I think we're ready. Every guy is up, every guy is positive and ready to go. It could be the start of what could be the end of a great season for us. Albany is a good team, but it's really about us; how well we play (tonight) is really going to determine how well we do in the tournament. I just think it's important to get us back on track, get us rolling again. |
I would assume that if the coach is smart enough, they?d decide to guard Rudy differently than how they were guarding him earlier in the season. But he?s just got to make plays, regardless if he?s covered hard or not. |
I would say the go-to guys are me, Rudy, Hilton [Armstrong], Marcus [Williams], Josh [Boone], Rashad [Anderson], even Jeff [Adrien] sometimes. |
If I win a championship, I?m pleased. But If I don?t win an NCAA championship, I?m not pleased ? regardless of how well I?m doing. It is to make history out there. Two championships in four years? In this day and age, that?s unheard of. |
It might be the same mentality we had last year. We struggled our first game last year in the Garden with the same team. |
It shows that guys aren't going to give up. It shows guys aren't going to lay down no matter what happens. If things on the court aren't going well, the other team's making a run, coach is down your throat, guys are sticking together and maintaining what we need to be doing on the court. |
It works in our favor. |
Nah, I stole that. I'm not going to say it slipped out of his hands. I didn't know he was going to pass it, but I saw it in the air and I knew I could grab it, so I did. |
Obviously, we want to go to the Final Four. And something like this, a Big East tournament championship, would have been a nice thing under our belt to have confidence-wise. |
On good teams, seniors need to lead. Maybe lead us all the way to the NCAA Final Four. We've been there before. We know how hard it is. We know how long that road is. |
Plays like that have to be made by myself to get the team and the crowd going. |
Plays like that that, we need more often from myself, Rudy ? guys who are really athletic. It gets the team going and gets the crowd going. Everybody has their ego. I'm not going to take anything away from Villanova calling themselves, ?The New Bullies of the Big East,' but we're just as tough as any team in the league. We played hard, we played tough and we're a damn good team. |
Rashad and I saw early on what McGrath was capable of. So we took it upon ourselves to lock him up. Getting around all the screens they set for him was the hard part. |
Rashad hit a big 3 to put us in overtime, and that was the end of that story. |
That's coach. It's something guys come to expect. I think he expects so much from us, and he puts a lot into us energy-wise to make us better players, to make us great players. . . . You can't come to Connecticut if you're not going to have a strong mindset. |