Oklahoma HC Porter Moser Reflects on Disastrous Loss to East Texas A&M

Ed, before we take any questions, just the only thing I know what to do is apologize to the fan base and get better. But I apologize to every single person that came in. The things you do in a game like this in basketball that gets you beat, we did. We had 15 turnovers, 15 missed free throws, and plus 18 from the three-point line. Those are the things that get you beat in this game. And we played under heroes the whole night. We played, they got us on our heels, and we stayed on our heels. We tried to make a comeback, but being on our heels and playing not to lose, and not good enough, and that's on me. Offense without X tonight, is that the biggest problem? Did you expect the offense to slide as much without X out there? You'd hope not. You'd hope the offense wouldn't slide without X, but this whole summer Puerto Rico games, three scrimmages in practice, and we found out an hour before the game, Dayton and BJ, BJ just got eligible, so you're trying to mix him in on a fast pace. Dayton had his ankle injury, then he had a concussion. He'd just been cleared for three days. So we're trying to get those guys a lot of minutes with that. And I thought there's... I'm not, I don't want anybody to think I'm sitting here making excuses, you know, I know, I know you're not, I know you're not, it's, it's absolutely, you're not, 100%, you're not, it's the right question, I'd ask my thing about Xavier Brown, I just, yes, it really, it really impacted us, should we have won, yes, we should have found a way to win, the two guards that, that came in has been, been out, I mean, we just got one eligible, just got one eligible, the other one's been out. All summer and then this last week with a concussion just got cleared two days ago. So you're thinking your offense can be better, but it wasn't. It wasn't. The things you get beat and, you know, all the dominoes that fell, it did. And then you throw into the back. I saw after we scheduled the game when they signed Bo Aldridge. Bo Aldridge was the best player on the floor today. A lot of people in our league recruited him. We did. He played for a jersey. He wanted, and he was the best player on the floor today, Bo Aldridge was. And, you know, a lot of dominoes fell, you know, the thing that happened. But I just, I don't want to sit here and the easiest thing I can do is say, yes, I lost to Xavier Brown an hour before the game. Every rep we had, every scrimmage, it affected us, the guys that came in. But we still got to find a way. Still got to find a way. By the way, The things you see in college basketball when you have an upset, I don't want to take anything from East Texas A&M. I've known Jarrett for a long time. Come on. I knew the skill level they were going to play with. I knew the effort they were going to play with. So I don't want to take away anything from their effort. I'm going to speak on us. And on us. Yes, I don't want to sit here and make excuses of, you lost this guy an hour before the game, the two guys coming in. You've still got to find a way. But our offense, at times, when you're missing 15 free throws and then you're missing some bunnies and threes, and then you compound the fact that that's not the normal offense in terms of the personnel, it creates the perfect play on your heels. And that's, sorry, my language, but that's what was happened. And, um... And the reason why you could beat on certain things like that. Well, how do you explain the 15 miss free throws and the 15 times? I'm going to have to, you know, free throws, there's no watch and tape or anything like that. We're capable. Thank you very much. It's frustrating. Come back, we tie it, we miss two. So to get to, you know. You know, 15 free throws, you know, when it's 58-58 and you've missed 15 at that point, you know, that's, you know, three-point shooting. You know, I think we made five. I think they made 11. They made 11 threes. You know, you get a big difference on three-point shooting. You get a big difference on your turnovers. Shouldn't turn it over 15 times. I don't care who's out, who's in, who hasn't played, I think it's on me. I'm gonna fix it, whatever personnel is gonna be in there, we gotta get them reps. But we have reasons to find a way to win this game. New Yorkers don't want to. Excuses, but going back to what you were saying about players just getting eligible, and we talked about it a lot last year early in the season about how that group hadn't played a lot of reps together. Do you think that may be why the offense was so slow? Again, without standing here trying to make excuses, because I don't. You know, moving forward, you know, like I said, Okay. You know, just talking about with the players. One thing is not going to define us with that. And I'm not going to stand here and make excuses for that. But our offense was at times, we do some things, get to the foul line and you miss. We do some things, we got some some threes. But it just wasn't as downhill as I would have liked it to be. You know, it wasn't the pace and downhill. I said, we said to our staff the whole time, we can't get on our heels. We know they're going to give us a great shot. We've got to get the tempo going. And no question, X is our number one tempo guy. We just didn't get the tempo going to where we got them on our heels consistently. And I didn't like the tempo. I didn't like the pace of downhill. Hill. You know, at times we couldn't get by them. Thank you very much, Jim. Yeah, I can't say it enough. I cannot sit here and make excuses for it. But I've got to continue to get BJ reps. I've got to continue getting Dayton back there. I'd really like to get Fats Wadley into the mix. He's got tremendous speed. He's got our best downhill speed. And just being all of a sudden in the gravity of situational defense. You know, it became an issue, went with some older guys. But we've got to get going downhill in the pace with those guards. When you talk about moving forward, how do you get Walker to look past this loss and get ready for that? We will do that. We will do that. There's nothing that there's not extreme pain from every single person in that room, starting with me. This, this, this, moving forward, We've got to absolutely understand that in basketball we've got to move forward next game, one game at a time. We talked about this game today. The only thing that matters is going 1-0. We just didn't. We got on our heels. But in terms of we're all going to own it. We're all going to own this together, starting with me. I'm going to lead the charge of owning it and getting the momentum back in this right direction with playing better. What did you think of Duke's play? Duke, you know, Duke was 4 for 6 in the field, I think he played 19 minutes. Forcing the defensively they were just spreading us out and driving us so we went uh you know it's one of the things i'll i'll look back on and i'll be able to answer better after watching the tape but it was it was more of a defensive move they were really um spreading us driving us getting to the rim we had to create some tempo defensively and we were trying to get back we got down we were just trying to create some tempo defensively switching and getting a little bit more um But I'll look back on that. We've got to, you know, with Duke, I think we adjusted to them. I've got to look back at the tape. I don't know if I, with that, we tried to go right in. I'm going to pound it inside with him. Thank you. But it was more of a defensive move. And I'll be able to answer that question when I look at the tape to see if it was the right thing to do to go to five out defensively. Cool.