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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

CHARLIE FISS: We are joined now by the Baylor Bears. Congratulations on your victory tonight. Coach Scott Drew and his three student athletes, Aaron Bruce, Henry Dugat and Curtis Jerrells.
Coach, your thought on tonight's game?
COACH SCOTT DREW: I want to thank everyone for staying up for us. I know it is getting late. Anyway, we are very happy right now from the standpoint we felt like we really executed well, did what we wanted to do offensively, attacking the press and trying to get easy buckets.
Now we just got to get focused and ready for tomorrow.

Q. C.J., can you talk about how you got through your press? It didn't seem like you had very much trouble with it at all.
CURTIS JERRELLS: Like I told you before, our team is just -- like I said, we guard. When we got both going, we are really hard to beat. You know, they played into our hands really because we got four good guards on the team plus a couple guards off the bench who can really play.
There was three of us in there breaking it down and we had another freshman coming in. We did a good job of handling the ball, getting open and attacking.

Q. Curtis, what is it about Missouri that brings out the best in you? Last year you had a 28 against them, a career high and you have another one tonight?
CURTIS JERRELLS: Basically it is a love for the game. I love to play. We played them and they beat us up there. Our whole team had a little bit of that on our mind. We wanted to come out and give it our all and win it here.

Q. Do you guys feel like this is the way you maybe could have played all year had you all been healthy?
AARON BRUCE: We knew what we were capable of. Obviously we would like to play like that and shoot like that in every game. Basketball, you have to deal with different things, different defenses and you are going to have off nights.
As far as tonight is concerned for us, it is a great feeling right now. It is also over right now. We have to start the preparation for Texas. They are a great team. We have go out and stretch out and get ourselves ready for that.

Q. Curtis, can you talk about the mind-set of the team when they closed it to within three points early in the second half?
CURTIS JERRELLS: I didn't know they closed within three (smiling). Coach did a good job of keeping us focused. That's been kind of a downpoint for us all season. We get a lead and then in between a certain frame time like in the second half, we would lose our leads.
We just didn't want to go down like that again. We wanted to change the way we played. We did a good job with the intensity level. They press a lot and run around a lot. They were going to get some steals and get some scores. It was just a matter of us keeping our composure.

Q. Curtis, you guys played Texas tough twice. Can you talk about the confidence you have now going into that game.
CURTIS JERRELLS: We played them pretty tough but not good enough. I think everybody on the coaching staff and our team knows that. We will have to give a better effort than we did tonight in those other two games if we want to be able to beat them.

Q. Curtis, being from the Austin area, and I'm sure you have been asked this before, did Texas look at you very hard? Did you ever want to go to UT?
CURTIS JERRELLS: Oh, yeah, early on. But in that time frame they had Daniel Gibson -- or they had T.J. Ford and Daniel Gibson going. They were pretty stacked. But they looked at me early on, but took one visit to Baylor University and I found my home.

Q. This is for Henry. You all came in playing well, coming off a win and then played well tonight. Can you maybe just talk about the confidence of the team right now.
HENRY DUGAT: I think it goes toward my teammates for getting me open shots and everybody keying in on them. And also just everybody on the team being put in the hard way, pushing each other to get better and better every day.

Q. Curtis, I know you're not on the selection committee, but do you think you might have just cost Missouri an N.I.T. slot?
CURTIS JERRELLS: I don't know. I don't know what they deal with or where they are going. The only thing I am focused on right now is Baylor.

Q. If you were on the selection committee, would you invite Missouri?
CURTIS JERRELLS: I don't know. That's not up to me, man.

Q. For anyone, first tournament win since 2001. Can you just talk about what this means for the program?
AARON BRUCE: I think it means a lot to the program. We went through some hardships that we personally didn't go through but the University has been through hardships. I think this proves you put a pretty good system in place, recruit the right people, have the right coaches and you can really turn something around. That's been our goal all along. I think we are starting to see some fruits of our labor. We have worked extremely hard. We deserve a tournament win. We have worked very hard. I am happy for our guys and happy for our staff.

Q. C.J., I don't know if you have gone over this, can you tell me the tale of the tooth, please?
CURTIS JERRELLS: Just a little sore, got a little puffy, took a little medicine and I'm fine.

Q. Coach Drew says you are going back to the dentist every game day from here on out. What do you make of that?
CURTIS JERRELLS: I see him pretty often, just checkups. It happened to act up and swell up on me. I took a little medicine and I was okay.

Q. Scott, was this the biggest victory you've had since you have been at Baylor?
COACH SCOTT DREW: Is this the biggest win? I don't think it is the biggest win, but it is big for a couple reasons. One, we haven't won a tournament game since 2001. Two, it is the most wins Baylor University has had since 2001. And shows we are on the right path.

Q. Coach, after the two close games with Texas, how much confidence does it give you as a head coach going into round three?
COACH SCOTT DREW: I think that's a rivalry game. Whenever you have rivalry games, I think you are excited to play. We have a lot of guys on our team that know their guys, D.J. and Tweety grew up playing each other. I know we will be excited and ready to go.

Q. Coach, after having a big lead at half time and they made their run to make it a five-point game, what did you do to step on the throats?
COACH SCOTT DREW: We knew going in it was going to be a game of runs. You could be up 20 or down 20. With their style of play, you need to weather the storm. Our guys knew that. We needed to make sure we could handle that, not panic and let an 8-0 run or whatever run it was lead to bigger run.
Again, credit the maturity of our guys to be able to do that.

Q. Scott, do you feel like your guys have clicked in to some new gear here or what is your thought process?
COACH SCOTT DREW: I like the way we shot tonight. I won't say anything about that, but as far as a new gear, I think we have been playing well.
I mean, if you come to our practices, you probably wouldn't see that because the last two days we haven't had Kevin practicing or A.B. practicing. C.J. missed because of his abscessed tooth. Maybe we practice too much. So we will keep people out for a while, I guess.

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