Cheryl Burnett Quotations

We really felt heading into the game we had to stop the two seniors. Their easy baskets early hurt us.

When I looked on the court last year, about every possession I was seeing four freshmen. We'll be the most experienced sophomore class in the Big Ten. Finally, we have some experience. Finally, now we have some carry-over in knowledge.

My expectation will be -- has been every year -- it will always be to get into the NCAA tournament, whatever that means. I will be disappointed if that does not happen this year.

I'd like to answer that question honestly, but we have seven. It's not like it's going to change.

When you're down at halftime with the season we've had, it would have been easy to quit. They didn't. They fought back. That takes an incredible amount of heart and integrity.

We were still within shouting distance. And then of course they busted it open.

We didn't always take the open shots, we made things harder than they had to be, and then when Ohio State got it going in the second half, that was the ball game.

We still have one of the youngest teams in America.

We have great respect for Michigan State. And sometimes fans need to learn from fans what they need to do.

We put ourselves in a position (to win). A couple of shots go in, we get a couple more (defensive) stops and we win a game. I'm proud of our kids for battling, but we're not a program that just wants to battle (with) people. We want to beat people.

We have seven (players). We just have to deal with it. Two of the volleyball players got in tonight.

Those two seniors have done a great job of being leaders. They're both such special players. I love the way they compete. I didn't get to see them as freshmen. But I'm sure it didn't matter.

Either we were scoring or we were turning the ball over. We thought this was a good time to play them with them coming off two tough games, but we didn't execute well enough.

Purdue has some players that, in the time of need, are really going to step up and want the basketball.

Our seven kids have just done an incredible job of hanging in there. You can see it in their faces and in their eyes. It gives us great hope for next year when we add numbers and get our three leading scorers back. It's a special group of kids. It shows their integrity and their heart.

No question, our inability to handle their pressure was the difference. I'm not taking anything away from Michigan State. But we didn't make very good decisions.

It looks like if we just played the second half, we would have won the game. I'm real proud of how our kids fought back.

It looks like if we had just played the second half, we could have won.

The volleyball kids' listening skills are incredible. You just ask them to do something and they go out on the floor and do it.

I'm not criticizing or saying it should or should not be that way. But neutrality is a major issue. Neutrality would level the playing field.

I'm really proud of our kids. In the first half, I thought our players came out with the game plan in mind.

I'm taking nothing away from Michigan State - they do a great job with their pressures, with the kind of presses and defenses they throw out - but at the same time, we just weren't making very good decisions.

The greatest thing about the tournament is that everyone starts over. We get to leave the regular season behind us and it's one game at a time.