Penn State Men's Basketball
Postgame Quotes: Maryland Eastern Shore Head Coach Jason Crafton
November 5, 2019
Opening Statement: I thought our guys gave a great effort for 40 minutes. It's a very tough opponent in Penn State, they're scrappy. I've known Pat Chambers for a long time, and I believe he's in year eight or nine of building this to a hard-nosed blue collar brand of basketball. So we knew we had a tough battle coming in here playing against Penn State. We're brothers from back in the day, working together at Villanova. What he's doing here is what we're trying to build at Maryland Eastern Shore, a blue-collar basketball program that plays hard for 40 minutes. I thought our guys are pretty good job on the backboard. I know against Delaware they got 25 offensive rebounds. For us to come in and keep them at 13 or 14 was a win for us, you know, even though that's a number we don't want to give up in league, but in this type of situation and with the size of our guys and the size of their guys, we thought that we could keep them around 13 that would be a good move for us. Outside of that, we've got to make free throws, and we've got to find ways to score the basketball.
Q: What do you hope your guys got out of an experience like this, playing against somebody like Mike Watkins or Lamar Stevens?
A: Hopefully, nobody got hurt. We got a lot of these to play so I think just seeing, not just how talented they are but how hard they play and. I think that's something we'll take from this. They have talented players but they play a hard, blue-collar brand of basketball, and that's something we're trying to build at Maryland Eastern Shore.
Q: Throughout the game, it looked like you ran a decent amount of zone. Early on it worked and then it started to break down. What do you think the key for them was in breaking it down?
A: Well, Pat's a good coach. We want to change defenses up as much as we can. It was a matter of time before they were able to get a couple of shooters going, and I think we did a good job eliminating it. I probably played too much zone in the second half, but I was also having some foul trouble and I was trying to save some legs a little bit knowing we got a long haul ahead. I thought we did some good things in spots in the first half but I probably played five or six too many possessions of zone in the second half.
Q: You had a 12-2 run in the second half, and things started to work well for you. What are some wins you can take from today going forward with the rest of the season?
A: I think when you come into a situation that hasn't been successful, and pretty much in its division one existence and you bring eight brand new guys in and to try to infuse them with seven returners and some guys have played for three coaches now, you find a way to go on a 12-to-2 run in an environment like this, whether it was against their starters against the best players, either way it's still Big 10 talent. I thought that for us to come in and just kind of stay positive stay alive have some pop for 40 minutes or something will take from this as we move on, because we got like nine more of these unfortunately, so pray for us.
Q: What do you learn from playing against players specifically like Lamar Stevens?
A: I think that I thought we did a pretty good job for the most part, probably more in the first half than the second half of locking in on who the drivers were, and who the shooters were. I thought Lamar had to work for his baskets, and he overpowered us on a lot of them. I felt we were aware of who the guys were that shoot in terms of our close-outs, and who the guys were that were the drivers, and in short closing out on those guys. The two threes Lamar made, we tip our hats to him on those. He's a really good player, probably on the draft board somewhere. He plays hard, and I thought we did the best we could.