NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 21, 2001

Skip Prosser

COACH PROSSER: Just in the way of an opening statement, I felt that, obviously, we were very, very happy to be playing in the championship game of this tournament, especially this year. It's a thrill to be in New York. I thought it -- I don't think a lot of people thought we would be here, certainly in the featured game Friday night. And I want to praise Fresno State. I thought they played hard and well, especially to come back and take the lead on us. We didn't play nearly as well in the second half. I don't really have a great explanation for that. Again, I'll say Fresno State made that occur.

COACH PROSSER: Seniors are supposed to make plays like that. That's what we talk about. There's no bigger stage than New York. And you want your big-time players making big-time plays in big-time games. And he did.

COACH PROSSER: It doesn't bode well for Friday, I'm sure. It's wonderful to be able to be in this tournament to advance the alternate game, to come to New York, as I say, especially this year. The downside is it limits your practice time. I think we'll become much more efficient against zones when we have more time to work on it. Again, it doesn't bode well for Friday because Syracuse perhaps plays the best zone in the country. But playing Syracuse will be very, very difficult. But it beats not playing.

COACH PROSSER: Well, as we talked, or I just said outside -- against Wilmington, which we won at the buzzer as well. There was Songaila as well making great play. We were able to execute a play to successful completion. This game he's 100 percent correct. This was more of a broken play. But again, players have to make plays once in a while. That's why they're on scholarship. I think he's 100 percent correct in that assessment.

COACH PROSSER: It was definitely a breakdown defensively. It was a plethora of breakdowns defensively. Somehow, some way we had some good series of stops. And it's sometimes difficult to continue making stops when you're not making baskets. Every time you make a stop and miss a shot, it sort of takes the wind out of your sails; but, again, far from perfect; without question, a long way to go. I'm no Robert Frost, but we're still playing. We just got to work on those things.

COACH PROSSER: It doesn't really help me because I'm confident that the system is a good system, because I've seen the players, unfortunately, sort of have to take it on trust. Trust me when I tell you fellas this stuff works. They haven't really seen it work. They came to Cincinnati one time, played in the NIT couple years ago. But on a daily basis -- so, I'm convinced that ultimately we're going to become a very good pressing team as well. Right now we're just, you know, to paraphrase, we can say we're 40 minutes of heck, as opposed to 40 minutes of hell Coach Richardson propounds. They were finding a way to win though.

COACH PROSSER: Poor transition defense. It's not that cryptic. We were missing a lot of shots and that contributed to it. But again, I think it was our -- defensively we were horrific. Having said that to hold them to 42 percent for the game. Thanks a lot.