Re: Coach Tovarich 2.0 CH2K8 Career Legacy
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Royal Bank of Canada Center
Raleigh, NC
Tovarich: Well, that's a ridiculous way to have to win a basketball game, but we squeeked it out somehow. The offensive rebound by Jack with 7 seconds to go sealed it. The rest of the clock we ran out while they fouled us. I just assume they'd have hit a 3 at the buzzer to beat us by 1 if we didn't get it. Because they made everything. 16/20 in the first half, they cooled all the way down to a meager 10/18 in the second. Over 50% on 3's. We had to force turnovers like crazy to stay in that. Maybe they got tired finally. I haven't seen a 7-man rotation since when I was at Eastern Shore, which was the last time I was in this building for the MEAC tournament. It's crazy to take 22 extra shots and barely eek out a win at the end. I don't know how many missed shots we had from point blank range as usual. Seemed like everything was a foul on us. 0 blocks, Shehan had 4 fouls with 11 minutes to go because he wasn't allowed to touch anyone. They got 6 blocks and almost none of their fouls were on their big guy, crazy. Li should probably be banned from shooting layups. He seems like he's on a breakaway and then 9 feet behind him is a defender running toward him and somehow he slows down and lets the guy catch up and it becomes a contested layup he misses 100% of the time. Didn't matter how tight we were on anyone, they all shot incredibly. I hope fatigue was a factor somewhere. It certainly should have been with that rotation, but who knows if that's really why they stopped shooting 80%.
Reporter: Was weathering their 8/8 and 6/6 FT start the key to winning?
Tovarich: Yes. That could have been over in 5 minutes the way they barraged us like that. It didn't take long to see we may as well just press them the whole game. If they're going to make every shot they take, I'd rather watch them get an uncontested layup than watch them bomb 3's from all over with someone right in their face. They threw it away a lot luckily. Only 12 of the 18 turnovers were steals, they just misfired a lot of long passes to beat the press, so luckily that works to make up for the fact that no matter what defense we play, we allow 60% shooting or more, almost 70 today, and generally don't out-rebound anyone bigger than a high school. It's a crazy way to play basketball, but apparently that's how it has to be done.
Reporter: What will be the keys to winning @ Duke next week? Same thing as today?
Tovarich: If we can just hold a team to 50% shooting, it would make life so much easier. Maybe just do better than 2-1 rebounds and 20 extra shots and +15 in turnovers and maybe we'll get lucky and eek it out at the end (rolls eyes)
Reporter: Will this be the biggest regular season game in Western Kentucky history?
Tovarich: If we win, sure. I'm sure the team's played top 5 teams on the road before.
Reporter: The signing window is about to open. Do you expect to sign anyone in the regular season?
Tovarich: Maybe one if we're lucky, but it's not been going well. You'd think we'd have a lot of interest from good players and we don't have as much as I'd expect. Maybe I've overestimated the perception of the program with recruits and reached to players that were too good, who knows.
@ Royal Bank of Canada Center
Raleigh, NC
| Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at North Carolina State Wolfpack | |||
| Nov 29, 2014 | 1ST | 2ND | SCORE |
| #7 Western Kentucky (9-1) | 43 | 31 | 74 |
| #19 North Carolina State (6-4) | 45 | 25 | 70 |
| Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | |||||||||||
| STARTERS | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PTS | |
| Galbreath | 22 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |
| Lewis | 21 | 6-14 | 3-6 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15 | |
| Li | 22 | 4-11 | 3-6 | 0-0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 11 | |
| Jack | 21 | 4-8 | 1-4 | 2-2 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 11 | |
| Shehan | 16 | 5-9 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | |
| BENCH | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PTS | |
| Suotamo | 12 | 4-8 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | |
| Pawlak | 7 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Camper | 7 | 2-3 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | |
| Jordan | 6 | 3-6 | 2-5 | 2-2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | |
| Capel | 6 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Merriex | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| Flores | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| TEAM TOTALS | 28-60 | 9-22 | 9-10 | 17 | 23 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 74 | ||
| North Carolina State Wolfpack | |||||||||||
| STARTERS | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PTS | |
| Sanders | 26 | 4-5 | 0-0 | 4-4 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12 | |
| Laurie | 25 | 3-4 | 3-4 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 9 | |
| Sidibe | 23 | 11-14 | 4-7 | 0-0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 26 | |
| Bosley, B | 26 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4 | |
| Bosley, E | 23 | 3-7 | 1-3 | 4-4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 11 | |
| BENCH | MIN | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PTS | |
| Nuualiitia | 7 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Ahvenniemi | 9 | 3-4 | 1-1 | 1-1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | |
| Houston | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| Barnes | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| Zoellner | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| Markovic | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| Sargent | -- DID NOT PLAY -- | ||||||||||
| TEAM TOTALS | 26-38 | 9-16 | 9-9 | 21 | 17 | 1 | 6 | 18 | 70 | ||
Tovarich: Well, that's a ridiculous way to have to win a basketball game, but we squeeked it out somehow. The offensive rebound by Jack with 7 seconds to go sealed it. The rest of the clock we ran out while they fouled us. I just assume they'd have hit a 3 at the buzzer to beat us by 1 if we didn't get it. Because they made everything. 16/20 in the first half, they cooled all the way down to a meager 10/18 in the second. Over 50% on 3's. We had to force turnovers like crazy to stay in that. Maybe they got tired finally. I haven't seen a 7-man rotation since when I was at Eastern Shore, which was the last time I was in this building for the MEAC tournament. It's crazy to take 22 extra shots and barely eek out a win at the end. I don't know how many missed shots we had from point blank range as usual. Seemed like everything was a foul on us. 0 blocks, Shehan had 4 fouls with 11 minutes to go because he wasn't allowed to touch anyone. They got 6 blocks and almost none of their fouls were on their big guy, crazy. Li should probably be banned from shooting layups. He seems like he's on a breakaway and then 9 feet behind him is a defender running toward him and somehow he slows down and lets the guy catch up and it becomes a contested layup he misses 100% of the time. Didn't matter how tight we were on anyone, they all shot incredibly. I hope fatigue was a factor somewhere. It certainly should have been with that rotation, but who knows if that's really why they stopped shooting 80%.
Reporter: Was weathering their 8/8 and 6/6 FT start the key to winning?
Tovarich: Yes. That could have been over in 5 minutes the way they barraged us like that. It didn't take long to see we may as well just press them the whole game. If they're going to make every shot they take, I'd rather watch them get an uncontested layup than watch them bomb 3's from all over with someone right in their face. They threw it away a lot luckily. Only 12 of the 18 turnovers were steals, they just misfired a lot of long passes to beat the press, so luckily that works to make up for the fact that no matter what defense we play, we allow 60% shooting or more, almost 70 today, and generally don't out-rebound anyone bigger than a high school. It's a crazy way to play basketball, but apparently that's how it has to be done.
Reporter: What will be the keys to winning @ Duke next week? Same thing as today?
Tovarich: If we can just hold a team to 50% shooting, it would make life so much easier. Maybe just do better than 2-1 rebounds and 20 extra shots and +15 in turnovers and maybe we'll get lucky and eek it out at the end (rolls eyes)
Reporter: Will this be the biggest regular season game in Western Kentucky history?
Tovarich: If we win, sure. I'm sure the team's played top 5 teams on the road before.
Reporter: The signing window is about to open. Do you expect to sign anyone in the regular season?
Tovarich: Maybe one if we're lucky, but it's not been going well. You'd think we'd have a lot of interest from good players and we don't have as much as I'd expect. Maybe I've overestimated the perception of the program with recruits and reached to players that were too good, who knows.
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