BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2005

John Thompson III

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: I'm ready.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: No, I actually didn't -- I mean, no, I didn't. I saw him sitting there, but I had not spoken with him today.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: In a way. I think that we did play well. We played against a very good team. I think that you come through this conference, for this group of guys, and, you know, we end up .500 in the league, had some very big road wins. To come in here and win last night, then play well tonight, it's disappointing because we were right there. We were right there and had a shot, had a few unlucky -- we get a steal, the ball bounces out of bounds. We had a few unlucky bounces. But to their credit, good teams make you have bad luck, and they're a very good team.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: I didn't care. I told the guys, we knew we wanted to run. We came down, we wanted to get a shot, wanted to look for a drift for DJ at the top. He got it, he didn't think he was open. He was looking to drive, either kick it to Ashanti or pick it up and throw it back to Jeff. Jeff and Ashanti were wide open. It wasn't necessarily go for the win, go for the ties. We felt we could take either one. All three of those guys are good shooters, so if it ended up being a three, we didn't mind that. But at the same time, I didn't mind the two. We knew the play we wanted to run, it ended up being wide open. You know, a guy who played well for us, the ball just didn't go in.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: Yeah, I thought so, but we weren't out there, he didn't feel he was. We've said all year, we have to rely on our teammates. He pushed good and got Ashanti a wide-open shot.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: I think we tried to do what we've done all year. We just stuck with it and depended on each other. We made some key stops, we got some big rebounds. And down at the other end, at the offensive end, we had some guys step up and make key shots. We did, we did a good job to put ourselves in a position to have a chance at the end. Unfortunately, against a very good team, we just came up short.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: Well, the one thing I've said all year, and we had a blip there, but, you know, with this group, we wanted to get better. We wanted to be better next week than we are this week. We wanted to be better this week than we were last week. There were some things during a stretch of a season there that we weren't doing that we kind of focused on. I think for the most part, the effort has been there. Our guys played hard. We know that regardless of who we're playing, we can put ourselves in the position to win. I mean, not only is that one of the best teams in this league, that's one of the best teams in the country that's playing the best ball. So, I mean, we put ourselves in a position to win. It hurts that we didn't. It hurts that we didn't, because we had a chance to.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: I hope so. As everyone who's studied this and looked at this a lot more than I have, a whole lot of things are falling, can fall in, hopefully will fall in place. I think we showed tonight that we can play with any team in the country. I think we've shown throughout the year we've got some pretty big road wins. As I said yesterday, I think the committee takes that into account, where we've had to go, what we've had to do and how we've come out of it on the road. You know, we go .500 in this league, and this is the best -- as Coach Beilein said it earlier or he said it yesterday, every league is lobbying right now, but the reality of it is top to bottom, a lot of people are looking and talking about what happened yesterday, you know, here, in this tournament, and talking about upsets. This league is that tough. It's a monster league. Hopefully, that will be taken into consideration.

COACH JOHN THOMPSON III: Marcus is fun to watch. He throws passes and he's, you know, he's very good. Ray, you know, I'd go so far as to say, maybe as well as anyone I've seen on tapes, guarding him. I don't want to use "contained" him, because I don't know if he contained him, but he disrupted Marcus a little bit. Those guys are buddies and have been playing against each other for years, so they have a feel for each other. He did a good job. I thought he did a very good job against him.