Bowling Green State University Athletics
Dan Dakich Press Conference Quotes
November 29, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 29, 2005
Q: How are some of the injured players progressing.
"Dusan (Radivojevic) practiced for five minutes in our scrimmage on Saturday, which was good, and felt no pain and he's going to go a little more today."
"Matt (Lefeld) did the same, five minutes in the scrimmage. The way we did it was we brought in referees and we played like 8 - minute games, 5 - minute games, 7-minute games, 6 - minute games and they played in one of the five minute games."
"Steven (Wright) will start jogging today. So he will jog lightly today with the idea that you just kind of wait and see, see where he's at. So, these guys are back on the court, it was nice to have guys back on the court, really nice."
Q: It seemed like a long time since you've played a game, even scrimmaging Saturday.
"Yeah, it'll be interesting to see because it's been a long time, and even before that it'll have been what, more than two weeks since we played a Division I team, so ultimately this is a very good thing."
Q: Well what do you know about Oakland?
"They started out and they got their brains beat out in their opener, then they've won their last three including a 24 point win over a very good Duquesne team."
"They have a lot of new kids, but they have enough veteran kids that played a lot for them,a kid that didn't play last year that has came back in, and a transfer, who's averaging about 28 points a game, a kid named (Calvin) Wooten from Rutgers, who's a kid from Detroit that came back. He had 39 in their opener, and there isn't a team that we can ever take lightly, I mean there is nobodywe can. And certainly Oakland is not on that list, they beat us by 25 last year."
"They're very physical, they're very tough, and the one kid, Wooten is like Keith McLeod, he just can make it from all angles and all areas, and late or early it doesn't matter he's a very talented offensive guy.
Q: The one kid that didn't play last year, isn't he a big kid?
"Shawn Hopes is really big. He was hurt and I think he quit, and then he came back this year. But, yeah, he was a highly touted kid out of high school, he and John Floyd actually came in together I think. So he didn't play, he red-shirted last year, and he had been a starter. I think he started in here when they came in here a couple years ago."
Q: In the eleven days off, did you see any improvement?
"I thought our defense, although we held Urbana to 50 points, I thought after watching the film our defense was a train wreck. I thought they just missed a bunch of shots early, and got down, then the next thing you know the game was over. And I felt like we have to be good defensively, very good, and I feel like we really work at it, for these days we're going to work at it continually."
Q: And how about Bradley?
"Bradley, first off is a really difficult place to play, just a hardcore basketball school. I think they return every guy that we played against last year, I know they have two guys under NCAA suspension for a jobs deal. The guys that hurt us the most last year are back, and the guys that we hurt them the most with aren't. I haven't really watched them so I don't know a lot about them other than they are very athletic, I do know that, again from last year."
