BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2004

Andre Barrett

Louis Orr

Kelly Whitney

COACH LOUIS ORR: To God be the glory for the things that he's done. I thank him for his goodness and his mercy and his love. He's an awesome God. Hey, tough game. I mean, any time you lose like that, it's tough. But you got to be a man and stand up about it. A lot of things, you may watch, we don't help ourselves. We fought all game. We fought all game long to put ourselves into position. I got to give Villanova credit. They came out and they played very hard. But I'm proud of our guys. They fought, fought and fought. Really, we had to fight to take the lead in the second half. I give them credit. I give Randy Foye credit. You watch, you may see - I don't know - the referees don't call a walk, or if a guy, it's low contact, he's able to get his shot off, he still has to make the shot. I got to give Randy full credit. He made his shot. He made a big play. I'm proud of our guys. We got, God willing, and I believe he is, we have a lot of basketball left in us.

COACH LOUIS ORR: It's possible. I'm not exactly sure. He wanted to stay in the game, he felt he was all right to shoot them. He doesn't shoot -- the second free throw, he didn't hit the rim, he missed. Maybe he was dazed. But if a guy says he's good enough to shoot them, well enough to shoot them, then, I mean, what can you do? It was a hard foul. It was a real hard foul. If Marcus says he's well enough to shoot them, then he's well enough to shoot them.

COACH LOUIS ORR: We're disappointed, but you win as a team and you lose as a team. You got to take things like men, you know. We battle. You're not going to always play your best game, but we fought. We don't have nothing to hold our head down about. Villanova is a talented team, a good team, a very good team. They've been in a lot of close games, a lot of close games. You give credit where it's due. They made the shot at the end. If they miss the shot, we get the rebound, we win. We don't have anything to hold our head down about. We fought like warriors. We took some of their best shots early and we kept fighting. I give our guys credit. They competed, and that's what they've been doing all year.

ANDRE BARRETT: Made a good one-on-one move. I mean, there was nothing we could do about it. He shot over Marcus. I mean, he had his hands up, tough shot. If he would have missed it, it would have been considered good defense. So it's either way.

COACH LOUIS ORR: Randy Foye has got in the lane, I don't know if you've seen the Connecticut game against Emeka Okafor, when he got all the way to the rim in transition . He gets to the rim, that's what he does. Marcus was between him and the basket. It wasn't about no breakdown in defense. He's a good one-on-one player. As long as you got a man between him and the basket contesting his shot, then you got a chance. They have a lot of good shooters on the court, they spread you out. Marcus was right there. Kelly came to help. He made a tough shot.

COACH LOUIS ORR: You know what, I'm very confident. I know my Lord is faithful. I trust him more than anybody else. But I feel really good about what this team has done this year, and I expect to be playing basketball in the NCAA tournament.

ANDRE BARRETT: Oh, let me answer this. On that play, you got to go and get the ball. That's a loose ball. If I would have just tried to let it go out of bounds and they would have grabbed it, then it would have been, "You should have went for the ball. You should have got it." I was just trying to gain possession of the ball, wasn't trying to let them get the ball. That's just things that we talk about, try to get every loose ball because loose balls can cost you games.

ANDRE BARRETT: Yeah, it feels a lot better. But you got to wait until Sunday. You won't know until Sunday. The way I felt this year, I mean, the feeling I have this year is a lot better than what it was last year, you know. Going home, you didn't know what was going to go on. Now, I mean, I think we're going in the right direction. Still, I'm a little nervous, but, I mean, I got a lot of confidence in the committee to make a good decision and got a lot of confidence in my team to respond after this loss in a tournament.

KELLY WHITNEY: Every game we lose, win, you know, we try to take something from that and build off of it, you know. Looking forward to play the NCAAs. So this loss we had against Villanova, we have to go back into the lab and just prepare a little bit more on our defense. It was a good game. It was a close game. We fought back. They fought back. It was a tough shot at the end of the game. So we have a lot of things that we want to work on to get better, to improve.

ANDRE BARRETT: I'm happy that, you know, I know that I got more games to play, you know? It would be devastating to know that you don't have no more basketball games after a shot like that. I'd rather live with that and know that I'm going to play again than, you know, on the other hand, Villanova, if they would have missed that shot, then they have to worry about if they're getting into the NIT. Right now, they're still alive, they have a chance. Right now, we did enough during the regular season to sit up here comfortable.