BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2002

Sharif Fordham

Anthony Glover

Marcus Hatten

Mike Jarvis

COACH MIKE JARVIS: I don't have a stat sheet in front of me. But I do now, thanks, man. Actually, I want the time line instead of the stat sheet. One quick second. You guys probably know, I don't know when it was in the game, but we certainly had a chance in the second half. I think we were down five or down seven with the ball. We proceeded to make a lot of mistakes, and they proceeded to turn all of our mistakes into baskets, which I certainly give them credit for. They played another very efficient offensive game. No matter whether you got 20 wins or you got 14 wins, it's always tough when the last tournament game is played and you're on the down side. Especially when you know what it feels like to be on the up side, because the guy to my left was here a couple years ago when we won the tournament championship. So it feels, you know, once again there's certainly a -- it's not a very good feeling. But, nonetheless, it's real. It's one of the things that happens when you play the game - you win. In our case, we won 20 times. And you lose. In our case we lost 11 times. The difference between this year and last year is this won't be our last game, thank God. I certainly hope the next one we play, wherever it is, will be better than this one. And the effort will be a lot better than this one. So, yes, it's very disappointing. Some people asked me that. Very disappointing. But thank God we'll get an opportunity to play again. We'll practice on Sunday, and we'll be ready for wherever we go next week.

MARCUS HATTEN: No. I mean, coming in here, I knew what my role was. It was for me to get the team started, which I did a poor job of today. That's the thing I supposed to do, force the issue, create for myself and create for my teammates, so...

COACH MIKE JARVIS: Well, I'm not saying that the guys didn't play hard. I don't think that we really played with the kind of energy and I don't know what the reason is. I mean, we're not going to, you know, we're not going to give excuses. I mean, we could make a lot of excuses. But the energy, the fire, that, you know, that we have to have was not there for some reason tonight. There's a certain way that we have to play. And it's not usually pretty. I thought tonight we were trying to be something that we weren't. We got to be who we are. Like I said, the good thing is, is that we'll get another opportunity to be us. And "us" is, you know, a group of guys that just goes out and works and works and works. You know, and does it for the majority of the game. Not just for pieces and parts of the game.

COACH MIKE JARVIS: (Laughing).

COACH MIKE JARVIS: It's in the books.

COACH MIKE JARVIS: Well, first of all, we're going to play next week. And what I think, you know, and Jim Boeheim said it the right way. What I think doesn't really make a difference. What we have done, what we have accomplished will be -- is in front of the committee. And they will make the decision. We will live with the decision. I don't have all the information in front of me about everybody. I know what we've done. I know that, you know, once again, if our league is as representative as I think it will be, then we will certainly be one of those teams that they'll be looking at, and we'll find out on Sunday.

COACH MIKE JARVIS: A couple things happened. We got it down to seven, and I think we threw the ball away. Then I think we missed a layup or two. And they made a couple of shots. I mean, they did not -- I mean, it seemed like when they had to make a big basket, one of their players, whether it was Humphrey's inside or one of the perimeter shooters outside, they're an excellent offensive team. They've got a lot of weapons and different people at different times made big shots. So, it was a combination of us, you know, not taking care of business, and them taking care of business. You put the two together, and all of a sudden you go from seven to 20. That's the way the game of basketball is. I mean, it's that (snapping his fingers), can turn on you just like that.

SHARIF FORDHAM: Like Coach just stated, they're a very good offensive team. The majority of them was hitting big shots. Mostly three-pointers, where we had a lack of concentration of finding the shooters. They just made the extra pass. Eventually, they was gonna start making shots.

COACH MIKE JARVIS: No. I mean, once again, I mean, I look at stat sheets also. And I also look at, you know, the little -- the court that, you know, where shots are taken from. There are a lot of shots that we missed, you know, right below the rim. So, if teams are doing anything different, then I hope they continue to do that. The difference is that, you know, the day will come when we'll make those shots. Maybe it will be next week; maybe it will be next year, but the day will come we'll make them. Because we get a lot of good shots. But we just haven't been making a lot of them lately.

COACH MIKE JARVIS: Somebody? Glove, you want to speak to that?

ANTHONY GLOVER: Uhm, as far as our intensity, you know, it showed when we came out, you know, we didn't do what was, you know, needed on defense. We definitely didn't execute on offense.