To be a freshman point guard and have the whole program put on his shoulders, no question he has exceeded my expectations. I can truly look at him on the court and know I have a coach on the court. |
We gave him 10 points early in the game and after that we did a good job on him. He's a good player. You can't discredit what he did. |
We had 30 fouls to give tonight. We were going to make them work hard for everything. |
We have enough fight in us. There's only one choice -- keep fighting. Maybe a ball will bounce our way one time. |
We just couldn't make shots. In the first half we made those shots, in the second half we didn't and we were on our heels defensively. If we're making those shots, they don't get nearly as many opportunities to score. |
We struggled shooting the ball but our defense kept us where we had a chance to win the game. That's kind of been our trademark. |
We work hard at keeping our people. |
We'll see if I can fire him up on Wednesday, how about that? Are you calling him a kinder, gentler Ritchie? |
We've never been afraid to change our lineup for the Air Force game. When practice is over after two days, I'll go, 'These eight guys have the best grasp of what we have to do.' It'll be hard not to (change) because Ross and Ike have played well, but I don't know. I can't answer that right now. |
Were we as good defensively as we needed to be? No. But tonight should have been a night where our offense was good enough to carry us. We didn't get enough from our big guys to carry us. |
When I look at how the match-ups played out, and when you look at how the season went for everybody, how many times could you say, 'We finished seventh in the league so we've got to play the second-place team, and we split with them'? And we lost to them at their place on a shot at the buzzer. |
You look at the places they've played ... and not a lot of people would have done anything different than they've done. |
You never want a game to end that way because you feel so helpless. You always want a game played and finished with guys out there making plays. They called the foul; that's their job. Their (the Aztecs') kid still had to step up and hit the free throw, and he did. You give them credit for that. |