Maryland 69, George Mason 62
Head Coach Mark Turgeon
Opening:
“It’s a good win for us. I think George Mason is an excellent team that is going to win a lot of games. They have a great coach. It took us a long time to get used to their quickness. We couldn’t simulate their quickness in practice. We turned the ball over a lot, we actually turned it over the whole game. Nineteen turnovers and 16 missed free throws kept the game close. I thought our defense was outstanding. We did a better job on [Patrick] Holloway in the second half. He hit a 3-pointer late but we did a great job on him. Our defense got better and our rebounding was terrific down the stretch. I thought George Mason played better the first 23 minutes than we did. I thought the last 17 after that timeout we showed a little bit of toughness, enough to win the game.”
On Dez Wells:
“He is a good player. He was a good player coming in. He is feeling more comfortable. A week ago Saturday, against Georgia Southern he was about as bad as he could be. He flipped a switch and got real aggressive. He got some open looks and got eight points right out of the shoot. He had a great week. More importantly I thought he defended well and rebounded better than he had. He is still turning the ball over too much. I told him he is on pace to set a record. He looked at me and said ‘For turnovers?’ and I said ‘Yeah.’”
On playing on the road:
“We went on the road and it wasn’t a really great environment but they had a great crowd at Northwestern. We weathered that and that will help us the next time we go. Than we had this neutral court game against a team that is well-coached and won 24 games last year and have a lot of guys last. They beat Virginia and should have beat New Mexico, which was a heart breaker for them. The game didn’t go the way we wanted it to go today but it will help us. Looking across this sheet we played 10 guys, every one of them played well defensively for us. That is comforting. That didn’t happen 10 days ago. I can look and see that we have really grown up defensively and are really dialed in. as a coach I need to figure out how to stop turning the ball over. Every time out I told our guys if we didn’t have a layup or wide open three to get into our secondary break. We got into it one time. They have to be more coachable. They kept guarding so I put up with a lot of it today.”
On Nick Faust:
“Nick was great tonight. We challenged Nick against [Patrick] Holloway, what a special scorer that kid is. I saw him last year when I was out recruiting and to bring it at this level against us was pretty amazing. Nick had a great week. He was good against Northwestern defensively and he was great in the two practices leading into this game. I anticipated that he was going to play well defensively. That is great growth for him. Nick isn’t caught up in scoring; he is caught up in winning. That took a long time. We are finally there.”
Sophomore Guard Nick Faust
On his dunk that drew cheers:
“It was real big. It was basically all Pe’Shon [Howard]. He saw me coming back door and he locked it up, but once again I ran the floor and got to the open spot.”
On his shot execution:
“It’s early in the season maybe. I’m not really sure. I’m just pushing through. I’m not worried about it. It will start falling as long as I just keep staying in the gym.”
On the defense:
“We’re definitely more together. Everyone is just playing together. You have Alex Len who is blocking shots like crazy, so being a guard, you just send them to the help. Everyone is stronger and attentive in helping one another on defense.”
On game takeaways:
“[We need to] just bring it right from the beginning. We felt like we didn’t have a lot of energy from the beginning of the game, so we tried to pick it up by using whatever we could to get energy and get it going. Overall, I think we did solid as a team. We have things to work on, but we’ll be fine.”
On playing with Dez Wells:
“It’s easy. The last few games Dez has been hitting nonstop, so I have been milking him. I try to do whatever I can and I try to make my plays when I need to. But other than that, having him there to help is helping us as a team and is overall giving me easy points. Dez is doing really well right now and so is the team, so we play off one another.”
On changing his mindset from scoring to winning:
“I’m trying to make the right play and get guys involved. Coach and I sat down and he basically just told me to keep making the right play and sometimes I don’t have the fortune, so lately I have been doing whatever I can to hit guys. I just want to help my team win.”
Sophomore Center Alex Len
On growing defensively:
“I think young guys have learned a lot between two months ago and now. We’re like a totally different team. We played good defense as a team. Helping each other is good for us. Also, rebounding for us is huge. Everyone goes on the boards.”
On running the fast break:
“It took us about eight minutes to start running. I think when we started running, it changed the game.”
Sophomore Guard/Forward Dez Wells:
On starting strong:
“Whatever my team needs from me, that’s what I’m going to provide. I don’t want to make this about myself because I couldn’t have done this without my team. They welcomed me with open arms when I first got here and I couldn’t have done any of this without those guys. My coaches have also done a great job developing my game and helping me and stringing me along with everything that’s happened to me. They have been here like a family. We’re just getting closer every game.”
On relaxing this game:
“I felt more comfortable and that’s because my team and my coaches have been there for me. They continue to back me and stay behind me no matter what and making me feel very comfortable. My hat goes off to those guys.”
- Terps -
