BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2004

Uka Agbai

Al Skinner

Craig Smith

COACH AL SKINNER: Yeah, there's no question about it. We didn't handle the ball as well as we needed to in the second half. It led to some transition baskets for them. They weren't like they were turnovers that they had to come down and run offense. They were turnovers that led to easy baskets. I think we had maybe one of those all game, in the second half they had a few of those. That was enough to make the difference. Along with the foul on the three-point shot when the shot clock was running down. That was a tough call, and it goes to the line and makes all three free throws. But it's clearly the ball-handling that was the difference for us in the second half.

COACH AL SKINNER: You know, I don't know if it does, if it doesn't. I mean, it's a possibility. But I thought at times we didn't run our stuff as well as we should have. I thought we were, at times, impatient. Because of being inpatient - whereas, in the first half, I thought we were very patient and we executed well - I thought at times in the second half we got a little bit hurried.

COACH AL SKINNER: I think that's what we talked about in the locker room, understanding how good Pittsburgh is, and obviously they are a very good basketball team. But it's an indication of the quality of basketball team that we were, and that if we can come out and learn from this experience, I don't know if we're going to find anybody that defensively is tougher than this, and if we can learn from this and handle this situation and try to grow on it, it's going to help us in the tournament, I'd like to believe.

CRAIG SMITH: I just tried to establish myself early, especially in transition. We get the ball rotated, and had the guy playing behind me. I just tried to get good position basically the whole game.

CRAIG SMITH: Yeah, it was kind of crazy. I thought it was going in. I thought I felt a little contact. But the ref was (inaudible) plays the whole game, so...Things happen.

UKA AGBAI: I believe immediately. We just get over this. We knew we had a chance to beat them, but we let it slip away from us. I think we can be prepared immediately, as long as we know who we're facing in the tournament, just get ready for that, put this behind us.

UKA AGBAI: No idea. It's not up to me.

CRAIG SMITH: (Shaking his head no).

COACH AL SKINNER: No, I don't think we did anything much different. I think we've been rather consistent all year long, and obviously we got the same results. So we needed to, maybe need to change a little something. But, no, we've just been trying to build on what we do and what we do well. So I don't think we did anything different. We probably ran a couple of different sets offensively for Craig, because the sets we ran against them in Pittsburgh, they defended pretty well. We ran some different stuff for him today to get him some looks. Defensively, we try to do the same thing. I just thought that defensively we got a little careless. We didn't maintain our concentration defensively as well as we should have. What we wanted to do and what we actually did didn't occur this evening.

CRAIG SMITH: He's a tough guard. Guards from New York supposedly are supposed to be tough. I got a piece of it today.

UKA AGBAI: We didn't think about it that way. We thought about it as, "This is what's in front of us. This is what is in the present." We felt that we had a good opportunity to beat them. Coming into this game, we felt like we were prepared enough, and, obviously, certain things didn't go our way and we lost the game. We didn't feel like, "Oh, wow, this is just a game. We'll go to the tournament, have more games to play." No, we thought about getting this championship.