BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2005

Andy Osborn

Ricardo Patton

Richard Roby

COACH RICARDO PATTON: It was a really good basketball game and our kids played well, and as I told them after the game, you didn't have anything to do with it, with the win. I think we won a game because our heads and hearts were in the right place. I thought we were unselfish. We bought into the fact that we needed to play defense and defense gave us a chance. We talked about before the game playing for 40 minutes and we have shown the ability to play for 30 minutes and 35 some games, but we need to play for 40 minutes. I thought the team did that.

RICHARD ROBY: We felt we were better than what our record indicated. We showed strides throughout the season we can play well. Tonight we just brought it. We knew we had to bring it. We didn't want our season to end today.

ANDY OSBORN: Same thing. We knew coming into this game that we had shown that when we play good games against Texas at our place we can beat anyone. We were happy to come out to play the way we did.

RICHARD ROBY: Yeah, I missed a couple of shots, but I felt if I played defense and rebounded the ball, the points would come. I just started worrying about other things on the court and not so much on scoring and just going to the glass and doing other things for my teammates.

ANDY OSBORN: We got on a run, hit some shots, really got motivated. Got on the open court. Pretty dangerous out there. Marcus really ran the floor really well with the ball and pushed it up the floor. We just really got easy buckets. Then we started to hit some threes. That kind of opened things up for us.

ANDY OSBORN: Foul trouble was pretty good defense. Four fouls pretty early in the second half really helped us out, not having that big body. The last game he played against us he played really well. Coming into this game we didn't really want to let him do that again. Our whole front line didn't want to let him go off again.

ANDY OSBORN: When we have all the guys clicking on all cylinders, Martane, energy coming off the bench, he did a lot of good things tonight, offensive rebounds, second shots, especially for himself as well. (Inaudible). Picked up on the free throw line, really big hitting free throws especially down the stretch.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: We will get back and the guys need to get a bite to eat and certainly they will be probably wound up tonight and won't be able to sleep. I told them they should at least go to their room, get in the bed and lay down. Even if they can't sleep, it is still a form of rest. Tomorrow we will get up, watch some film after breakfast, just Friday to prepare. I think one thing that we realize is that they played a very physical game against us at our place. I still have visions of them throwing our guys to the floor and so that's what we have to prepare ourselves for is very physical contest.

ANDY OSBORN: Yeah, look forward to playing them. They got Joey Graham obviously is the best player. We got to look to stop him at this point. Hoping that we can battle them on the boards, be physical because we know it's going to be a battle. This is the Top-10 team in the nation. We have got to bring our A-Game against these guys. What I said was we know this game is going to be pretty physical. Top-10 team any time is going to be a physical battle. We're going to have to rebound, battle with Joey Graham inside. It's going to be one of those games where there's going to be some bruises and elbows flying. That's kind of what we have got to look forward to.

RICHARD ROBY: When you are making shots you can pretty much play with anybody. First half we made a lot of shots. They also made a lot of shoots too. I think 52 to 50 they were winning. That just shows defense wins ball games. If you can stop guys, you give yourself a chance to win.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: We had guys in foul trouble first half. We had guys with two fouls, both Andy Osborn and Chris Copeland had a couple of fouls in the first half, so we just ended up having to go to our bench a little bit more and certainly I've gained a lot of confidence in playing Marcus King-Stockton , he's come along nicely. Martane Freeman is a guy that I thought would play well back in his hometown with all of his family here. He's had a few good days of practice. So it was good to see him get an opportunity to play first of all, and then to take advantage of it.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: You know, certainly he's not as familiar with the majority of the personnel because he's been removed for quite some time now. I guess 5, maybe six years he's been removed from there. But just in terms of some of the things that they run offensively, but doesn't make a difference if you can't guard Joe Graham or John Lucas, doesn't make much difference knowing what they are going to do if you can't stop them.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: We won in Boulder ---

COACH RICARDO PATTON: I really didn't hear your question.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: We wanted to make sure that we doubled him as much as we possibly could and get the ball out of his hands. We wanted to make sure that the point guard Gibson, when he gave it up we would try to deny the ball back to him a little bit. Because I just thought that those two guys were the keys to them winning. When we went in at half-time down one I actually thought we had played one of the best halves we played all year, yet still down, so I didn't have many complaints. We were 6 for 6 from the free throw line at half time. I think they were 12 for 15, so we just needed to pick it up, second half, and our guys that were in foul trouble if they could come out and play well make a few shots for us I thought we still had a good chance.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: No, I really don't. He's just -- maybe you know, it took him this long to get over the injury that he had. Again, the way he played tonight was how he started out the season. He had 11 or 12 points against Cal and 17 rebounds. And tonight we saw flashes of that ability. That's something we haven't seen in quite sometime now and it was quite frankly good to see. I hope he can continue.

COACH RICARDO PATTON: I don't know. I think certainly game jitters ought to be behind us at this point but we're facing an entirely different opponent and you know, I just think that sometimes with young guys they don't know how to mentally get themselves ready for the next game. This is the first time you know, some of our guys have played in the Big 12 tournament so it will be interesting to see how they handle their mental preparation for tomorrow.