USC - Oregon Postgame Quotes
January 26, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 26, 2001
USC coach Henry Bibby
"I thought we lost our defensive intensity down the stretch. We gave up too much penetration to the basket and didn't sustain the energy level we had. We broke down defensively and gave them easy baskets.
"Sam Clancy dominated the game. He did everything inside during that stretch (to get USC a 16-point lead) to get us up there.
"We had more than 1 player playing tonight. Brian Scalabrine had a nice game but got in foul trouble early. We saw early that they were collapsing on Sam and that left Brian open to do the things he does. He had a breakout game.
"The thing is just getting everybody back on the same page. Now once David Bluthenthal gets going, once we put it together, we can be very very good. We've got to work very hard.
"We can't give up a lead like that. We can't give up 49 points in the second half.
"Jeff Trepagnier is getting back in the swing of things. He's letting the game come to him. He played well tonight. He did some nice things defensively and hit a big basket down the stretch."
Postgame quotes from Oregon coach Ernie Kent
"I don't want to call this a moral victory. To play this tough against a top 25 team in their home, I hope our guys understand what it was about. We made at least 50 mental mistakes. We weren't tough enough, but you could see this team battle back.
"The game was lost on the boards. They pounded us on the boards, especially in the first half.
"We made four or five big shots toward the end to get back in it. But we need to play with that same sense of urgency in the first half. We put ourselves in position to win it, but we didn't get it done.
"Our game plan was to stop the big three: Clancy, Scalabrine and Bluthenthal. They are a big, strong and physical team. We didn't do a good job keeping them off the boards and they had lots of second shots."
