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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2006

DENVER, COLORADO

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Texas Christian University, head coach Neil Dougherty, and student-athletes Nile Murry and Judson Stubbs.
Coach, would you open up with some comments.
COACH NEIL DOUGHERTY: First of all, I want to congratulate Colorado State. I think they played very well, made the plays down the stretch. They needed to win in this game today.
Also, just talking to our team in the locker room, it's always tough when you're playing your last game of a season. But I think particularly for me this year, as tough as things were for us, a lot of things were out of our control with injuries and illnesses, just tough luck. I really, really just appreciate the seniors that we had this year and how they just hung in there throughout a very difficult season.
As I told them, I'm just a horrible loser. I don't know. Everyone's got their bad things. But they continually brought me back all year long. I think, again, tonight, it was good in terms of a measuring stick, how hard a team that has only won six games is willing to play.
I'm just really kind of going to miss four kids that played very hard all year with little success in terms of wins and losses. It was a joy coaching them.
I'll just answer any questions you have about the game, though.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. This is the kind of game that you've guys had all season, being close there at the end, and have the chance, and just weren't able to get it there at the end.
COACH NEIL DOUGHERTY: I mean, golly, I can't even think of how many games we had that looked just like this one. The majority of the whole season has been that way.
We have had goofy things happen to us all year. And, again, for example, the bounce of a ball and how it's gone. Like I said, it's tough because I want to explain this the right way.
At a key possession in the game, and I can't remember what the time was, but I do remember it was tied score, we have a ball bounce off of our head and Colorado State is able to grab it and put it in to go up by two and go ahead for a lead late in the game. When that happened, I was just looking out there and I just thought, "Wow, we just found another way to give up a lead." We've had some weird things happen all year long, but that was just another strange one. I don't know if I've seen that happen in a game at that juncture where a rebound goes off of a head into the hands of another guy and he lays it in.
Q. Could you also talk about how Nile just played there in the second half. Seemed at times he was going to be able to take it over.
COACH NEIL DOUGHERTY: Well, I think one of the things that we were trying to do is just take advantage of Nile's ability to go get a shot. Battling foul trouble most of the game, without Chudi being available for us, a lot of times, offensively, we had severe limitations of where to go with the ball.
I think Nile showed once again, with everyone in the whole building knowing where the ball was going to go a lot of times, was able to make some plays for us. He made some big shots. But, more importantly, he was able to get the ball to the basket quite often. We were trying to -- I thought a couple other times, you know, maybe he deserved to get a foul and another trip to the free-throw line, but some people saw differently than that, so we didn't get that accomplished.
We were just trying to keep the ball in his hands, two things: because either he was going to score or find somewhere and get fouled and go to the free-throw line. I believe he was eight for eight from the free-throw line again tonight. That's just our best chance to win down the stretch of a game.
Q. Nile, can you talk about the difference between this game and previous games against Colorado State? It seemed like you were getting better shots and able to score tonight.
NILE MURRY: I mean, coming into the game, I just knew I had to be aggressive. I mean, both teams had a lot to lose because neither one of us wanted to lose or this be our last game.
Having that on your shoulders, you know, you're going to come out and play to the best of your abilities and try and do everything that you can.
Q. Coach talked about how you guys hung in there. Why is it that you were continually able to hang in there?
NILE MURRY: We just have a coach that never lets us quit. Once you have players that buy into that and continue to play hard, it doesn't matter what the score is, you're going to continue to play hard.
JUDSON STUBBS: Basically the same thing what Nile said. Every day in practice, we kept working hard. Coach kept getting on us, wanting us to keep going hard even though we had a rough season this year.
Basically we just did the same thing in each and every game: you know, just went down and played our best.
Q. You guys did a nice job on Jason Smith for seemed like about 38 minutes. Talk about what you did to him during the game and also about the way you finished.
JUDSON STUBBS: We knew we had to try and contain him, you know, try to limit his touches, which was going to help us to win the game. Chudi being out, most of the guys were trying to pick up the slack coming off the bench. That was basically what we was trying to do.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts...

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