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WKU 77, UT Arlington 72
January 30, 2014
Bowling Green, Ky. (E.A. Diddle Arena)
HEAD COACH Ray Harper
On containing their scorers:
"McClanahan just kept attacking us to the basket and that's his game. We knew it going in. Coach Boyden emphasized and talked about it three straight days. There were times we weren't very good, especially late. We started back peddling and he went and got two or three and-1s. You can't do that. If you're going to foul him, don't let him get the ball in the basket. Fortunately, we were able to get out of there with a win."
On overcoming a large deficit:
"I don't have any 15-point plays. How you do it is get good shots, get great shots. Make the extra pass. We had too many one-pass possessions in the first half. Everybody was trying to do it on their own. I thought in the second half we had five or six possessions where we got stops and we got nothing on the offensive end. Whether it be missed free throws or whatever. If you're going to be a team that comes back, you've got to be able to convert those. We were fortunate. We turned them over and got some buckets and sped them up a little bit, or we would have been in a lot of trouble."
On Aleksej Rostov:
"Alex has a blood clot in his upper extremity. I can't tell you whether he'll be back in a week, two weeks, or when. Doctors are evaluating him and we'll do whatever is in the best interest of Alex and his health. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is."
On O'Karo Akamune:
"Huge. I thought he was the difference. I thought his energy was the difference in the basketball game. I don't know if there was one possession in the basketball where I saw O'Karo take the possession off. If we can get that kind of energy and effort out of O'Karo the rest of the season, I'll take that every night."
On Kevin Kaspar:
"It's his knee. He will have surgery. Is he out for a month, the rest of the season? I just don't know at this point. It's unfortunate. I hate it for Kevin. I hate it for this basketball team. I've said it many times; I think he's one of the best teammate kids I've ever coached. We missed him tonight. The one thing Kevin will be, he'll still be a great teammate. Hopefully he'll be okay in time."
SENIOR FORWARD O'Karo Akamune
On if there was a lack of energy in the first half:
"I wouldn't say a lack of energy, but we didn't focus on our scouting report; stopping the guards from shooting threes, staying in the gaps between, and helping each other. We did pick up the energy as well, along with the focus. We came together. We knew we had a deficit, but we came together as a team and worked hard to come back."
On if they underestimated the opponent:
"We didn't underestimate them. We knew that they're a good team, they're great drivers, and they can shoot. I think we just needed to focus more."
REDSHIRT-FRESHMAN GUARD Chris Harrison-Docks
On if he thought WKU would ever get the lead in the game:
"I always think that we have the team to come back and can win. It never crossed my mind. We can't keep getting off to these slow starts. We always end up getting down and always fighting back. That shows a lot of character that we can do that, but I think the sooner we can come out on runs and stay on top, we'll continue to get better than we have been."
On what Coach Harper was saying when UTA was up 24-9:
"He was basically telling us to take it one possession at a time. It starts on the defensive end. Once we got that in our heads, and bought in, that's when we started to cut into the lead. Some shots started falling. (O'Karo) came in and brought a ton of energy. He sparked us. I don't think if we had (O'Karo) tonight, I don't think we would have been in the position we were at the end of the game."
