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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2006

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

THE MODERATOR: Coach Gary Waters, Marquis Webb and Quincy Douby.
COACH GARY WATERS: Okay, everyone's here. As I always do, I give honor to God first before I speak any place.
I thought our kids followed the game plan extremely well. It may have -- it was not an offensive game because if you look at both percentages we didn't shoot very well. I thought we executed better in the second half offensively, though.
But what I did realize is that our game plan, to take Whitney away, gave us an opportunity with this team. Without taking him away, you don't have an opportunity. Our guys worked extremely hard. I thought we rebounded the ball well. I thought we did the things we had to do to be successful, and this team is dedicated toward that. They followed it. What we told them to do, they did everything to a T.
There's nothing I can say but was a great, great concentrated performance by our team.
Q. What was the key to stopping Whitney?
COACH GARY WATERS: Well, we doubled him. Normally, in the past, we are doubling from post to post. That's hurt us. Quincy -- I mean Whitney is a very good passer out of the post. When you double with another post guy, he finds that guy. We kept our post guy holding this time so he could rebound and help on the back side and we doubled him with a guard. And we knew, once you started doubling, didn't matter who we're doubling, he would be fearful of the double. And it worked.
Q. Coach, is this a bit of deja vu? Same thing last year.
COACH GARY WATERS: I don't know if it's, you know, deja vu because we didn't expect to come in here and win one, we expected to come in here and take another step forward. We aim to play and came to continue playing, not just feel that we've won one game. Literally, I'm going to tell you, I told our team in the locker room before we went out on the floor, I told them when we win this game I don't want them jumping up and down and celebrating because we got another. Go out and be class so we can go out for the next one.
Q. It looked like people were expecting Douby to have 30-something points. How big of a factor was that if your other players stepped up?
COACH GARY WATERS: The thing you've seen from Douby is he can do more than just shoot the basketball. The thing he did, when they doubled him, he found the open guys. I thought that was the key to the game. Even in the second half, we ran things through him and he found other people. And, you know, when I look at these stats, he still scored 18 points and that's all we needed in a game this low.
Q. Marquis, you all have played under a lot of distractions in the last couple weeks. Was it very important tonight to play for Coach Waters, to send him out on a good note?
MARQUIS WEBB: It was definitely important. Coming into the season, one of our goals was to make it to the BIG EAST tournament. We made it here, and we wasn't just satisfied with just being here. You know, we were trying to take another step forward.
Q. Coach, you had mentioned defensively it was to stop Whitney. You've been able to maintain control over Nutter and Laing.
COACH GARY WATERS: Well, we really didn't control Laing, I mean -- Copeland. Copeland, we knew that we had to just contain him as much as we could. We really weren't overconcerned because he hit shots. The two people we wanted to shut down was No. 1, Whitney, No. 2, Nutter. Nutter had the best defensive player in the league, even though he didn't get the award I thought he should have, in Marquis Webb.
Q. I believe it's about the team, stay focused. The sense a lot of us are getting is you guys were playing for Coach.
QUINCY DOUBY: That's not really it, you know. We playing like as hard as we was playing all season for Coach. We focus. We have a lot of focus. We know what we have to do. We want to make a run in this tournament because, you know, it's wide open right now. It's not going to be easy. Whoever's the most prepared, come out there ready to fight, you know, got the opportunity to win it. So that's what we did today. We're not playing harder because he's leaving and stuff. We're just playing hard because that's what we got to do for Coach, what he asks of us.
Q. The past is the past. The last month, it is what it is. We all know what it is. Does it make you sad at all to see this type of performance, especially the second half from the guys that you brought here, knowing you're not going to be able to coach them?
COACH GARY WATERS: It's sad that I'm not going to be with them anymore because they're very close to me. I'm going to tell you this, they've been playing this hard throughout the entire season. That's what Quincy is saying. They've been playing this hard all the way through the season. They lost close games, last second games, these kind of things. Also, we lost two very good players. This team has played this well. Now, they're more concentrated on their effort. Each person is playing.
We put on the board before we played the game, we put the word "T". Then we explained what T means, okay. They all talked about it. They knew that they had to share this in order to be successful tonight.
Q. From the outside it would seem like there's a lot of chaos going on at the Rutgers program. You were losing, now you're winning. Does it feel chaotic to you guys?
QUINCY DOUBY: I don't feel chaotic. We guys love playing basketball. We know we have a lot more basketball to play. We just want to get here and didn't want to lay down and lose. We said we were going to advance and, you know, try to see if we could make a postseason tournament after this was over. We want to keep on playing ball. It has nothing to do with the behind the scenes stuff. We just love ball and we want to play.
Q. With the overtime the last game, does that give you confidence?
COACH GARY WATERS: Well, that was a different team, okay. We had two starters that are no longer here because they're injured. That was a different team.
But we're a different team today than we were back then. I think we can go out and play this team extremely hard. What happened, this is the number, what, two team in America. We have to play our very best to have an opportunity in this game. I tell you this, they're not going to go out there to lay down and die, though.
Q. Quincy, how much of a difference did it make tonight to get the help from Anthony, the big threes from Marquis, to have Byron do such a job on Kelly?
QUINCY DOUBY: I just watched film from the last game when we played at Seton Hall. I thought to myself I did a terrible job at finding my teammates. JR had got hurt early in the game, so, you know, I did a bad job of finding guys. This game I knew they were going to come double team me. I tried to get guys open look, they knock down shots, took advantage of it. It just made the game a lot more easier.
Q. Quincy and Marquis, Villanova, two months after you played them last time, different circumstances but a lot more riding on this one.
QUINCY DOUBY: It's gonna be a tough game. But, you know, Coach is doing a good job, as usual. We just have to prepare for them. Go over film probably tonight and get ready for them tomorrow.
MARQUIS WEBB: Definitely, always playing Villanova, the No. 2 team in the country, is always going to be tough. In tournament play, anything is possible. Anybody can get upset at any time. That's what we're looking forward to do.
Q. Marquis, getting a victory against Seton Hall in an environment such as this, how is that?
MARQUIS WEBB: Like I said before, playing here at Madison Square Garden, anything is possible. Playing here, you know, anything, like I just said, anything is possible. Tomorrow, you know, we're just going to come out and play hard.

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