BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2005

Rahshon Clark

Jared Homan

Wayne Morgan

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I thought the key to our game today, we had great intensity when the game began. We had great offensive and defensive intensity. Offensively I thought we played well, we made a lot of shots early. Defensively we really played good defense and they didn't really get anything early, it gave us an opportunity to get like a lead of like 17.

JARED HOMAN: You want to try to put the foot down in that position and not give them a chance to get back in. You give a team like Baylor who is scrapping for their lives, a chance to get back in the game, and they are liable to come back and beat you. And we also wanted to get up enough so we can get the other guys in the game. You know those guys bust their butts hard in practice, we want to get them some court time so that was big for us to put some points on the board.

RAHSHON CLARK: He said everything I was going to say. Any other questions?

RAHSHON CLARK: We are hoping that we did enough to get in the N.C.A.A., but like I said, at every press conference, we just got to think of it one game at a time and hopefully everybody will think that we did enough to be in the N.C.A.A. tournament.

JARED HOMAN: I would have to agree with him. We did enough to this point to try to get in the N.C.A.A. tournament. I think that's kind of in the back of our minds right now. We are trying to focus on the Texas Tech the next game and keep winning games and try win this tournament. We like to think we are in so we're going to try and focus on winning this tournament.

JARED HOMAN: They are very good team, well coached, they will be ready to play. They have had a couple of days off so they will be rested. We just played, we got some -- I don't want to say we are tired, but I think we got a little game-time experience so hopefully we're sharper. We just got to build on that win that we had against them at home, look at that film, try and do the same things and execute the same stuff

JARED HOMAN: When we got up 17 to nothing I think that was just more of us just coming out determined wanting to win this game. I think Baylor might have been a little surprised. I think they were confident and they were trying to come in with the attitude that they needed to to try and win the tournament to get into post season but I think we were more determined tonight. We worked extremely hard and worked well as a team to get them out of the game early so they won't hang around and give them a chance to win it; which was very important to us.

RAHSHON CLARK: I just came into the game with the mindset I was going to make every single shot that I took. So that was a very big shot. It got me and my team routed up, so I felt it was a big shot. Everybody else did too. That's when we just put the pressure on and just started doing what we have to do to win.

RAHSHON CLARK: When I first came out I was hyped as you all can see. I was ready to get on the court, and try to come up with a win. I forgot that I had to go shake hands, be honest with you, but Curtis reminded me so then I went out and did it.

JARED HOMAN: Bruce is a very good player. We knew he was capable of hitting three-pointers, especially in our zone we had to make sure that we cheated out to him, played him a couple of steps over the three-point line, just so he can't get going. He got some open looks and hit some deep shots. We had to try and keep him in check. He is one of their better players..

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: It can be sometimes but one of the things we have had to do in terms of growing as a team is to be able to sustain your level of play and your intensity even when you do get a big lead and try to play the same.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: Well, obviously we have a great deal of respect for Coach Knight. We know he had a lot of time to prepare so you can only imagine the various things that he's going to use that we have not had a chance to see. We have to try to prepare for their personnel more so -- what they are going to do in a situation like this. We think Texas Tech is a very good team, very capable team. I think it going to be a very good game tomorrow.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I think the kids gave a very good answer. We hope we have done enough to get into that tournament but right now we're in this tournament and so I think we have got to concentrate on this tournament and we're not in the position to make the other decisions to know what is going on in the selection room so the best way that we can help ourselves is by playing well in this tournament.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: Yeah, I think so, Bill. I think our offense helped our defense and our defense helped our offense because we came out shooting the ball well and got us into our press and enabled us to get a couple of steals and to throw them off balance a little bit. So both helped the other.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: First looking to see if we can maintain our intensity throughout because that's critical not to let that drop off. And then whether it's defensive or offensive execution trying to accomplish the things that you set up in the framework of your game plan.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I thought that our starters played a good amount of minutes but we were able to rest them a little bit more going down the stretch and we got some intermittent rest during the game for the guys so hopefully we'll have fresh legs tomorrow.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: Well, I think we have -- to beat a team like Texas Tech we're going to have to be able to execute in every aspect of the game; in other words, you are going it to have to be able to play good defense and accomplish the things you set out to accomplish defensively, you are going to have to be able to execute on offense in order to have a chance to score. And in our particular case which is important for us we certainly have to rebound the ball whenever we have rebounded poorly we have struggled. So we're going to have to do everything.