SU Player Quotes vs. Cornell
Syracuse Player Quotes
Syracuse vs. Cornell
Carrier Dome - Syracuse, N.Y.
November 9, 2005
Eric Devendorf…
“I didn’t play up to how I could. I expect a lot out of myself so sometimes I get down on myself. But Coach said to go in there and penetrate the gaps and that’s what I did. Luckily I made my three lay-ups.
I saw the openings and once you get to the middle it breaks down the whole defense and they have to help out on either Terrence (Roberts) or Mookie (Darryl Watkins). That usually opens up the whole lane.
We really stepped it up. We weren’t really in control of the game the whole second half and we stepped up. I think Terrence and Mookie did a really good job rebounding. We had some calls that didn’t go our way but we all came together as a group. The last four minutes of the game we stepped up defensively, got some steals, and Gerry made his free throws and that’s what got us the win.”
Terrence Roberts…
“We’re so young right now and it’s important for us to stay poised to help keep us in the game. That was a big key for us coming out with a win tonight.
When they went up by three, they called a timeout and everybody came to the sideline saying, “Oh, God.” But after that everybody played together, we rebounded, we worked to grab some offensive rebounds and that’s what made the difference.”
Louie McCroskey…
“Every game is another chance, like Coach said, every game we want to improve. We made some mistakes today but that’s a part of the game. We did some good things tonight and we’re going to try to build on that.
You just have to get on the shooters because they’re going to hit shots. Basketball is about different match-ups. They (Cornell) play so poised and they’re going to get the ball in deep and they’re going to make shots. We just have to try to make sure that they don’t get open looks.
It comes with experience to not lose your composure. We obviously want to dictate the tempo of the game every time we play but that’s not going to happen every game realistically. Give a lot of credit to Cornell, they came in pumped up, and they’re well-coached and they have good players as well. It’s something that we can learn from. We made some lapses man-to-man so that’s why we had to go zone the last four minutes, but luckily we did what we can to gut this one out.
You have to gut it out. You make adjustments during the game. We had a lot of open looks today, unfortunately they didn’t go down. That’s going to happen. But rebounding, finding the hot hand, and make the extra feeds – last year we probably would have forced things to Hak (Hakim Warrick). This year, a lot more guys are involved making plays. Its not always about scoring, it’s about getting a feel for the ball and being able to make a play.”
