BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 4, 1999

Tommy Amaker

Gary Saunders

COACH AMAKER: I'm not sure I know really what to say. I thought it was a very, very exciting game for the Big East tournament. Congratulations to Connecticut. I thought Kevin Freeman was just a warrior, and the way he's played all year and his style of play and how tough he can be. He made so many big plays, so many big plays for their team to win their game. And I thought Gary had a heck of a ball game for himself and our team. But you can recognize a great basketball team when they step up to the challenge and make the plays, and that's what they have done to us each time we've played them.

COACH AMAKER: I don't think it's anything with our guys. I think you give credit where credit is due. I thought they were a great basketball team. They made the plays to win. They are a great team. I don't know what else you say about them. Everyone knows how good they are. I thought we gave them a terrific test and opportunity to win the game. I thought we did a lot of things to win put ourselves in position and we didn't come through, bottom line.

COACH AMAKER: In order for us to get a shot at it, we feel we have to control tempo. We can't go up-and-down with their team, and that's one of the things they do better than anyone in the country is transition and get easy baskets. And we feel if we can somehow shorten the game, we have a tempo, we feel we have a chance to win, and that's something we've talked about with our guys. And I thought our players responded well and did a lot of nice things in terms of shortening the game, how we ran our defense, how we ran our offense, making them play defense. But they are so explosive and have so many weapons and they came through.

COACH AMAKER: I can't speak for them. They have won a lot of close games and they know how to win; obviously, and they do what it takes to get over the hump in any type of situation and they have shown that time and time again.

GARY SAUNDERS: The second one I was trying to miss and I tried to shoot it off-balance and the ball just went in the rim. I tried to shoot it short. And when I want to make free throws, I miss them, and when I want to miss them, I make them.

GARY SAUNDERS: I wasn't frustrated because I knew there was enough time on the clock where we could get a quick play -- miss the free throw and get a quick bucket because we run a play where we -- one of the big guys, they scream down for the guards and the guard goes in and he tips it, and I just happened to miss -- to make the free throw and make it.

COACH AMAKER: Right now, I'm not really sure. We've tried that before with Connecticut. And we're 0-3 against them this season and we've tried to use positive things, keep taking positives out of a negative, out of a loss, to a great team, it gets old, and that's something we're going to work on. Hopefully, we have some basketball to be played. I'm hoping that we put ourselves in a position to get a postseason birth, and we'll wait and see how that turns out.

COACH AMAKER: That's not up to me or up to us. We hope we've got the attention of the powers to be, and we're waiting to see how this turns out. It would be a terrific bonus for our kids for fighting through some tough times this year throughout the season, and if we can somehow put together two NITs in terms of the two years that we've been on board here, I think it would be a tremendous statement about our program.

GARY SAUNDERS: It's tough for me and it's tough on my team. Connecticut is a tough team. We come out and we try and play as hard as we can. We go over the scouting reports and guys try to get ready for the game. We try to keep it close with those guys, but they always find a way to win.

COACH AMAKER: Well, yeah, always an option for us. I think he was doing a nice job for us the first half, handling the ball. You could see his play was coming back to him. We got into a groove and stuck with a lineup that we thought was the best lineup for us down the stretch. And maybe I can second-guess myself on that now, but I thought the players that we had out there were the ones that got us to that point and we went with it.

COACH AMAKER: We've won some close games. It's not that we don't know how to win close games. When you're playing a great team, that's clearly on a mission -- I'm very impressed with their club and Coach Calhoun has done it a number of years, and deservedly they are in a position -- to not only win the Big East tournament, but also the National Championship. I thought we were making the plays to win down the stretch and I'm proud of our guys. We didn't win the game, but we brought the effort; we brought the energy; and we brought the execution, and sometimes you can do that and bring it all and not win and that happened for us today.