John Beilein Playing Quotations

It's tough to get in a rhythm in this league. You can go to playing teams who play all zone one day, to teams who play all (man-to-man defense) the next.

It's very, very impressive right now for a freshman playing in that type of pressure situation.

I hope people don't think, all of a sudden, you're not playing well. You're just playing better teams, you're playing on the road and it's a tough test for all of us.

We're thrilled to still be playing ball in March.

I think he has to dunk on you, like two times, before you realize you're playing against a giant of a man. Hicks is as good a player as there is in the league and certainly a player who will merit (All-Big East) first-team considerations.

I think Louisville is playing at the highest level they have all year.

When we don't get turnovers, we can't win. We had just enough late to hold on to the lead by playing tight defense and swarming the ball. We really dug out some ugly rebounds tonight.

We need to play with confidence, there's no question about it. It means a great deal for us to be playing at home with a great crowd against a great team with a chance for us to be in the top of the Big East. That's a heck of an accomplishment.

You knew it was going to be like a root canal in the second half. They just came after us with everything they had, but in the end we are still standing. You look at our players right now and we got ice bags all over the place, cramps all over the place, but we did not quit. So we keep on playing for at least one more game.

It's not a very relaxing time to have an extra day or two off for the coaches. It's always a challenge playing them because they've basically played volleyball against us on the backboards.

He was just playing so hard. He had difficulty with his shot but was out there keeping balls alive.

It seems like a year ago that we played. I don't know if it's an advantage playing a team a second time.

I thought we put on a pretty good clinic for most of the game. Kevin is really playing well and developing into a complete player.

Rather than those gut-wrenching last seconds, it was good to just get some of these guys out of there and let them enjoy the experience of playing in the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe we got a little fatigued there. We keep playing and playing and maybe that caught up with us a little. I created the problems a little. I knew that we were not going back to Morgantown for one day. That wore on us, because we're not a deep team. We need rest.

When you play a team like Southern Illinois, you're looking in the mirror. They are a very good team that has had a very good season, or else we wouldn't be playing them.