Miami Press Conference Quotes and Key Points
After Miami’s 89-75 win over Houston, there were many smiles across the faces of players like Nijel Pack, Norchad Omier, and Jordan Miller.
Like most head coaches, Miami’s Jim Larrañaga had a few smiles but was more about the business at hand. Here are some of the more pertinent comments from Larrañaga, as well as the players for the Canes.
Larrañaga made a great point about the Canes’ victory over a talented Houston defensive unit.
“We emphasize moving the ball and finding the open man, and the guys did such a fantastic job from start to finish,” Larrañaga stated during last night’s postgame press conference. “We only ended up with six turnovers. So, that’s the name of the game, and we tied them in rebounding.”
When asked about Pack’s performance, that was certainly one of the times that Larrañaga smiled the most while giving a cool comment.
“Yeah, it was a joke,” Larrañaga began and then paused. “He was ridiculous. I don’t know how far those shots are, but people say to me, ‘What do you say to him when he misses one of those long shots?’
“What I say is, ‘Keep shooting.’ The guy is a great shooter.”
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As for Pack himself, he was also happy about what happened. Pack also gave praise to his teammates for finding him for chances to shoot from downtown.
“My teammates found me early and got me going. They instilled confidence in me from the jump ball. They kept feeding me and telling me to shoot the ball, and I shot it with a lot of confidence. They were able to go in.”
Moving over to Miller, he brought up one of the most interesting quotes of the season as it relates to playing against Miami. Interestingly, the question was about whether Miami’s defense was under-appreciated. Here’s what Miami’s 6-foot-7 guard had to say.
“I wouldn’t say we are under-appreciated, I feel like we play a certain style,” Miller began. “It’s hard to prepare for. You know, when we play teams in the ACC, we usually play them once or twice.
“So that second time they’re familiar. The games are usually closer, but we know that we kind of have an advantage when it’s the first time we play a team.
“Again though, credit to Houston. They played hard. We just found a way to pull this one out. We had a lead and we just didn’t want to give it up.”
As for matching Houston’s physical style of basketball, Omier provided insight.
“You have to give them credit,” Omier began. “They are a really physical team, but I think that yes we have to worry about them but they have to worry about us, too.
“Because I don’t know if they thought about Miami being physical (smiling), but I think I’m pretty physical and I love the physicality. I think my teammates (like the physicality), too.”
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