Jan. 21, 2015

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21/21 BAYLOR 81 (14-4, 2-3), HUSTON-TILLOTSON 61 (3-14)
Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015
Ferrell Center (Waco, Texas)
Attendance: 4,760

BAYLOR POSTGAME QUOTES

Baylor Head Coach Scott Drew
On...overcoming the slow start ...

On 28 rebounds by Rico ... "It's amazing. I remember going into our 5th conference game, and you're looking at his conference stats and he's got 30 offensive rebounds, which is crazy."

On how much better the second half was and how it makes the team feel going forward ... "Anytime you win it feels a lot better than a loss. We'd like to have two halves like that, but again we did what we wanted to do, which was get a win, play guys, rest some guys like Kenny and Royce."

On conversation about putting Rico back in close to the record ... "When I heard he was four away we thought, that could be just one trip, so it was fitting he got two on one possession, but it was great to see him get it with an and-one."

On any point he thought about playing Kenny or Royce when it got close ... "That thought did cross my mind, but I thought the way we finished the first half, and started the second half, it made that real easy."

Baylor Forward Rico Gathers
On if he realized he had 28 rebounds ...
"Kinda sorta yeah. My teammates were keeping me updated throughout the last five minutes, saying I had to get a such and such, but then it became the coaches and stuff. They were really pushing for me to go get the record tonight."

On first half struggle ...
"When you don't start a game with your two most valuable seniors, it's easy to come out and struggle like that. When you have two players in the lineup who haven't started the game the entire year, and they're not used to coming into a game right off the bat. I had to deal with that adjustment after coming off the bench behind Cory and Isaiah."

On the feeling having the record ...
"Like we say, the beat goes on, and tonight I'm going to live in the moment, but tomorrow it's time to focus on OU."

On point he realized he was close to the record ...
"Once I knew I had 16 at half, I just thought okay I'll focus on getting even more rebounds. In a game like this, the teams forgot to box out so I just took advantage of the opportunity."

On starting the second half trying to get the ball inside ...
"We wanted to crush them on the inside because we had the size and that was our advantage. Once we took advantage of getting the ball inside, it opened up everything for our outside shooters and they started hitting shots."

On if tonight's performance is the standard from now on ...
"It's been the standard all year. Obviously against tougher competition they're not going to allow that to happen, and it gets tougher, especially in the Big 12. I look for Oklahoma to really be focused on keeping me off the glass because teams know that if they can keep me off the glass, it makes it harder on our guys to take shots with confidence and know that I'll get the board."

On what it was like to meet Coach Carter ...
"I've been around Coach Carter a lot since last year. He likes coming around and talking to our players, just talking to us before the game. I think he was supposed to play tonight or something like that. I don't know, some Hollywood stuff. It would've been weird to play him, but he's got game at 55, he came and hooped with us over the summer and he's got handles."

Huston-Tillotson Head Coach Thomas Henderson
On the backstory to this game being scheduled:
"We met Coach [Ken] Carter back about a year ago. He was thinking about making a Coach Carter 2 movie. We've been working on that. Our athletic director has been doing a great job trying to lead that. We just want to promote our school. We love Huston-Tillotson and we want to try to promote our school and get people to come to Huston-Tillotson University. So what a wonderful opportunity to play Baylor."

"Coach Carter was trying to get eligible; he actually enrolled in school last semester. So he was over there trying to get eligible. We're still waiting for him to play, we're still waiting to hear back from NAIA to see if he can play. He can still shoot a little bit. We were going to try to film this game. But I don't want to take anything away from my boys, they played their butts off tonight. Whether he played or not we're ready for the opportunity and our guys played their hearts out."

On Rico's performance:
"He's strong, hard to defend, hard to guard, and he's just a monster on the boards. Oh man, he's like a wild banshee. He's just a monster. He's a great player. To me, I think he's a lottery pick. He can play."