Recap | Box Score | Notes

BAYLOR POSTGAME QUOTES

Head Coach Scott Drew
Opening Statementà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I know that coaches are always worried following Christmas break with conference coming up, because you want to make sure that you are focused. We knew coming in how good Texas Southern is. It was this time last year that they beat Michigan State, lost to Auburn by one, and then beat Kansas State. They had just got Derrick Griffin eligible a few games ago, and he definitely added to the team. They won the SWAC two years in a row, and I can see them being really successful this year. From a coaching standpoint, we knew how good they were. We got out to a quick lead, but we have to do a much better job at building off of that. We'll learn and get better from that."

On switching from a zone defense to man-to-manà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"That's why it is great to have two defenses. If our offense had been more efficient when we had the lead, I think we could've added onto it. In a transition offense this is something we have to get better at. We had a lot of opportunities to score in transition, but we didn't finish. Credit Texas Southern for hustling back and making our fast break difficult. They did a great job at playing plays to the end."

On Big 12 Conference play beginningà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"With your non-conference schedule you want to put yourself in position to achieve all your goals, and I think we've done that. We don't have any bad losses, and we have a good win. Our RPI will be good come tournament time from it. Now we're starting play in the toughest conference across the nation the past two years. This year may be the toughest it has been. We've gotten better, and we've helped ourselves rather than hurt ourselves. Hopefully we can surprise some people in the Big 12, because we want to be in the mix for a title."

On the importance of a balanced teamà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"To have a good team you need to have good balance, so you can't depend on someone's shot always falling. You better defend and you better rebound. You need multiple people to score because some nights you're on and some you're not."

Sophomore Al Freeman
On the matchup with Texas Southernà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"We knew that they were going to be a tough team. They've played a lot of high-level schools very close. They only lost to Syracuse by 13, and I think they beat Kansas State last year. They have some talented guys, so we knew it was going to be a dogfight. It doesn't matter about the name on the front of the jersey. You have to come ready to play everybody. We wanted to come out here and get ready for a long, tough conference season, and I think we did that."

On entering Big 12 playà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I personally think the Big 12 is the best conference in America. Every night we're going to be playing against tough teams, and you can lose on any given night. You're going to have teams taking you down to the wire every single night, so this was good for us."

Sophomore Terry Maston
On stepping into a bigger role when Prince and Gathers are slowed downà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Not everyone is going to be on all of the time. I stay ready to go for whenever coach needs me. When they are on, I come in to play defense and still do what I do. When they have off nights or aren't having their best games, I come in and play offense, defense, or whatever coach needs me to do to ensure a win."

TEXAS SOUTHERN POSTGAME QUOTES

Head Coach Mike Davis
On what positives he saw in the teamà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I liked our effort. We talked about giving great effort to get ready for our conference play. We hadn't played the big name schools that we played last year, but Stephen F. Austin is really good. They won their conference last year. Central Michigan won their conference last year, so we replaced the mid major schools for the big names that we played last year. I'll take this loss because we've been working so hard on the zone offense over Christmas break. We really haven't worked on man offense lately, so when they went to that man defense it really changed our rhythm. We weren't patient in our man offense the way we were in our zone offense. I want to see us play better while giving this much effort."

On maintaining a good zone offenseà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"We did a good job of preparing for the zone and being patient in our offense. When they went to the man defense it got us out of our rhythm. Then when they went back to the zone defense and we lost our rhythm against the zone because of what Coach Drew did by switching to man. It was a great game plan. We hadn't worked on man offense in a while, so we didn't get the ball moving from side to side like we wanted to. So, when he went back to the zone we still didn't have any ball movement. However, I think we gave the best effort that we've given all year. We just ran out of gas. That's no excuse, but because we had to play at such a high level, we ran out of gas. But, that's the level that I want us to play at."