Cincinnati-Alabama State Postgame Quotes

Alabama State at Cincinnati
Nov. 27, 2017
BB& T Arena
Highland Heights, Kentucky
Postgame Quotes

Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin
Opening statement:
"I told the guys I thought we played like a team that hadn't practiced much. It wasn't for a lack of effort, though. We had 53 deflections. We just didn't have a lot of rhythm. I think that showed in our shooting. We had a lot of good shooters missing open shots; that would probably be the biggest thing. Out defense got better as the game went on, statistically, in the half court especially. With Thursday traveling (off), I gave them a light day Friday; all we really did was shoot Friday and then I gave them off Saturday. So, we had a mini vacation. I thought our guys needed a freshening after playing three games in a row and just tried to use tonight, basically, as a practice. We tried to give guys equal minutes. We had yesterday's practice and tried to use tonight's game as a practice and, hopefully go hard three times this week to get ready for Saturday. But, I have to make sure I have these guys ready to run on Saturday. I knew I didn't really have them ready tonight, but that was okay. I figured we would be able to get the job done. The kids tried; it is just hard when you haven't been in the gym and we really haven't been in the gym."

#11 Gary Clark, F
On Being Ready To Step Up The Level Of Competition
"Definitely. We have to. When you got these kinds of games coming up, you have no other choice or you get beat bad."

On His Recent Stretch Of Play
"I've been getting fouled and making my shots at the free-throw line. I'm getting to the right spots on the floor and making sure I finish above the rim every time."

On the Xavier Game This Saturday
"Another opportunity. It's that game that everybody goes crazy about in this city. Being ready to play and having good leadership are points of emphasis we want to focus on Saturday against Xavier."

#1 Jacob Evans III, G
On Working Through Lineup Changes And Trying To Be Consistent
"In these types of games, we want to look at ourselves and see what we can improve on. The most difficult part is to keep improving no matter what the score is."

On The Team Keeping Its Foot On The Throttle With A Big Lead
"We aren't really focused on the score. We want to focus on playing hard each possession and cut down are mistakes."

Alabama State Head Coach Lewis Jackson
On what were some of the keys to the game coming and  what determined tonight's game:
"We knew coming in it was going to be a tough game for us with UC being in the top 15 in the country. We wanted to come in and play tough basketball, play one possession at a time. Our main points of emphasis being to keep them off the boards because they are so big. We also wanted to keep them off the free throw line. I thought are guys competed all night. We didn't do everything right, but we gave are best effort throughout the game.

On what were some positives your team showed tonight that you can build upon moving forward:
"Coming out and playing with good confidence and energy. I thought we had good energy all night. Coming out and playing good team basketball. I thought we moved the ball around well tonight and got good shots. We have to get a couple of are guys to step up. We can build off the energy we played with through the course of the game and the execution we displayed.

On his impression of this year's Cincinnati team:
"They are really good. They are great defensively and they are really long. They have shooters that can also get down the floor and guard. They are a team that is going to go far in their conference. Coach Cronin and his staff do a great job with the team."