If we hadn't done it before and played well for an extended period of time, I'd be panicking more than I am. I know in the areas that we've struggled, we're better than that. |
If you look at our home and road stats, they're enormously different. Most teams are different, but not enormously different. You get in a little slump, and you don't get the confidence of the home crowd and the home baskets and the home bed. Yeah, I think it affects you a little bit. I really, really do. But I also think you got to be big enough to win some of these games on the road. |
If you play hard, good things happen to you. And that kid plays hard. |
If you're always going 11-0 or 12-0 in the preseason, you can get 20 wins easier. If you're playing other people, it's a lot more difficult to do that. I'm proud that we did it the hard way. When you do that, your kids get mentally tougher. |
Illinois and Michigan State are both going to play pretty good defense. They're playing a little better than we are defensively right now, and I guarantee you both teams are going to run. |
Illinois is not going to be worried because they beat us two times or three times. They're not going to have a letdown. They've got a great team. |
In my nine years, this is one of the more disappointing evenings I had in this job because it's going to be sad to see some seniors go who've done a lot for us, won a lot of games. |
In my nine years, this is one of the more disappointing evenings I've had in this job. They kicked out butts inside. |
In our losses to Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, we've had serious foul trouble at key times. Maybe we've had leads or were playing good, but it changed the complexion of the game. |
In the first half, it seemed like most of the plays we ran went down, and we held them on 3-point shots after their first couple shots right at the beginning - and we rebounded the ball a lot. In the second half, we got the lead and played well enough, but there were a couple of stretches that wore us down a little bit. |
Iowa's good enough to win the Big Ten title. They've helped themselves this week by beating Indiana (Saturday) and us. |
It doesn't feel as good (playing the first day) as we were the only team left that had never played on Thursday. I'm disappointed that we didn't finish higher but I understand how good the league is and somebody had to finish sixth or seventh. |
It had to go through a lot of channels, including the Pentagon, and there were times it seemed like it wasn't going to happen. But I'm glad it did because it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. The troops thanked us for being there, but they gave us more than we gave them. |
It has been an incredible year for me, ... When I got back, I had a meeting and told my team, 'If you can be as disciplined and focused as our troops over there, we could be a potential national champion.' |
It is a brutal schedule, and if you've been through everybody's, as I've done, it's not even close. But so be it. If there's one thing these seniors and juniors are used to, it's playing tough schedules. |