Oregon State Post-Game Quotes
February 16, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 16, 2012
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Stanford 87, Oregon State 82
February 16, 2012
Maples Pavilion
Stanford, Calif.
Head Coach Craig Robinson
On whether this was a game he thought they could win...
"Oh, absolutely. I just came out of the locker room and told them that we blew this game. We had every opportunity. When it was time to make game-winning plays, we just couldn't do it."
On not making the plays down the stretch...
"I've given them a pass on lack of experience and lack of maturity but this is no excuse. If you want to win in this league on the road you have to be able to make plays. And they made plays. They made big shots and we didn't."
On Stanford getting key offensive rebounds and baskets...
"Every time we needed a turnover, we'd get one but we couldn't convert it. We had a couple of breakouts, including the missed dunk off of Jared's head that we didn't get that was important. Every single one of them was important."
On Jared's dunk that wasn't ruled a basket...
"They said it never cleared the basket, but I'm thinking it did. If he dunked it and it hit his head, it cleared the basket. That wasn't why we lost. We had six or seven of those so that one wasn't the sole reason we lost."
On Roberto Nelson's strong first half and then slowing down in the second half...
"They made an adjustment. And when people make adjustments on you, you have to make adjustments yourself. It's been such a long time since he's had a game like that, I'm sure it kind of caught them off guard."
On looking ahead to Saturday's game against California...
"It's the same speech. In order to win in this league, even at home but especially on the road, you have to play almost a flawless game. You can't shoot yourself in the foot time and again like we did tonight."
Sophomore guard Roberto Nelson
On his scoring output in the first half...
"The guys did a great job of setting screens and hitting me when I was open and I hit a couple of shots. I was hoping that would lead to the second half but I didn't come out shooting the same way."
On whether it was a game that slipped away...
"Most definitely. We were in the game and there were a couple of plays here and there I wish we could take back that would have changed the game. But Stanford did a good job of executing and diving on loose balls and getting rebounds and hitting open shots. So I can't take anything away from them."
Junior guard Jared Cunningham
On the dunk that bounced back through the basket...
"It hit my shoulder. When it went through the basket, the ball hit my shoulder when it went through. It was disappointing that it came back out. The refs said it didn't go all the way through."
On whether the game slipped away...
"This is happening to us too much. We need to figure out something and a different way to approach this. We have to play hard from the beginning. Stanford came out and knocked down some shots and got going early. Our defense came back in the middle of the first half and we caught up to take the lead. But the second half they knocked down some more shots and we couldn't come back from there."
