BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2004

Randy Foye

Jason Fraser

Jay Wright

COACH JAY WRIGHT: Obviously, that was a great win for our young guys, and I have to honestly say when Mike Nardi tripped and we threw the ball out of bounds, I honestly -- I never, ever give up on a game. But all I could think of was, "How am I going to explain to these young guys all off-season that they didn't deserve this fate? They've done all the right things, they've stuck together all year." For some of you that don't follow us, we've had a lot of games like this, a lot, and lost most of them, with crazy things happening like that, like the guy tripping. All I was thinking of for the last 11 seconds was, "How am I going to explain to these guys they have to stick to it?" Curtis Sumpter made an unbelievable play chasing Marcus Toney-El down. That was a big-time play. He gave up his last foul. Then we got to run the play. It was easy, we didn't need much time. We were going to run that play before, but we never got to run it. Randy, last game against Seton Hall, had the shot to win it. He just had the guts to come in there and take it. Jason Fraser made a block before that, that was huge, that could have ended the game. So it was a lot of heart by our guys. I'm just so happy for them. They've been through so much this year. Nobody needs to feel sorry for us, but they're great guys, man. They've stuck together all year.

RANDY FOYE: It feels good, because I think every game this year, when it came down to the last shot, Coach put the ball in my hand, and I execute. But he still believed in me and he put the ball in my hand again and I executed. So it felt real good.

RANDY FOYE: They were saying a little bit of everything. They were just saying, "Thanks," just telling me they loved me, my teammates.

JASON FRASER: It got frustrating throughout the year, coming down to the close games and not executing. But especially this tournament, I spoke to Curtis and I spoke to Ray, I spoke to everyone, I said, "We keep our faith and God will bring us through." Can honestly say when Mike tripped, we didn't panic as a team, we didn't panic as a team. We was calm and collected right away, told each other we're still gonna fall through. Sure enough, through our faith, that's what happened. We went in, we executed, we had one drop our way this game.

RANDY FOYE: Well, there's two that stick out in my mind. The first one is Seton Hall and the second one was against UCONN, at the end of the game when I went up, Okafor made a great play. Those are the two that just stuck out in my mind.

RANDY FOYE: It was at the end of the game, we ran a play. They was backing off of me and started driving to the hole. I pulled up for the jump shot and I missed it, so...

JASON FRASER: Well, I saw him. I just tried to beat him because he was shorter and I knew that I could catch him going up to the rim. He went to make a great play. I went to make a great defensive play. I, fortunately, came out the better out of that battle right there.

COACH JAY WRIGHT: That was really the only team all year that really hammered us at our place. We played a great game at Providence where we had a couple chances to win that one and didn't pull it out. They crushed us at our place. You always want to get another shot at a team like that.

RANDY FOYE: Just looking forward to playing Providence, that's all. Simple.

JASON FRASER: They're a good team. We're a good team. We're looking to have a good game tomorrow and come out victorious. Hopefully, the better team will win.

RANDY FOYE: I want to say that it was about time. In practice, I work on that shot all the time. I go into the hole and just rouse it up and shoot it. Most of the times, I don't hold my follow through, but I knew it was good as soon as I shot it because of the way the ball came off the tip of my fingers.

COACH JAY WRIGHT: We actually had it set up for Allan or Randy, and depending on how they played it. The reason we go to Randy so much is he's got a great knack of getting wherever he needs to go with the ball. He can elevate, he's strong, he draws fouls. He's got a lot of heart. Even though he has missed a lot of these, there's never a lack of confidence, never a fear to take that shot, and you kind of know that in your guys. Allan Ray is the same way. So we've gone to him, you know, a number of times, and we will continue to.

RANDY FOYE: Well, first when I got the ball, I saw everybody, the whole team was in the paint and they were helping. I drove the ball left, try to beat them over there to the left side, if I could swing back into the middle. When I spin back, I kind of tripped. After that, I just got up and shoot the ball as perfect as I could.

COACH JAY WRIGHT: Honestly, I wasn't worried about me; I've been doing this 21 years. I know it's going to turn around eventually. I really was just worried about this whole entire off-season. If our season ended with this great kid throwing a pass to Mike Nardi, a freshman, the greatest kid, I would be crushed all season. Our guys who did everything we asked of them all year, usually, when you have young guys and you struggle, you get bad breaks, they feel sorry for themselves, they give up, they don't believe in what you're doing. These guys never stopped. All I was thinking for the last 11 seconds was, "How am I going to get them to believe they did the right things, it just didn't happen for them?" I am relieved for them. But we're going to go play tomorrow night, we're going to really get after it. But at least they won't go through a season with never getting one fall their way. And this is a great one for them, and I think this is going to help them and it's going to help us tomorrow night.

RANDY FOYE: Actually, I didn't have that many people tonight because we had everybody, like family and parents came up, basically it was the first round. I had, like, four people. But ain't gonna be no celebrating. We just gonna prepare for Providence tomorrow.