BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2000

Tommy Amaker

Shaheen Holloway

Darius Lane

COACH AMAKER: As you can imagine, we're absolutely thrilled to be able to win our first game in the tournament. There's a lot of talk and speculation about where we stack up around the country, we need more wins. Our focus has always been to get better, and I'm just happy and proud of our team for performing after a long layoff, being able to come in and, I think, play just a total team game. Team effort from beginning to end, and I think the reason why is certainly all the players, but these two kids sitting up here this afternoon. . .

COACH AMAKER: Well, you know, we had three goals in mind as a coaching staff: One, to get healthy, to get rested and try to get better. It's a difficult task to try to achieve all three, but we're really pleased with the effort this afternoon. I think our kids were excited to play. We knew we played well against Providence the previous time. We knew it was going to be a different challenge this time because they were a different team. And we were still a little banged up, worried about Kaukenas and his mobility. But overall, we're pleased with what the layoff was able to do for us.

COACH AMAKER: To be honest with you, I've never said that. I think it's been said by everyone out here and elsewhere that we needed one more win. We felt what we were able to do over the course of this season, 10 and 6 in the league, 19 wins overall, we felt we had a solid year. Sometimes you tend to look at just the last week or ten days of the season, I think when you look at the entire year, these kids have played their hearts out and put us in this position. So I think we're in. I thought we were in before. I didn't think one win was going to get us in nor would one loss keep us out.

COACH AMAKER: You know, our interior offense or any offense that we get it's usually generated by Holloway and the way he sets the tone for our team. The way he runs the ball up the floor and push it. He finds people, looking at his stats, he almost had a triple double, nine rebounds, nine points and eight assists. He sets the zone. With Darius being able to stretch the defense sometimes it opens up an opportunity to throw it in the post. I thought our guys did a nice job of playing off of penetration. Shaheen and Ty did a nice job of looking to drive, penetrate and find people.

SHAHEEN HOLLOWAY: It means a lot to me to get 20 wins. Our team did a great job the whole year, focused on the little things, tried to get better every day at practice and try to go in the game and play every game like it is our last. We have to give credit to our young guys for doing that, they helped us out. Darius and Rimas were making shots. The coaches did a great job trying to get our team together and play everybody. We got ten guys that could play. Definitely we're happy with 20 wins, but we still got more basketball to play.

DARIUS LANE: We just got to come out, play real hard and intense and play together. I think we play together, we can beat them.

COACH AMAKER: I think, again, it has a lot to do with the leadership out on the floor and guys are, I think, are really focused. We talked about at the half, talked about playing the second half four minutes at a time, you know, not trying to look at it as a full 20 minutes. Sometimes it can get overwhelming. Four minutes at a time. Every four-minute timeout, where do we stand here? Are we out playing them or are they out playing us? We focused on that, I think it helped us. It comes from the leadership out on the floor, Shaheen recognizes when we need to do certain things; move the ball, take a shot. He played 38 minutes, and to be honest, I didn't want to take him out because I was afraid of Providence making a run. We kept him on the floor because we need him to control our team.

COACH AMAKER: I think UConn has been tough for everybody they played. Certainly we haven't been fortunate to win against them, but I'm not sure many people are looking forward to playing Connecticut. They're well-balanced, obviously well-coached and they have some great players. We've battled them throughout the times that we've played them, but we've never been able to get over the hump. I think that's a credit to their team. We're looking forward to the game tomorrow. It's an opportunity for us to continue in the Big East, and, you know, we're here to play in the tournament, not just to play one game.

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