Penn State Men's Basketball
Iowa Head Coach Fran McCaffery
vs. Iowa – January 16, 2019
Q. One thing I observed was [Luka] Garza coming off that technical seemed to give you guys a boost, what did you view as a difference down the stretch?
A: Coming down the stretch, there were a lot of things that I think were kind of unique to this game. Garza was great, [Jordan] Bohannon makes a big shot, and you got to give Penn State credit. We were up seven with three something, they scored eight straight, Josh Reaves makes two unbelievable plays, and they took the lead back. If they had the lead, gave it up, and took it back, you have to give that team credit how they fought in that situation and then how we maintained our composure and got the lead back and the stops we needed.
Q. What did you think of your team's efforts, especially against Lamar Stevens? Obviously after averaging over 18 (points) a game and goes 4-18 from the field tonight.
A: The reality is that any team that comes in here, any team that they play, is going to focus on Lamar Stevens with the way he is playing and the amount of shots that he takes. Obviously, he is not shooting it as well from three as he did last year, and he is still playing at a high level. We doubled him and tried to make him get rid of it rather than worrying if he is going to make a shot or miss a shot and a lot of people will do that against him. You kind of know where he is going to be, maybe a little bit more than last year, because he is going to be at the free throw line, he is going to be at the elbows, he is going to be on the block more so than he is going to be at the 3-point line. You're not worried about him as much up there except he will drive it from there and then you have to just be in the gaps. He was a focal point of our defensive gameplay. Now, he did miss some shots that he normally makes, and I think we can all agree to that especially in the zone he is pretty consistent from the free-throw line shooting that turn around jumper, and he didn't make it tonight.
Q. It seems like you played mostly zone tonight and then switched to man later in the game, any particular reason you didn't go to man earlier?
A: We played mostly man in the first half and mostly zone in the second half. Our man in the first half wasn't really good and give them credit they were pushing it and moving it, but we weren't locked into the game plan in some areas in the first half and the start of the second half they were executing pretty well against our man, so we went to the zone. We got five straight stops at that one point where we took the lead and then they scored twice then we got out of it, and went back to the man, and then went back to the zone when we got the lead back primarily so that they would use more clock.