Penn State Men's Basketball
Colgate Head Coach Matt Langel
vs. Colgate – December 8, 2018
Opening Statement
"It's an awesome opportunity for our program (to play Penn State). I'm really proud of our group and the work that's been done over the last eight years that's allowed us to be competitive in an environment like this. We don't take for granted the chance to go into a Big Ten arena, to stay at a place like the Nittany Lion Inn, and to play against a team that has a chance to be really, really good. I was disappointed. It's the end of a ten-day stretch. We've had six nights on the road. On two additional nights we got back at three o'clock in the morning to Hamilton, N.Y., and weren't there for more than a day to go to school before we headed off to the next trip. I was disappointed, though, in how we came out in the first 13 minutes of the game. We left [Rasir] Bolton up for air way too many times; that wasn't the team we are. I think after that we adjusted to the game and everybody got a sense of the team we can be. It's just a matter of our group getting together and making that happen. Obviously, Penn State made some plays down the stretch. [Mike] Watkins is still getting back to the guy he can be, but I thought [Josh] Reaves came up with a couple of huge steals. For a group that hasn't been shooting well from the free throw line, they must've been practicing a lot the last couple days because they made some big ones late."
Q: What do you think happened that allowed you guys to get back in the game? Did you play better? Did Penn State let up a little bit?
A: I don't know. We haven't been able to practice a lot and well because of our practice schedule and game schedule over this stretch. I think any coach would tell you when you do that you tend to build not great habits. We were in a couple of our actions, and against Florida Gulf Coast, we were able to get a shot right away. Against Penn State, they didn't get us a shot right away. We didn't cut hard enough, we didn't move well enough, we didn't play together enough on either end of the ball. Just simple things like running back fast enough in transition – we leave their best shooter open and he buries a couple. All of a sudden, you look up at the scoreboard and we're down by 19 points with seven minutes left in the first half.
Q: You went to the zone in the second half and it really seemed to stifle the Penn State offense. What type of adjustments do you think Penn State made to get some key buckets down the stretch?
A: I think Lamar Stevens has established himself as a little bit of a throwback player in today's day and age. Everybody wants to shoot three-point shots and layups now. I'm proud to be from the Philadelphia area; Lamar represents the city really well, and then he's like an old-school player with his mid-range jumpshot. They got him in the middle of the zone a couple times. I thought he made a couple mid-range jumpshots and then they got it into [Mike] Watkins deep into the paint, even though it was a zone, and he got himself to get to the foul line. We turned them over in that zone a number of times, not necessarily because of the pressure, but because of them having to see something a little bit different.