Everything Niko Medved said following Minnesota's blowout win over Texas Southern
Minnesota head coach Niko Medved spoke to the media following Minnesota’s blowout 89-53 win over Texas Southern on Sunday afternoon. Here’s what Medved had to say about his team’s sixth win of the season.
OPENING STATEMMT
Good mindset for our guys here today, so it’s good to get back out on the court after that second half against Purdue. Again I think people talk a lot about the shot making. They kind of surprised us, they hadn’t played zone all year and they actually started the game in a zone.
I thought our guys handled it well. Found open shooters and we saw the ball go in early. I thought our defense too really picked up.
We were able to get stops, get out and transition. Anytime you see a game where you have 28 field goals and 27 of them are assisted, that’s pretty cool. Obviously Cade’s shot making was special.
I told the guys after the game, we had only one unassisted field goal today and I think that was Bobby Durkin’s steal. He screwed it up. That was an opportunity I don’t think I’ve ever had a game where every field goal was assisted.
Same thing, I told Cade, he had an opportunity to break the school record for threes and he had to choke on that last one. You can see I can be sarcastic too. What a great performance by those guys.
We’re happy and now we go into finals and got to get better.
Q: You talk about the ball movement, what in particular stood out about the way you guys shared it?
Some of it started with how they defended us early in the game. They decided to play zone and obviously had opportunities for penetrate, kick, find open guys.
It’s kind of what we do. Again, the ball went in early so it just continues to build confidence. Guys were shot ready, putting it on time, on target.
I thought they just kind of built from there. Then when they ended up going man-to-man, same thing, just really running our offense and guys finding guys and sharing the ball, turning down good shot for a great shot. I thought that was really good.
Q: Did you expect Reynolds to be this ball good passer coming in like this?
I think he’s always had the opportunity to make plays. I think what I really liked, and he’s the first guy I pointed out to the group, is he kind of did what the game required. I don’t think he scored until the second half on a free throw, but it’s just hey, he got so many guys open looks tonight by getting in the lane, whether it was in transition or the half court, finding open shooters.
That’s what he did. Played defense, got on the glass a little bit. He did what the game required.
You don’t make that many threes or Cade doesn’t make eight threes if you don’t have teammates passing him the ball.
Q: We saw everybody kind of gather around Cade in the post-game interview. What does that kind of show about the collectiveness of the team?
I think it’s great.
It’s one thing about Cade and the shot making. Everybody sees the shot making, but you know what I love the most about him?
Today it’s the rebounding. It doesn’t matter what the score is.
He’s trying to go get every offensive rebound. He’s battling his tail off. He’s got his lip bloodied, and he just keeps playing.
He’s got an unbelievable approach. He comes every day early. He has his routine.
He’s the same guy in practice every day. Brings it, coachable, consistent, and he’s just earned so much respect for his teammates. On top of that, he’s just a really, really good dude.
I just really enjoy being around him every day. He’s such a great guy. It just brings that level of consistency and toughness to us.
Obviously, the shot making was something you don’t get to see every day. Defensively, you guys forced a decent amount of turnovers. They didn’t get a great quality shot.
Q: What did you think of your defensive efforts?
I thought it was pretty good. I thought we did a good job of being loaded and helping in the gaps where we could. For the most part, I thought the defense was good.
There were obviously some breakdowns more in the second half as the game went on. Again, I thought what really broke the game open was us getting stops and then being able to get out and transition.
Q: Did your guys and Cade know that Cade was on the cusp of breaking a school record?
No, I don’t know if he knew. I did tell him there at the end. He had seven of them, and I ran a play for him.
He didn’t shoot the first one, but then he shot it and he made it. I told him, hey, he got one more crack at it. Again, he just couldn’t get it to go down.
I don’t know if he knew in real time, but I think as the game went on at the end, after he made that and we subbed him out, I think he did figure it out.
Q: How are freshman Kai and Grayson coming along at this point in the season?
I think they’re getting better. I think what happens to these guys even now is it’s longer than anything they’ve ever been a part of.
The practices are longer. The attention to detail is just something you’re not used to in school and all of it. You sometimes can hit a little bit of a wall mentally, but they’ve just got to continue to fight and get better.
They’re going to keep getting minutes, keep getting opportunities, and they’ll see that they’ll continue to grow and get through that. I think this next month is huge for us. We’re not at finals, but then we have this time where we’re not in school anymore.
I think teams, this is where you can really improve. You get more practice time, more time together. For those two guys and our entire group, it’s going to be a critical month for us.
When you look at assist to made field goals, is that a stat you typically look at? Oh, yeah. If you look at our teams every place that we’ve been, that’s always been something. We’ve always been among the leaders in the country in assist to field goals made.
So that’s part of who we are, the identity of our team. Again, it’s not something that we look at the stat sheet every time and see it’s just a certain way that we want to play. Obviously, we really praise that, guys helping each other get great shots.
Q: Is this the closest you’ve been to perfect?
I’ve had teams where we’ve had a lot of assist to field goals, but again, I didn’t know in real time. I didn’t know until after the game. I know I’ve never had perfect, so I guess one away from perfect is as close as you can get.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had one. One away, too. Again, Durkin had to screw the whole thing up.
Thanks.
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