Q: What has enabled you to go 6-2 since losing Tim Frazier?
A: You know what? I think it's those 15 guys in the locker room. They know what people say about them. They hear it, they read it and they see it on Facebook and Twitter. They're a resilient bunch and they're going to keep pressing on and keep competing and getting better. Our young guys play with great confidence. We had production out of our bigs. That's a good team. That team's scary. Even though Jermaine (Marshall) didn't have one of his best days, with Jermaine and Brandon (Taylor) to not have great days and still find a way with Kevin (Montminy) and Akosa (Maduegbunam). They're in. They're all in, as the promotions say. They're trying to get better.
Q: What can you say about the game D.J. (Newbill) had as he's wearing two different shoes and bleeding all over the place at the end of the game?
A: Awesome, just awesome. I love it. That's what it's supposed to be. That's a Philly guard. If you don't come out of a game with blood or scraped up knees and two different sneakers, then you didn't play hard. He's obviously played extremely hard for 39 minutes. Coach Ferry did a great job. As soon as he saw Marshall go out, he threw everybody at D.J. That was a great challenge for us, but I'm glad we were put in that position because it's going to happen again. Now that we've been through it once, we'll work on it in practice. I'll be honest, I've never worked on that team in practice with D.J., Kevin, Akosa, Donovon (Jack) and Ross (Travis), or Ross and Sasa (Borovnjak) or Jon (Graham). That five has never been together, so I'm proud of the way they paid attention to the scouting report and dialed in. Look, I put Akosa in with less than a minute to go and he's been sitting on the bench. Give that kid a lot of credit and he goes 2-for-2 at the foul line. That's a shooter.
Q: Sasa hasn't had a four-game stretch like this in his career. What's the difference?
A: Playing with confidence. I think last year he wasn't 100 percent sure about his knee and this year you've seen a kid who is running the floor great and is taking high-quality shots, high-percentage shots. Our guys look for him every possession. As a matter of fact, we now run a ton of plays to get the ball in the post. That's what I tried to do the last six minutes to get to the foul line. We posted Sasa and Brandon Taylor up there to try and get one. He's playing terrific, shooting a high percentage. I know he's above 50 percent. This is really going to take him up a notch.
Q: With the way D.J. has developed playing point guard, what's your comfort level with him going into Big Ten play?
A: I'm very comfortable because the Big Ten is going to play the way they play. They aren't going to change for just us. It's not what these guys do. That's why they are where they are, these coaches. So going into it, D.J. is playing great basketball, solid basketball. I mean, his line is unbelievable. Twenty-three (points), 12 (rebounds), five assists. I think a couple of those turnovers were at the end of his 39 minutes. That's a lot, especially without a secondary ball handler.
Q: What did you talk about during timeouts down the stretch?
A: Just meeting passes, hard cuts, setting screens, being confident with the ball, looking up the floor. They had four guys on our guards so we had to get the ball up the floor. I thought Ross Travis did a very good job with that. Little things like that. Let them know to tie up to get it our way, little things like that. Be confident.
Q: How important is playing from ahead?
A: We haven't done a very good job of playing from ahead, other than against New Hampshire. We get in foul trouble and I think that's the problem. I demand them to play extremely hard, but you have to play smart. You have to play a little bit smarter and those guys need to stay on the floor. But that first half of basketball, that's a high-level basketball game. That point guard (Derrick Colter) is terrific and he didn't have one of his best games. Sean Johnson is terrific. He lit us up last year. Coach Ferry is playing exactly the way he should play. He's doing a great job with them.
Q: Talk about Nick Collela's performance.
A: He's from Pittsburgh, come on. That was his Super Bowl right there. He knows everybody back in Pittsburgh was watching him. I think he was due. He's made one three here or there, but he works so hard. He's earned the right to make those shots. I'm really proud and happy for him, but it's got to continue. You've shown you can do it, now I want it done in the Big Ten.
PENN STATE PLAYERS
#2 D.J. Newbill
So., Guard
Q: What are the challenges of maintaining a big lead when you guys get ahead kind of early in the second half?
A: You know that the other team is going to make a run and come out hard. Last year, we were in the same predicament. We were up 10 at the half and they made a huge run in the second half, and they were able to take the win over us last year. We knew that coming into this game; we just didn't want it to happen again.
Q: D.J., you handled the point all game long. How much of a physical challenge is that?
A: I would say getting up the court, not really, because our bigs set screens in the backcourt. It was a tough, physical game; that's what happens in the Big Ten. I appreciate those guys getting me ready for the Big Ten.
Q: Is this the first game that you've handled the point exclusively? How much more comfortable do you feel at playing the point?
A: I think that I'm getting more comfortable every day. In practice, I'm doing the same thing; having guys pick me up full-court and pressuring me. That way in the game, I'll already be used to it. I just think that it's a day-by-day process and I feel like I'm getting better at it.
Q: What happened when they made you change your shorts?
A: I had blood on my shorts. I scraped my knee on the ground and my elbow. There was just blood everywhere. Then my shoe busted open in the second half, so I had to change that, too. You know, attitude.
Q: What happened with the shoe?
A: I don't even know. I just made a cut and I just felt it rip open. I looked down and I was like, "Man, Coach, my shoe ripped open." They had to run and give me another shoe. When I was coming up the court it just busted wide open.
Q: D.J., where did that other shoe come from? Was it on the bench?
A: It was actually in the locker room. Someone had to run in there and get it real quick.
Q: D.J., can you talk about where the team is heading into Big Ten play?
