BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2001

Michael Bradley

Gary Buchanan

Steve Lappas

Jermaine Medley

STEVE LAPPAS: I was just very -- I know one thing, I didn't look at this sheet yet but I know those turnovers were down, I hope. Yeah, they were down. I thought our guys did a great job today of executing our plan and doing the things that we wanted to try and do defensively and offensively. You know, when we don't turn the ball over, you know, we're a pretty good offensive team. We make a pretty good percentage. I just thought the kids did a great job, played hard. When they made a run at us in the second half, we kept our composure and we were able to come away with the win.

STEVE LAPPAS: No. I'll tell you the truth, I have no feel whatsoever after a whole season how people are going to guard us, because, you know, we've seen it all. We have good shooters. We have a good inside player. We have a guy who's a good drive. So I think that we can be a tough team to defend at times, and so I really had no feel for what they were going to play us. They've played everything this year, they started boxing one against us last time, they did that a little bit today. So we were kind of prepared for everything.

STEVE LAPPAS: I thought Jermaine made a big shot that kind of got that thing going again after we had been struggling. The kids got the ball to Mike. When you have a guy who shoots 70 percent from the field, I mean, throw him the ball. As I explained to them, when you throw Mike the ball, good things happen for everybody else, even if he doesn't score. He draws so much attention that it just opens up the court for everybody else. And I thought that the kids really tried to get Mike the ball a lot and we were able to, you know, get some good things going.

STEVE LAPPAS: They're the Top 10 team in the country. Everybody for some reason is going on saying it's balanced, balanced, but you got a team who's in the Top 10, considered one of the best teams in the country. So, you know, to me they're favorite to win this thing. They deserve to be favorite. They were 13-3 in the league. That's how I look at it.

STEVE LAPPAS: He hasn't been nervous in a month really. He's really coming of age. We're playing small out there now with Derrick and Jermaine and Gary really, then Reggie, those four guys are playing all those minutes in the perimeter. So the size thing hasn't really hurt us yet; hopefully it won't. But they're all responding pretty good playing together well.

STEVE LAPPAS: That's, you know, not for me to -- you could sit there, it's funny, because I read the USA Today this morning. The guys says, "Well, we're in with one win, we might even be in already," which I wasn't buying. Then I read another New York newspaper that says, "You can get to the Finals and you might not be in." So what do I know?

STEVE LAPPAS: I feel better than I did two hours ago, I know that. After that, I can't tell you. But I know I feel better than I did two hours ago.

MICHAEL BRADLEY: Like Coach said, they're a great team. We know it's going to be another battle. Both times we've played them they came out with a lot of intensity, pressure, they were able to run away with the game in the second half. We'll just have to come out, take care of the ball and we'll see what happens after that.

MICHAEL BRADLEY: We knew they were going to make a run. They have some good shooters on their team. They started knocking down threes they were missing in the first half. We had to be patient. We took our time, started moving the ball around. We were able to get the shots that we wanted to get.

STEVE LAPPAS: They do. They're better. They're 13-3, No. 9 in the nation, we're barely on the radar screen. I mean, they definitely do. We've been on both sides of that fence. When we won the big east tournament we had to beat two teams that we beat two times during the season and beat them for the third time in the big east season. So it gets done, especially when you're real good like they are.

JERMAINE MEDLEY: We pretty much haven't. We still go out and work our hardest. We don't really think about the tournament because we still have a chance. There's not too much talk on our team about it. We don't say, "Hey, we might be able to bump these guys," and this and that. We go out and do our best. Hopefully the best will come for us.

JERMAINE MEDLEY: I think about it, this is my last go-around. I don't want everybody thinking or feeling the same way I'm feeling. A lot of times I think negative and I know that can hurt us. I mean, I just hope we go out there and just do the best we can for my last year.

GARY BUCHANAN: It was very important because we can get the lead, we have the lead to work with. So just in case we hit one of those things where we don't score for a little while, but tonight we came out. Jermaine hit a couple big shots early, got our confidence going, the team started rolling from there.

GARY BUCHANAN: Tonight we took our time. We didn't try to make the passes we normally try to make. If we saw a pass, we were like, "Okay, next time I'll try to get it to you." If it wasn't a great pass, a safe pass, we just didn't make it tonight.