January 24, 2003 Athletics
Story
Quotes From Head
Basketball Coach Stew Morrill
Read
what coach Morrill has to say about this weekend's games
 On
playing against UC Riverside's freshman Nate Carter...
"He's impressive, I'll say that up front. He's a tough
cover and tough to guard because he posts up a great deal. It's
kind of who you put on him. If you put your four-man on him,
like some people have done, then he goes out on the perimeter
and takes you off the dribble and shoots threes. If you put
your three-guy on him, he's about 6 foot 7 and he posts you
up a lot and gives you problems there. They run their offense
with this in mind, whoever you put on him they are going to
try and capitalize on it. He's a very good post-up player and
an adequate three-point shooter and he's very good off the dribble-drive.
We've got our hands full trying to defend him. He makes scoring
look easy and he's near the top of the league in rebounding.
We certainly have a challenge there. And they have other players
too. They are on an upswing right now. They got a road win against
Fullerton and now they're coming in here playing better basketball
then they were three or four weeks ago. I think it's because
they had some home games and then got a win on the road."
"They are a hard team to prepare for because they run
a ton of motion. They play a lot off of how you defend them
and that's a lot of what motion is. It's hard to prepare for
because they are reacting to what the defense does and it's
hard to get a scout squad to do that, when they don't play motion
everyday. So it's difficult for us in our preparation, but we'll
try and get ready."
On guarding players other than Nate Carter...
"I don't think they believe that he is the only one that
is going to win for them. They have quite a few guys back from
last year's team as well. John Galbreath is a really good passer.
He's a really clever, skilled four-man. Aaron Hands is back
from last year. Their point guard Kevin Butler is an outstanding
athlete. It's not like they have all these guys that have never
played and they have this spectacular freshman. No, they have
all these guys that have played and now they have added a spectacular
freshman. Riverside is figuring out that they are pretty good,
and they are."
On Riverside being better than last year...
"I don't know. The other guys are more experienced. We
haven't see them in person yet, we'll have to see. They sure
look to be very solid. They play kind of our match-up type zone.
Their man defense is really solid. They run a really good motion."
On Cal State Fullerton...
"I expect them to be at full strength and they are going
to come in here and run time. I expect them to have all their
guys because that's how you need to prepare. You don't want
to make any mistakes. You just got to count on them bringing
all their guys in here and making every possession valuable
because they are going to run some time, that's just the way
they have been playing."
"We have watched Fullerton prepare against different league
teams and their talent level has been impressive. It's just
a question of who they are going to have. But they are very
capable."
On fans looking at these games as a little easier...
"That's not a smart thing to do. Let's put it this way:
the intelligent basketball fans in Cache Valley won't do that.
And that's about 90 percent of our fans I hope."
On USU's improvement...
"I think the only way you can judge yourself is to measure
where you were to where you are now. I think we have taken some
steps to get better. You look at the last couple of weeks. We
played really well at home, went to Irvine and had a chance
to win against one of the top teams in our league. I think we
are getting better offensively."
"Certainly, we have our limitations. Somebody said to
me after a game that we aren't as physical or big as we used
to be and he's right. We have a different kind of team along
those lines and we have to make up for it in other ways. We
have some hard match-ups because we don't have a dominate-size
post guy. In the past when we had Dimitri Jorssen, Jeremy Vague
and Shawn Daniels we were very physical and strong. That's not
the makeup of our team right now. I don't say that in a bad
way, that's just a reality. The makeup of our team is different
than it has been, which is challenging in some ways to utilize
the talents of the team when it's different. And we try to do
that by isolating Spencer Nelson and getting him to the line
and having him take people off the dribble and doing some of
the things that he can do."
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