Emeka Okafor Quotations

We've got a winning record -- hooray! We're getting off to a good start this year. Last year we would have come back in the game and then lost.

If that's the way he feels, so be it. I have thick skin. My feelings are not going to be hurt. He's got to make the best decision for him.

I think I stepped on somebody's foot. I'm not in too much pain, but I really can't move (the ankle).

I think it's just a testament to how good of a coach and person he is. He can't make us run suicides or punish us for not being here. We wanted to do this. We wanted to be here to show our appreciation. He's a great guy and a great coach and everybody's here to show love for him.

I think he understands what great talent we have, but he's doing a good job keeping us grounded. The ranking is not going to carry us to the championship game on April 5. We have to live up to it.

To be at the point I am right now is just crazy to me,

This year we are playing with the same heart we had last year. That, and experience. And confidence. Last year we would have come back and then lost the game by two.

We just lose focus or whatever. We play with emotion, but sometimes we seem to get into lulls.

We had some defensive lapses early in the game and then we found a way to get back into the game. Then we fell apart at the end. We played hard, but I'm not big on taking positives from losses like this.

I've never really had a solid, legitimate post game where I felt comfortable with my back to the basket. I could fake it, but my confidence wasn't that high. Now I'm getting it because I have something to work with.

The things Hakeem does, you can't just watch a tape and pick up the move. This was the first time he taught it, and it's hard to teach someone else something you did so naturally. The problem was, if you do something minutely off -- even the way you spin or the way your arm might come out -- he'd have to say, 'No, that's not the move. The move is this.' And you have to do it precisely.

As far as them believing in me, it makes me feel good.

This place is incredible. I'm just happy we have a place that everybody likes. The other place was not good at all.

It was eating me up inside. My first time in the Final Four, I didn't want to miss a minute. I was going to miss 16.

It was a very difficult game to play in, ... I was hurting. I was trying to tough it out, but I was really limited. I wasn't as mobile as I normally was.

It made me feel real special, all warm inside,

You think of guards getting steals and big men getting blocks. But Gerald is such an athletic creature, you see how he does both.

It seemed almost surreal. I'd envisioned myself in this position a million times, and yet it didn't feel like it was really happening.

After that first day I questioned whether or not basketball was for me.

At times they were playing so long out there. Ostertag (7-foot and 280 pounds) is just hard to move. Once you run around him, he's already got the ball in his hands.

I like challenges. The fact that he's 7-feet, a completely mobile guy, it's going to pump me up.

I'm obviously disappointed. The player in me, the competitor in me wants to be out there with my teammates fighting hard and out there having fun playing ball in front of our fans. But the situation is what the situation is. You have to act accordingly.

I'm obviously disappointed. As a player you want to be out there playing hard, having fun in front of our fans. But the situation is what the situation is.

If you don't think you can make the playoffs, then what's the point of even stepping on the court to begin with? Will we make the playoffs? Who knows? But that's our mentality.

If you fill your team with people that are used to winning, the tendency is that they will get the team to win, somehow, someway, eventually,

I looked and Vince Carter, he played like 20-something games one year. I looked at everybody and a lot of high-profile players have missed a lot of games. A lot of them bounced back. So I can think to myself, 'OK, they did it, so I can do it,? and I don?t feel like the biggest loser.

The energy was crazy, ... I wasn't expecting that at all.