A: We feel really confident. We feel that this game was a momentum game for us, and we realize that the Big Ten is going to have some of the toughest games that we're going to face this year. We're just working hard. Our principles don't change. Play hard, defend, tough, gritty; that's our identity.
Q: Can you talk about the contributions from some of the other players with Kevin (Montminy) and Akosa (Maduegbunam) coming in?
A: It's big. Akosa, he just grew up right now making those free throws. It takes a lot of heart to be sitting all game and come in and sink some big free throws, and also get a big rebound for us. We appreciated it. He's been working hard, so he deserves it.
#20 Nick Colella
Sr., Guard
Q: Nick, talk about the threes tonight. How were you feeling?
A: I was feeling pretty good. It was just one of those days. D.J. does a good job of taking guys off of the dribble, just second-cutting, and he's always going to find me. It was just one of those days where I was feeling it and Coach (Chambers) said, "Keep shooting. Keep shooting." So I was letting them fly.
Q: Nick, when you say, "It's one of those days", could you feel it in warm-ups? Or do you need that first one to go down?
A: I think that as soon as that first one goes down, I feel pretty good and my confidence feels through the roof. But the guards, D.J. and Jermaine (Marshall), they do a really good job of just getting in the paint and breaking guys off of the dribble. It lets us get open, like me, [Brandon Taylor] and the other guys.
Q: Can you talk about the contributions from some of the other players with Kevin (Montminy) and Akosa (Maduegbunam) coming in?
A: Coach always talks about, "Be ready when your number is called." I think that every one of those guys was ready. We're looking forward to them stepping up when their number is called.
Q: Can you just talk about Sasa (Borovnjak) and his performance tonight?
A: With Sasa, when he's down low and gets in the post, he likes to go at his pace. I think when he does that and sticks to that, he's really efficient. Like you can see, seven-for-nine. I think that he did a really good job tonight of burying his guy low and just making a simple move. He was just sticking with that jump hook and it was really working for him.
Duquesne Head Coach Jim Ferry
Opening Statement: It was a real physical basketball game. That was more about our offense than our defense, to be honest. We played hard, we guard hard, but we kept having those empty possessions. Give credit to Penn State, they played hard. I think Pat's (Chambers) doing a fantastic, fantastic job, maybe one of the best jobs in the country. I played against his team when they had (Tim) Frazier and for them to be doing what they're doing without him, that's a major, major credit to Pat and those kids.
Q: What's your approach when you're down 20 or 25 early in the second half? How do you coach to get your team back into the game?
A: What I say all the time is, don't play the score, play the game. It's a long basketball game; don't look at the scoreboard, don't play that. Let's play the game, try to play it the right way and grind things out. Remember, we have a lot of young guys, we had three freshmen on the floor for a long time tonight. It's a teaching moment for us to get better. We're down 20, just play the game. We eventually got them into foul trouble, got some turnovers, got some rebounds. We were down by 15 against West Virginia too, and we just stayed with the game plan. We just kept grinding and grinding and came back and beat West Virginia. We came up a little short tonight, though.
Q: What prevented you guys from getting into the lane?
A: We got no production interior-wise. They did a good job of adjusting, guarding the perimeter really hard and guarding Derrick Colter really hard. You can't settle for jump shots instead of layups and dunks. When we went inside, we missed the shot. When we got fouled, we didn't make the free throws and it turned into turnovers. When you keep having empty possessions like that over and over again, it's really hard and kids start to press and take some bad shots. It's something that we have to continue to work on and get better. You look at how we came back and we still only shot 35 percent in the second half.
Q: What happened on the first half technical foul?
A: You have to ask the guy in the stripes. I was in my box, I didn't curse. I have no control of that stuff. I guess I do, I have to keep my composure I guess, but I will stand up for my kids every single night.
Q: Early in the first half, Penn State went on an 11-0 run and put you in the trail position most of the night. How hard is it to keep the confidence when that happens?
A: It's really hard, especially when we're playing so many young guys. I thought Penn State got up 11 because of our offense or lack there of. They only shot 40 percent in the first half, only 39 points, but they got stuff in transition. You can't just keep guarding and guarding in transition, we need the ball to go through the net every once in a while. We didn't make shots, we shot 39 percent, 33 from three, but you have to keep playing. I think the kids saw that it was a 40-minute game, we were trying to get it to 45 if we could. You have to just grind and keep playing and focus on the stuff that we could control. I thought we did a decent job of that.
Q: Talk about (D.J.) Newbill's game. You talked about Penn State missing Frazier, but he is picking up a lot of the slack.
A: That's a great credit to the kid. He didn't have expectations of being a point guard. The whole offseason, he was working on his body, losing weight, working on his game to play with Frazier. All of a sudden, bang, something like that happens. That's why I said it's a credit to Pat, it's not an easy thing to overcome. I think Frazier's one of the best guards in the country. It took them a little while to adjust, but it didn't take them as long as I thought it would. We really tried to get after them today to try to wear them down and we didn't do a very good job of it. He was fantastic tonight. I think if he keeps playing the way he's playing; don't try to be Frazier, just be himself, be a big, physical guard and he could be a good player.
Q: Did (Nick) Colella's play surprise you?
A: It didn't surprise me because I know what he's supposed to be, a shooter, but he shot 24 percent from three last year, 25 percent this year. Kid had a career night, good for him. He stepped up and made shots when he needed to make shots. He hurt us and we didn't exactly guard him the right way. I know that's what he's supposed to be, but statistics don't lie. But they lied tonight. The kid stepped up and made shots, so good for him.
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