NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 23, 2005

Bruiser Flint

COACH BRUISER FLINT: I thought we got a little run down and we missed some easy ones. We missed some easy ones and we didn't play particularly smart in certain parts of the game. I think that was the biggest thing right there. We had some tough turnovers, didn't come up with a couple rebounds, and we had a couple of easy shots, the little pull ups they were making, we missed a few of them and they came down and capitalized and they made a couple of big shots.

COACH BRUISER FLINT: Not really. I thought we still got what we wanted to do, and then they slowed the game down I think more offensively than they did defensively. They didn't try to run as much, they just tried to take us off the dribble a little bit, too, and our rotations were bad and they took advantage of it.

COACH BRUISER FLINT: No, there's not. We came to win the tournament. Nobody really gave us much of a chance, but we came to win the tournament. We won the games we needed to win to be here. That's what I told my team. It's not like they just said, okay, Drexel you show up and we have three other teams in the Top 20. It not like -- we were laughing, like the Sesame Street rhyme, "one of these things is not like the other," but guess what, we can prove that we can play on this level, too. It's great for us, great exposure, big for our Conference at CAA and we have a chance to showcase that we play good basketball in the CAA.

DOMINICK MEJIA: Yeah, from the door we came out with the attitude of playing with no fear, relentless basketball, going out and being really aggressive and trying to get a victory. Most teams I guess, most teams fold under the pressure that Duke has, but we knew there was going to be a lot of ball pressure and we really prepared for it. And we wanted to come out aggressive and just ready to lay it all out on the line.

COACH BRUISER FLINT: Oh, yeah, that's the way we play anyway. We like to play a fast-paced game. A lot of teams have had success slowing up the ball, but we played Monday night and we didn't have a lot of time to come in here and change our entire game plan from with what we used to do to play against those guys. What we wanted to do more than we've done in the past is get the basket and penetrate the basket. We play that type of game, anyway. That's the way we have to play.

COACH BRUISER FLINT: I don't know about that, they play everybody, so they are used to seeing some teams that go fast.

COACH BRUISER FLINT: Well, one of the things I told my team after the game was that it's easy to get up for Duke. It's easy to play your best basketball against the No. 1 team in the country. This team right now is probably a little bit ahead of itself. They lost four starters from last year, three of my four starters started for four years so, we're still really young. We were picked 7th in our Conference. So we're playing a little bit ahead of ourselves right now. My thing to the team is sustain it, be able to get better every night. Tonight I thought we made some mistakes late that cost us the game. We have to keep those types of things up and be able to sustain that type of effort and that type of focus against whoever we play, not just against the No. 1 team in the country.