?
"I gambled a little bit. After his 4th foul, I wanted to wait until about a minute after the 8:00 media time out before I put him back in. He was active enough to get his hands on some things, which is the way he's been for us. On defense, we were trying to switch everything. With Keith, you can switch everything in there."
How did you combat GW's hot outside shooting?
"We asked our guys to run them off the line, get up there and be very aggressive, and not let them stare down any outside shot. We had some bad communication on the defensive end in the first half, but we were trying to run every body off the 3-point line. We know they have very good shooters.
UNCW Sr. G Chad Tomko
How important were Tanner Milson's 25 points tonight?
"Tanner's been shooting the lights out, just like Coach said. We just needed to get him the ball. He made a great play to put us up by 1 or 2 in the second half with a step-back 3. We need something like that--guys to step up and hit open shots on the offensive end."
