BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2005

Jared Homan

Wayne Morgan

Curtis Stinson

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: Opening statement. I thought my kids played as hard as they could. I thought it was a very good game, very competitive game. Texas Tech played very hard and they obviously made some key plays down the stretch to put themselves in the position to win. I thought that going down the stretch there were three or four times that we had good shots. Clean looks just didn't go in. Going down the stretch we had two or three offensive rebounds, went back up and they didn't go in. That's just a part of basketball. Obviously going down the stretch we had a couple of critical turnovers. Hopefully as a team we will learn from that and go on and get better. But you have to give Texas Tech credit. We had them on the ropes. They came back, they made the plays they had to make to pull the game out.

CURTIS STINSON: Regular day. Nothing changes, a regular day. We don't sit back and cry and worry about selection Sunday. We're just going to see what happens. We're not going to be stressed out worrying about anything. We will see what happens.

CURTIS STINSON: Well, we just didn't make the plays we should have made down the stretch. Like coach said, Texas Tech played well. They made plays. It got them back in the game. We made mistakes that hurt us.

JARED HOMAN: They were able to execute down the stretch. We weren't able to. I thought they really stepped up their defense and physical presence and we just couldn't counter that.

CURTIS STINSON: I don't think we took that many threes as a team. We didn't take that many, so we never started jacking like we kind of was yesterday. Yesterday we took about 10, so, we didn't settle for that today. We tried to get it inside and work the big fellow and things were happening for us. We just came up a little short.

JARED HOMAN: No, I feel just myself messing up. I missed easy shots and I take the responsibility for that. I didn't feel like I had a good game. They were giving me the first half easy shots. I should have contributed a little bit more in the second half. They were really packing it in, double-teams, and so on. That was hard for our guards to drive and hard for me to post up.

JARED HOMAN: We played with energy yesterday. I thought we brought our energy today. I don't think fatigue was a factor. I think we just didn't execute properly. I think energy intensity and running the floor was there.

CURTIS STINSON: Same thing. I don't think nobody was tired. Down the stretch you could see we made runs, fatigue factor, we wouldn't have made runs like that. We just simply -- we just didn't execute down the stretch. That's what hurt us a little bit.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I thought they handled the pressure well. I thought they didn't turn the ball over. I think one of the key stats in the game was that we turned the ball over 17 times and they weren't pressing us. I thought a key statistic in the game was they had 17 points over -- or turnovers against us. That should have been the opposite so you'd have to give them credit, especially in the second half for handling pressure and again, you know, we turned the ball over too many times ourselves.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I am very, very proud of this team. And in the locker room after the game that's what I told them that they should hold their heads up, put their chests out; they should be proud of what they have accomplished. They have nothing to be ashamed about today. They played and tried as hard as they could. I think when you do that, that you can walk out with your head up. Obviously we didn't want to turn the ball over when we did. Obviously we didn't want to miss some easy shots when we did. Obviously we didn't want to get offensive rebound and missed them and we did. Those are the things that costs us the game. You still have to give credit to Texas Tech, they played good defense and made some tough shots. I am proud of this team. I am proud of what they have done. We have won 10 out of our last 13 games. Four of those wins have been against teams in the top 25. It was a heck of a game today. You saw the game, it was a heck of a game. Very competitive game. It was a very entertaining game for the fans today also. Just obviously I wish the last five, six minutes could have been different.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I am not going to make those decisions. I am not clairvoyant, I don't have a ball. I am not going to make those distinctions because I am not on the committee. I am not in that room.

COACH WAYNE MORGAN: I just talked about it. We won 10 out of the last 13 games. Just beat 4 teams in the top 25. The only other two teams that have done that have been Illinois and North Carolina.