Sound bites from Troy: Nikola Vucevic (Feb. 8)

Following Tuesday’s practice, the Daily Trojan caught up with USC forward Nikola Vucevic, who is looking to help the Trojans avoid what could be a third consecutive loss on Thursday against Oregon State. He remarked about bearing the responsibility of playing heavy minutes down the stretch for the second straight season.

On the effect of last year’s stretch run:
I think It definitely helps. Last year was my first year playing heavy minutes, so I really didn’t know how to take care of my body. Now I know how it is and what I need to do in order to play that many minutes. So, I’m really just more experienced with that.

On becoming a leader:
It’s been a huge change for me. I’ve never been in this position before, and it was a huge change, where I have needed time to adjust. At the beginning of the season I wasn’t doing the best job of it, and I had meetings with [coach Kevin O’Neill], where I was talking about how to become a better leader. As the season has gone on, though, I’ve become more vocal and done a better job of leading the team.

On facing a zone defense:
We have to open ball games better. When we were playing at Oregon and Oregon State before, we opened the game badly, they got 10-point leads right away and we had to fight to get back into the game. So, we have to open the game the right way, which means playing hard on defense and not letting them score easily. Once we get scoring on defense, that’s when our offense gets going.

On the team’s offensive struggles against UCLA:
I think the problem was that there was a stretch, where we didn’t take good shots. We took a lot of jumpers and we’re not a great jump-shooting team. We don’t make a ton of threes. It’s not our personality; we have to go inside. We were taking bad shots and that really affected us. They got a lead and it was hard to come back.

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