Postgame Notes and Quotes - Sacramento State

Postgame Notes

• Nebraska improves to 82-39 in openers and has won 15 straight season openers.
• Glynn Watson Jr. finished with a career-high 23 points, topping his previous career best 17 against Rhode Island and Illinois last season. Watson also finished with six assists and no turnovers, five rebound and three steals, leading NU in scoring, assists and steals.
• Tai Webster posted his third 20-point game with 20 points.
• Ed Morrow Jr. finished with a career high with 15 points, eclipsing his previous high of 11 set against Southeast Louisiana.
• Nebraska’s returning sophomores combined for 54 of the Huskers’ 83 points.

Nebraska Coach Tim Miles

Opening Statement
“At the beginning of the year, we had a team meeting, I met with the sophomores there’s the old saying if you’ve ever been around athletics, when you coach freshman you know at the semester break the old coach says ‘You know you’re not freshman anymore, you’re sophomores. I told the guys listen, you four sophomores especially have logged more minutes than a lot of juniors in high-major basketball, and I expect you to play like veterans and I think that’s what we saw tonight. We saw a lot of development from those guys and we saw excellent play and I thought the second half was really good. They were pretty good early too. Unfortunately, we missed 12 shots within four feet in the first half. I’ve had known Brian Katz for a long time, when he left Diablo Valley in California and took Sac [Sacramento] State which was a difficult gig. We talked about building programs because he’d knew I’ve been NAIA, Division II, you know I’ve made that same transition. I knew we would get a good look that’s why we scheduled them. I thought they did a lot of good things after a tough showing, that opener in Colorado, that high altitude. Tad’s [Boyle] got a great team. You know that’s just asking for trouble. We knew tonight we’d get a good game out of this, and we got pressed, we saw some man, we saw some zone, we saw some different looks. I was really happy with the outcome.”

On bench scoring
“I think we had 40 bench points against Iowa State in the scrimmage. I think we got 10 tonight. The bench was 2 for 16 with five turnovers and two assists. I told the younger guys we are going to play the upper guys, we’re going to play them for a long time and they’re going to show you how to win, you know how to play winning basketball. I thought they played rock solid, extended the lead. We’ve just got to get the butterflies out of those young guys. There was some nervousness, some carelessness, nonchalant play and none of that is successful. The aggressor wins in basketball, in competition.”

On Glynn Watson Jr.
“I don’t know if you noticed, Glynn [Watson] had a bad headache. We had to take him out two or three times and just get him hydrated and just made sure he got medicine. If he can do that in that condition. He’s was really good, he did really good against Iowa State, he did what he had to do against Chadron. Glynn is a guy that is a game changer. I remember we got him signed. and Ed Morrow hadn’t committed yet and Ed said Coach he’s a game changer, that kid’s a game changer. He was right.”

Sophomore guard Glynn Watson Jr.

On setting a new career high:
“I just tried to play aggressive and execute our game plan. That was basically what I tried to do, was play aggressive and try to get my teammates open. I had open shots so I took them, that was basically it.”

On the starters playing for the first 8 minutes and whether that contributed to playing as a unit later in the game:
“I think we played pretty well, that’s what [Head Coach Tim Miles] was on us about, just staying together, more from the bench. I think us together, we played together last year, so I think that was a big key. That was basically it.”

On going on a run early in the second half and what that did for the team:
“That gave us a lot of confidence and a lot of leeway so we could get up and coast from there. I think that’s what helped us out to get our lead up and be able to play our game. Then they had to press and that’s why we got a lot more easy shots.”

Senior guard Tai Webster

On nerves among his teammates with this being their first game:
“There’s always nerves.  A lot of guys, this is their first time out, especially for the freshmen and transfers and whatnot.  We’ve got [Junior guard Anton Gill] coming in. We had a lot of nerves on the team but I think second half we shook them off and got back to work.”

On what the difference was between the first and second halves:
“[Coach Miles] got on us in the locker room and I feel like every guy in the locker room took it personally, take on the challenge.”

On what Head Coach Tim Miles said at halftime:
“Just how sluggish we were. We were giving up too many open shots and too many second chances for them. We didn’t really turn the ball over but we weren’t really aggressive with it either. We kind of just let the game come to us, we need to be aggressive on offense.”

On what they will take away from this game in preparation for Tuesday’s game against the University of Mary:
“I think we just move on to the next one from here. It’s a long season, and early games early on you want to try to get as many under your belt as you can.  Obviously we [have to] leave this one behind us, celebrate it in the locker room but once everyone leaves that locker room, onto the next one. It’s a really nice thing, to finally get out there and play some competition.  We’ve been going at each other’s necks in practice for months, it’s awesome to just get out there and put all that work going at each other out on someone else.”

Sophomore forward Jack McVeigh 

On his perimeter shooting performance:
“It’s a long season, so there’s a lot of shots to be taken. But also, I’m getting open looks from [Watson Jr. and Webster]. You saw it in the game, they were drawing so much attention they just kind of forgot about me in the corner. So these guys getting me easy looks, all I [have to] do is make the shot.”

Sacramento State Head Coach Brian Katz

Opening statement:
“We had a pretty good first half and the separation happened in the first five points of the second half. They got five points in transition and went from 36-33 to 41-33, and I thought that was the difference in the game. “

On first half success:
“I thought we played really hard, but we broke down a little defensively. They wore us down a little bit with their size and they wore us down a bit in the second half. We played hard, and I would have to look at the tape, but in the second half I thought they were a little more solid in running their stuff and they took us out of our stuff.”

On improvement from opener vs. Colorado:
“Friday night we looked like we had never seen a basketball we were so nervous. Our first game of the year our guys were pretty nervous. I think if we would have played like this Friday night it would have been a very competitive game as well. We have had reasonable success, we’ve beaten three Pac-12 teams in the last five years, however, I will say I think that Colorado is a Sweet 16 team. I think they are a team that is for sure going to the tournament that is going to make some noise in the tournament, I really do. This team here [Nebraska] is young, I see them by January and February and March being a team that nobody is going to want to play in the conference. In moving forward, next year and the year after, they will be really good. They have good young players. Coach Miles is doing an unbelievable job, he’s doing a great job.”

On shooting efficiency:
“We shot the ball well in the first half, we didn’t shoot it very well in the second half, I need to look at the tape and see what that was all about. Did we miss open shots, was it them, I don’t really know. The game is hazy right now, I’ll need to go watch the film.  First half obviously the ball went through the hoop and that made the different."