BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2003

Anthony Glover

Marcus Hatten

Elijah Ingram

Mike Jarvis

MIKE JARVIS: Needless to say we're very, very pleased with the final outcome of the game. A long time ago somebody told me it doesn't make a difference how many you win by this time of year but to just win. My guys played I thought just a phenomenal first half and obviously as it turned out we needed that against an offensive machine called Notre Dame. I give both teams -- I give us tremendous credit for being in this position and I give Notre Dame tremendous credit for not just saying well so what, we're going to be in the N.C.A.A. because some teams would have done that. That's obviously why they are Notre Dame. Mike Brey, his team deserves a lot of credit as does our guys. If you told me that Marcus Hatten was going to have the offensive game he had tonight even though some people who saw the final score think he played well and he did passing the ball; not scoring like he usually does. For us to score 47 points and Marcus not totally on the top of his game is a drastic improvement. Yes, we hung on but we hung on. Maybe earlier in the year we won't have. We're learning, we're growing, and we're looking forward to tomorrow at 12 o'clock same place and hopefully very similar result.

MIKE JARVIS: Yes, I have found them. I have been using them on a very consistent basis. Obviously my prayers are being answered. I will continue to use them. And also just continue to ask these guys to just go out there and do the very best that they can. That's really what it is. These guys are awfully, awfully tough and I know the word "resilient" would be used. I don't know if that really is a good adjective for these guys. But they are incredibly tough. They deserved to and hopefully they will deserve more in this regard.

MIKE JARVIS: Elijah is playing the way that he's playing like a sophomore. Earlier in the year he played like a freshman. So much of what we do has to do with confidence but even more so with young people because they haven't got the years of experience to know that if they stay consistent things will eventually come around. I think Elijah's confidence was waning a little bit especially after he went 2 for 20 at Syracuse. We told him to keep shooting. And to keep following through. And not only is he doing that very, very well and he's back to making not just baskets, but really, really significant baskets. He's putting a lot of pressure on the other team now by penetrating more, something that early in the year to be honest but I had asked him not to do as much of because of his hand condition that kept him out of the whole preseason. And everybody I think most people forgot. That he did not -- he didn't participate in the 5 weeks of preseason so he was 5 weeks behind. I think he's doing a great job.

MIKE JARVIS: This team now obviously is winning and beating some good teams and is obviously a lot closer to what we had hoped. You always hope for the best and the blueprint. No one makes a blueprint up with the idea of having the building fall down. You build it so you could add onto it. That's what we hope to do. As it turned out you have to go back and do a little bit of reconstruction. What we decided a couple of weeks ago was to change things a little bit, Grady in the starting lineup, go a little big. We figured Glover was experienced enough to play the 3. What is happened since then we have been averaging over 20 offensive rebounds a game. Even when you win a lot of games, if you do that, if you convert a couple of those it really helps. Today we got some offensive rebounds. That's pretty effective.

MARCUS HATTEN: As we know they are good 3-point shooting team. No game is out of their hands and you have about 100 points. I think we stayed poised as a team and we didn't force the issue as much as we thought we did early in the season. We stayed poised and made some good decisions.

MARCUS HATTEN: Two exciting players, guys who can score the ball, we match up to them. That's not the focus of tomorrow's game. Whoever team helps them out the most or whoever team is consistent enough will win the game.

MARCUS HATTEN: Not much as proving to them, but proving to ourselves what we could have been, but now we know that you can't go back in time to change anything. Now we got to move a point by beating our next opponent which is Boston College.

ELIJAH INGRAM: Coming into the game I was just looking to be aggressive and take the shots that was there. I mean, my teammates and the coaches they was telling me be aggressive for the last couple of weeks and I just been playing well. I am going to continue to be aggressive.

ANTHONY GLOVER: I don't think we felt any pressure. We just wanted to come out and play our best game. The first half we played, I think, pretty good. Second half I think we got comfortable. That's when Notre Dame really started to attack us. We came in with the idea to win. That's basically the game plan. That's what we did.

MIKE JARVIS: Well, it has been there. It's just hasn't been as consistent and when you have got 5 guys on the floor that in their own right are threats, they have to be played a lot differently than when you have got maybe one or two guys that don't have to be played at all. So what our group right now is giving us because they are playing -- I think we had 5 guys in double figures and another guy with 6, you have got balance. The floor now is a little bit more open. The floor is spread and it -- it creates opportunities for very, very basic fundamental things like backdoors and those kinds of things. Once again it is due to the balance and the fact that the guys that are on the court, most of them now are threats.

MIKE JARVIS: And lost to them twice.

MIKE JARVIS: We have made our adjustments. We're a different team than we were a couple of weeks ago. We have made our adjustments mentally, physically, even socially. We have made them. What we're going to do tomorrow and what we're going to do today is try get as much rest as we can. We're going to eat at one of our favorite restaurants that I don't mention because they don't give us anything on comp. We're going to watch some film, get a good night sleep, have breakfast and come back here and let it all hang out. This is a fun time of the year for the players, they don't have to worry about practicing. It doesn't get any better than this. They just have to come and play and be mentally ready. We're playing against another talented offensive team. One of the last films I watched was Notre Dame against B.C.. I think the score was 101 to 96. We have got our hands full again tomorrow. We have got the player of the year Troy Bell, and you have got guy who is probably second in the rookie of the year honors in Mr. Smith. Got a helluva team. I am really excited about the opportunity to be coming back her and playing again tomorrow. It is great.