Jan. 21, 2012

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POSTGAME QUOTES
No. 6 Ohio State 79 (17-3, 5-2), Nebraska 45 (10-9, 2-6)Devaney Center - Lincoln, Neb. 

Thad Matta, Ohio State head coach
Opening Statement
"Obviously a great win for us. (It was) a great road win. As we talked about, being down the first timeout, I thought Nebraska was playing harder than us. They were quicker to the ball. Defensively down the stretch in the first half, we did a very good job of limiting open looks and getting our hands on balls from the weak side position. Evan (Ravenel's) shot at the horn was a big boost to put us up 16 and gave us a little bit of momentum coming out in the second half. We had a good start to the second half."

On the first four minutes of the game
"We felt that Nebraska was going to come out with a surge to start the game. Obviously coming off a tremendous win, we had to match their intensity. We were just a step behind. They got a tip-in on us. We had a timeout, though, in the first half and the guys knew we meant business coming out of it."

On playing defense on the road
"I think our guys would be the first to tell you that we spend the majority of our time on defense. Knowing that Nebraska has shot the ball well in here, we knew we had to be there on the catch and get as much support as we could."

Brandon Ubel, Nebraska junior forward
On it being a weird game to be involved in
“Yeah. I don’t think we could have played any worse. 27 turnovers. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a team that’s turned it over 27 times. You play that bad, with that many turnovers against a team like Ohio State, they’re going to make you pay and that’s what happened.”

 On getting too amped up for this game
“I don’t know if it was too amped up. We started off well and then we got down six or eight. I think we might have started to panic a little bit and tried and rush things to try and even the score up quickly instead of just grinding it out like we did on the first few possessions. I think we might have just panicked a little when we got down early a little and forced some things and turned the basketball over.

Doc Sadler, Nebraska head coach
Opening Statement
“Obviously I’m very disappointed in our basketball team. You know, I can’t say enough about us in the last six or seven ball games and I thought we were playing pretty well, but tonight’s game was a poorly coached game on my part and it was a poorly prepared for game on the players part. You’re going to have to do everything almost perfectly to have a chance to beat an Ohio State team if they’re playing well. I think they did play well. I don’t know what Thad (Matta) thought, but I thought they played very very well. Even at that, I’m not going to say that we didn’t have a lot to do with it because with 27 turnovers you can’t beat anybody. We turned it over 17 times in the last two ball games combined, you know, to come in here and do that, it was just a very selfish exhibition of basketball starting with myself by not having this team ready.”

On if he saw this coming
“Not at all. I don’t think you can have any sense of that. We had two really good days of practice and like I said, the Wisconsin game at home and Michigan State, we didn’t play that bad at Ohio State. We didn’t have everybody. The last four or five games, we have been playing really good basketball. You don’t go to Illinois or Wisconsin and be in it in the last minute of the game without playing good basketball. We came back and got two wins. I did not see this at all. We just have to get back to going the way we were going. Does it hurt? Yeah it hurts. But when you know you didn’t do anything, when it hurts is when you’ve done everything you could possibly do and come up short and you feel for them. There is not anything that we did from coaching to anything that gave us a chance to win tonight.”

On if Sadler uses this game as a barometer
“Not at all. This isn’t the team that played the past five or six games. We have played good basketball. Don’t get confused. That team you watched tonight has beaten some pretty good games by 30 also and you add in 27 turnovers. You’re not going to get even close with them. But not at all, no, because we have been playing well.”