Bill Self Postgame Press Conference
“Well, I mean, we were just awful today defensively and then they were great. I mean, they played great. Their bigs dominated and their guards, we didn’t pressure them. They got where they wanted to. So it was a combination of defensive rebounding, their guards basically getting where they want to go. But their bigs, they destroyed us.”
On being minus-11 on the glass:
“I’d say they were more aggressive. They were more physical and we played soft.”
On whether there was bad energy coming into the game:
“No, there wasn’t bad energy, but I don’t think we were as enthusiastic. I don’t think we were as energetic. What he said isn’t necessarily maybe the right phrase, but certainly I could feel it too. It was a lot like the Utah game to be honest with you.”
On possibly overlooking the opponent:
“I’m not going to buy that. Respecting opponents more, maybe coming out with the same energy that you have against Arizona and other people would be equal respect. We didn’t do that today.
But don’t make something out of nothing because no team is on point at a 10 every game of the season. So I’m not buying that we didn’t respect their opponent. The bottom line is we didn’t bring it as a unit from an energy standpoint.
They’re good. We played an NCAA Tournament team today. There’s no doubt about that.”
On Tiller's performance:
“I didn’t think our bigs played very big today.”
On Darryn’s performance:
“I didn’t think anybody played well today. I’d certainly include all our players in with that.
The defensive intensity from everybody was lacking. Sometimes we look at guys to see how effective they are based on their offensive numbers. I didn’t think we did anything to cause any type of rhythm adjustments that made them feel uncomfortable.”
On Cincinnati’s defense:
“It was great. They’re length. They protect the rim. Those shots that Melvin makes a lot of times, it’s a little different shooting over 7-2 and 6-11 like that.
I thought they did a good job keeping the ball out of the paint. They did a good job on Darren. Our ball and body movement wasn’t very good. They did a really good job of switching.
They didn’t switch defenses, but they gave a different look out of timeouts. Even though it was still man-to-man, they made it look like it was a zone. We didn’t handle that very well.”
On the message moving forward:
“We’ll meet tomorrow. Things happen and we’ve got to stay together. They’re great kids, but we weren’t competitive today.
If you can’t make other people play poorly no matter where you’re playing, it could be a long afternoon or evening. That’s exactly what happened.”
On Houston’s defense coming up:
“Houston’s numbers are even better than Cincinnati’s and Cincinnati’s defensive numbers are really, really good.”
On Darryn finishing the game:
“If we’re going to grab a positive out of this today, yeah, let’s go with that. I actually thought for the most part he moved pretty well.
But playing is, did we pressure? Did we do anything? When you’re playing well, everything is connected. We weren’t connected today.
Rebounders didn’t rebound. How many balls were in our hands with two hands and they come away with it? It just wasn’t a very tough team today like we’re capable of being.”
On the opponent’s three-point shooting:
“Harris was shooting 17% and he makes one in the corner. The two bigs have maybe made eight combined on the season and they make four today.
They did a good job. When we did play to scout report, they made us pay.”
On the offensive stagnation in the second half:
“It’s terrible. We didn’t play well on either end, but certainly offensively you’ve got to be able to keep up and we couldn’t keep up.
Good teams, you’re not going to score fast. You’re not going to score on the first side. We don’t have that type of team.
We didn’t screen. We didn’t do a lot of things the way I would hope we would do it. I’ve got to do a better job of getting us to do it. We’ve shown that we can do it at times, but we certainly didn’t do it against a team that demands it being done because they’re so sound defensively.”