During Tuesday’s Pac-12 teleconference, Dana Altman continued to talk about his team’s defensive struggles, delving into the problems in the interior and on the perimeter. He also discussed Oregon State star Roberto Nelson and differences in officiating this year.

You’ve said you have some good interior defense this season. Which of your players has been the best?

“I’m not sure anybody’s given us the consistency to say, ‘they’re the best.’ They’ve all had moments when they’ve done a good job but I don’t know if we have anyone that I would consider [who has made] that much of a difference than the guys who we’ve played with. I would say Ben Carter probably has the best positioning. Rich [Amardi] has got us some steals in there. Wave [Austin] has blocked a few shots but I wouldn’t say one of them has separated themselves so that I could make a decision on playing time in that regard.”

You faced a couple of good perimeter scorers last week in Tyrone Wallace (California) and Chasson Randle (Stanford). Now you get Roberto Nelson of Oregon State on Sunday. Does it seem like you have somebody tough to shut down every week, especially at the guard position?

“In our three losses, we have done a poor job of … [Askia] Booker and [Spencer] Dinwiddie had big games. [Jordan] Matthews had a huge game against us. Randle and [Anthony] Brown both had big games against us. We’ve not done a good job with our interior defense and our perimeter defense. Because of that, we’re looking at 1-3 (in Pac-12 play). We’ve done some good things, but to answer your question, Nelson is a concern because we have not done a good job the last three ball games of slowing people down.”

When you assess the defensive struggles, is there one prowling above everything in that problem?

“We’ve kind of reached the full spectrum. We’re trying to get it focused down to a few things but right now, I can’t say that we’re doing a good job in any phase defensively. I’ve been saying that for about six weeks. I just felt like we were outscoring people but now, we’ve really digged a hole and the team knows it. Now, we’ll see if we’re tough enough to do something about it.”

In terms of officiating, what differences have you seen in the enforcement of contact and hand-checking and points of emphasis this year?

“I think there’s been a tremendous difference definitely on the block-charge rule, hand-checking and driving the ball to the basket. I think those have been the main few areas that I’ve seen. I haven’t seen much difference in the freedom of movement concept that they talked about but definitely the block-charge. There are very few charges called. You have to be set. Most of the offensive fouls have come from the driver using his arm to push off rather than a positional foul. And definitely the hand-checks have really been called much tighter.”

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