TRANSCRIPT: Iowa State's head coach talks loss to Oklahoma

Here's everything the leader of the Cyclones' program TJ Otzelberger said in Saturday afternoon's post-game press conference in Hilton Coliseum.

On if this loss is in a different category than the others that have come before it:

“I’d say for our guys, our team, having more personal pride is really important. We talked about that a lot in the locker room. Again, we respect every team we play, especially in this league, everybody’s good. It’s more about us having pride to play hard every possession. Having pride to finish to plays. Having pride to bring tremendous effort. They did a great job, certainly weathering the storm in the first half and playing in the second half. We’ve just got to have more personal pride in what we do. We feel like our backs are against the wall, to do that. It’s certainly disappointing. We’ve got to get right back to work because we’ve got a quick turnaround.”

On what has happened to the team’s offense, especially in the second half of games:

“People are pressuring us more and trying to make us beat them off the dribble, play for one another off the dribble. We haven’t done a great job doing that. We’ve got to be better when people pressure more and are attacking. I thought it was more of an adjustment on their end to how they defended us isn’t as much what they normally do. They felt like they could pressure us more. We know that’s coming and that’s what we’re working against in practice. We’ve got to do a better job as a unit playing together. When we’ve been at our best, it’s been everybody moving and sharing the basketball. It’s the time of the year, especially for some of our older guys, we just need to step up and make plays. We need to finish plays at the rim and take great shots. We can’t let our offensive disappointment affect how we defend, because in that second half they got in a great rhythm. To me, it wasn’t anything to do as much with our defense as offensive disappointment carrying over. And then we’re not as aggressive as we need to be on the defensive end.”

On how big the missed shots around the basket were in the defeat:

“We had a lot of them early. We were up 14-3 and we still probably left five or six layups on the table that we need to convert. Certainly, it’s an entirely different feel to the game and our guys are different. We had a lot of looks at the rim, a lot of looks in the paint, things that we work on on a daily basis. We need to demand that we finish those plays and come away with those points.”

On the best ways to get Gabe Kalscheur and Jaren Holmes freed up more on offense:

“More than anything, it’s got to be ball movement, player movement, everybody sharing the basketball. When our team’s been effective, it’s been a lot of guys (with) 10, 12, 14 points, getting into double figures. They need to also take the right opportunities that are there and not feel like they need to press. It comes down to us having better ball movement, us playing for each other, and everybody doing what they can do to contribute to the offense. Everybody needs to step up, finish plays when they have that opportunity. Knowing that if they do, it’s going to be make it tougher for teams to stay home on those guys and take opportunities away from them.”

On his message to the team and how he thinks it was received:

“We certainly still have a lot in front of us. Being in the right spot. After that performance, I can’t tell you that we’re in the right spot or right spot as that game wore down. We certainly demand more, have higher standards, and expect more from ourselves. We’re going to learn a lot about who we are as a group and who we are as people right now. What our pride factor is, based on what happened out there today. We’ve got to dig deep, find a way. That’s what we’re going to do these next two days as we prepare to go into Monday night.”

On what he noticed was different in the team’s defensive play in the second half:

“For us, it’s our ball pressure at all times. And our ball pressure is great when we feel better about our offense. Guys get a little bit timid when their shot’s not going. Now, (Oklahoma) Jacob Groves who we know is a catch-and-shoot player from three, we spend time working on taking those shots away. The ball was moving too much in that second half. It just was. Defensively, we’ve got to be stubborn, tough, regardless of what’s happening offensively. Essentially, that’s what happened. They got in a rhythm and even as poorly as I felt we finished offensively in the first half, we still held them to 23 (points). In the second half, we let it impact us too much. We’ve talked about coming out of the locker room how we need to get steps. When we’ve played better, we’ve usually done that. Today, they came out and just started scoring the ball at will to start the second half.”

On holding OU’s Grant Sherfield to 10 points on 2-of-9 shooting:

“When we’ve done a good job, we’ve pressured him and not let him get open looks from three. I thought he had a lot of challenged looks today. We made him play inside the 3-point line as more of a passer instead of a scorer. A lot of things we didn’t do well out there, based on what the stats say, we did an OK job containing him that way.”

On what Caleb Grill was able to give the team coming off the bench:

“Defensive intent. Our defense is built more on a four-guards flying around generating turnovers speeding people up. We had a little more of that today. We turned them over 18 times. Hopefully, it allows us to space the floor and spread people out more. You get to this point in the season and people are really playing personnel heavy. Guys that aren’t great perimeter shooters or haven’t proven that, people don’t guard those guys on the perimeter and jam the paint. It makes it tougher to finish plays. Caleb gives us additional spacing, ball movement, and defensively his ability to pressure the basketball and fly around’s important.”

On how he feels the morale in the locker room is right now:

“Our guys overall, they’re certainly disappointed in what happened. We don’t ever want to play like that, especially at home in front of our fans. We want to have a lot more pride. I need to do a great job making sure we’re confident going into Monday night. As a coach, there’s always that line you want to walk. There’s a toughness. You’ve got to dig deep and have a grit. You’ve got to feel good and be confident going out there to play. Regardless of how they feel in this moment, I’m sure they don’t feel very good, my job is to make sure they feel a tremendous sense of playing with pride and toughness and still have the confidence to go out there and finish plays and score the basketball.”