With this conference, you can't lose at home and expect to win on the road. |
Yes, it is a must-win situation. If we don't win this game, the priorities change a little bit, we've got to do everything we can do to get New York (for the Big East tournament). |
You always hope, for humble people who work hard, for something like this to happen. It's a fairy tale, really. |
You can't let Pittsburgh come at you, ... You can't let Connecticut come at you. You can't let West Virginia come at you. You're not playing against bad teams. |
You certainly don't want to do what we did at Kentucky. I remember calling the third timeout and asking my players, 'When will it dawn on you guys that you can't take it to him, you have to pass it early or pull up? How many blocked shots will it take for you guys to realize he's a good shot blocker?' In this game, it's the same way. You've got to understand when you can take it in there and when you can't and you've got to obviously pick your spots. |
You have to come away with the victory. You can't play this well and come away with a loss. |
You have to execute on the offensive end. |
You work so hard to get the program to be a Final Four caliber program and then not to make your conference tournament is really slipping. Regardless of how close we've played teams, that wins you no medals. |
You've got to understand what he means to our basketball team. We're one of the youngest teams in America. He's the heart and soul of our team. You take away the heart and soul of our team and we still played those top 10 teams tough without him. So we can't complain about that. That's the breaks of the game -- injuries. |
You've just got to gut it out. It's going to be a tough year. |