Liberty from A to Z

Let's get right to it. Courtesy of the indefatigable Kyle Tucker, who covered for us tonight in Lynchburg, here's what everyone (and we do mean everyone) was saying after tonight's blowout of Liberty. Wade in, Monarch fans:

C GERALD LEE

ON THE EASY GAME: “Everybody played pretty good from the start. We started with good defense and stopped their best players from scoring and that’s how we got that big lead early.”

ON NON-STARTER KEYON CARTER SCORING 17 POINTS AND WHAT THAT SAYS ABOUT ODU’S DEPTH: “That’s the good thing about this team: It’s very deep. Anybody can score any given night. Everybody can play their best game. That’s a good thing, because the more weapons you have on your team, the more you’re going to score. That’s always good when you score a lot of points.”

ON HOW MANY ODU PLAYERS COULD LEAD THE TEAM IN SCORING ON A GIVEN NIGHT: “I’ll say everyone. Everyone could lead the team in scoring on any night.”

ON HOW MUCH THE DEPTH HELPS WHEN PLAYING FOUR GAMES IN SEVEN DAYS: “It’s very helpful. Four games in one week? I have a lot more respect toward NBA players now. Especially the stars who play 40-45 minutes a game. They play every other night. This is tough. Thank God it’s been kind of easy ... well, not easy, but we’ve taken big leads at the beginning and no one has had to play a lot of minutes.”

ON THE TEAM’S CONFIDENCE: “We have pretty good confidence. We go hard in practice every day. But we’ve just got to make sure our feet stay on the ground and our heads don’t get too big right now.”

LIBERTY COACH DALE LAYER

ON HIS TEAM’S STRUGGLES: “They’re really good. This is a top-30 or a top-40 program. They’re better than 300 teams in the country. They’re really good. We’re very young. It is what it is. I can’t ask for greater effort. I can’t ask for more intensity. I can ask for more concentration. We’ve got too many young guys who are prone to too many mistakes.”

ON ODU’S IMPRESSIVE DEPTH, CONSIDERING CARTER, WHO DOESN’T START, LIT THEM UP FOR 17 POINTS: “He’s really good, by the way. They’ve got a lot of good players. They’re juniors and seniors, most of them. They’re used to winning. They’ve got grown men’s body’s. Both Clemson (which beat Liberty by 40 on Tuesday) and ODU would have finished in the top half of the Big East last year, which I was up close and personal with (he was an assistant at Marquette last season). So these are teams that are not only talented and well-coached, but mature. They’ve got a lot of good things going for them.”

ODU COACH BLAINE TAYLOR

ON THREE 30-POINT WINS IN THREE GAMES: “The last few years, we got a little slower start. We were young and the schedule was incredibly tough. For us to get out early with a few under our belt – and not only to succeed but to play well – that gives us a little bit of momentum. Four games in a week is difficult, but it mirrors what happens at the start of conference in early January, so that’s kind of why we set it up that way. One of the things we’re establishing is our depth and our defense. That’s why you’ve had large margins. We’ve been able to go into the bench for energy and for the next defender. And then also, we have improved defensively to the point where we can be a pretty good factor most nights.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DEPTH PL.AYING FOUR IN SEVEN DAYS: “Fatigue could be a factor in that sort of circumstance. To be able to go deep enough in a game where you win by a large margin, it limits the minutes you have to play guys. I would like to think we would have pretty good energy on Saturday. It’s something you’ve got to be psychologically up for. It’s something you’ve got to be strategically prepared for. You don’t want to waste time, but you’ve got to work and get ready to play these games. All in all, it’s but three games, but it’s a good start to the season so far.”

ON LIBERTY’S COACH SAYING ODU WOULD’VE FINISHED IN THE TOP HALF OF THE BIG EAST LAST YEAR: “Well, we’ve had years where we’ve beaten the Big East champion, so it’s nice, but the year Georgetown went to the Final Four, we beat them at their place. If you can get to the top three or four spots in the Colonial, you can play nationally. You choose the league, you choose the school, and you can be pretty competitive with them.”

ON JUMPING ON LIBERTY EARLY: “I think jumping them early and not letting them get momentum or confidence going was important. And I really thought coming out of the locker room at the start of the second half, we didn’t let the tide turn. I told my players some stories of games on the road when all the sudden guys started getting selfish, not working hard, start dinking around tying to dunk, and all the sudden you lose momentum and it can cost you a game. I thought we stuck to it pretty good for all 40 minutes.”

ON CARTER’S BIG GAME: “Keyon had 17, could’ve had more. We’re pretty classy about not trying to pour it on. I played all 11 kids almost double-figure minutes. If you’d told me going into the game that Gerald (Lee) would not have a scoring night – although he made up for it with defense and rebounding – and if you’d told me Frank (Hassell) would’ve been in foul trouble and not score all night ... I’d have said, ‘Well somebody else better come up and make some plays.’ Keyon was the man of the hour on this given day.”

F KEYON CARTER

ON WHETHER HE SAW HIS BIG NIGHT COMING: “Not at all. I just try to capitalize on the looks I get. If I have an open shot, I take it. I’m that kind of player.”

ON WHETHER HE SURPRISES OTHER TEAMS BY STROKING 3-POINTERS: “Definitely. I come off the bench, so a lot of guys see that and figure, ‘This guy is just another guy.’ But I try to hurt them if they leave me open. I’m a 4-man that can stretch the defense out. I try to do that as much as I can because it opens other things in our offense for guys like Gerald and Frank underneath. When I’m out there and they don’t check me, I’m going to fire it.”

ON THE DEPTH FACTOR WITH SO MANY GAMES IN A WEEK: “It’s big. Very big. It’s huge, because it’s early in the year and if we had to play tons of minutes, it would catch up to us at the end. Limiting our minutes early gives us added durability for the stretch run. Because once we get into conference play, it’s going to get pretty crazy.”

ON THE TEAM’S CONFIDENCE: “Confidence is so important in basketball. You need it. You can have a great player, but if he has no confidence, he has nothing. We’re definitely feeding off our defense and it’s defense first around here. We’re going to take this confidence into the Marshall game. We know they’re going to be different from our past opponents, but we’re going to try to suffocate them on defense and run out on offense and get easy baskets.”

ON WHETHER THIS TEAM STILL HAS FRESH LEGS AFTER THREE GAMES IN FIVE DAYS: “Definitely. We’ve got a long bus ride back, so guys can stretch out and put their legs up. This has been fun for me. Last week was Hell Week, because we didn’t have any games. It was all practice, which is banging, banging, banging. I like games. And this is like a tournament format with a game, day off, game, day off, game. I’ve enjoyed it, and I think the rest of the guys have, too. This lets us know we can get the job done. Hopefully this sets us up to make a big splash in conference and carry that momentum into the NCAAs.”

-- Ed Miller

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