John Beilein Quotations

When we were up 20 with 2 to go, I said to myself 'Even I can't blow this one. It was nice to not have those gut-wrenching final seconds.

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.

When he dove for the ball he ended up getting stomach cramps. Something cramped up in his stomach and he couldn't do much after that.

There are eight of them, so 50 percent of them probably will have to contribute immediately.

We heard a lot about their defense, and it is flat-out terrific, but we play pretty good defense too, and we've been able to score on a lot of good teams.

We have ice bags taped to players all over the place, but we had guys step up and so, we keep playing.

When we shoot them like that, we can play with a lot of people.

We've never had anybody like this. It's something we try to feed off of. He's essentially got a green light. He disciplines himself.

Senior players have helped us make our style work. It just opens the floor for us, whether people are in man or zone.

Mike practiced and looked good. We are not overly concerned.

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.

Now we just go back and teach. We start over.

I wish they listened to me that attentively in some of our meetings because our guys were on the edge of their seat.

If we're shooting well, we're a tough out.

I have had 1,000 people tell me that they used to go in a pick-up truck with their father and drive up on a mountain and listen to the games on the radio. We must have had a heck of a gym because I have had a million people say they saw Jerry West play.

I don't have any experience in this area. I've only had one child born during the season, but we were traveling on vans then.

I don't do an awful lot of that vibe stuff. It's good for our fans that they've been down there before.

I don't deal with it at all. I just coach my team. Anybody that is doing that right now isn't coaching his team. But there's probably going to be a lot of coaching changes.

I don't know what to think, I'm in a bit of shock right now.

I don't care about seeding, they can seed us anywhere. We just wanted to get to the NCAA Tournament and play the best that we can play. People who complain about seeds probably are doomed to lose very quickly. It's like complaining about the officials. You can't do anything about them, so you do the best you can.

I am trying to stress how great this win is with how St. John's has been the last few Big East games.

But everybody in West Virginia feels the tragedies. We all know how important mining is, how important it is to the welfare of the families, the employment, and we all know the dangers involved and the history of the early unions there, the horrors that have occurred over the years in the mines.

(Basketball) is nothing compared to what he and his wife are going to enjoy.

I did not expect that type of performance from us.

There is no difference between Notre Dame and the teams in the top of the league.

Going into these tournaments, momentum is way overrated. Look how we went into last year, with that loss to Seton Hall and then an unbelievable bus trip to New York.

His skill level, and my love for having big guys who can shoot, made the marriage work. He plays and shoots and passes the way I like our big guys to do it to make our offense and defense work.

He's getting there, ... It's going to take a lot of hard work. Our hope is that Kevin will be able to outrun and out-condition the centers we play against. He's going to play a lot of minutes if he can do that.

The pace was incredible. Do you turn off the tempo? You just have to let the kids go. They got in that zone.

We look at that every morning, ... We want to remember that every day, how bad we felt. That's the only picture we left up. That will motivate us.

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

I admire the way (the Panthers) play and how smart they play defensively.

Kevin is younger than most of our seniors, and some men could not handle all the attention the way he has. He is a very special person.

Kevin came in here on a mission. I thought we were a little bit out of character at Pitt. We probably tried to do a little bit too much and probably didn't realize what good defense Pitt plays. We took shots we thought were good and they weren't because Pitt guards you.

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.

I thought we had tremendous looks, but we just couldn't knock them down.

I thought that's what he was going to try to do (miss). That's why I called a timeout. Thank goodness, he made the shot.

It is not a gimmick. I wouldn't compare it to a wishbone, I'd say it is more like the fun and gun because they spread you out and they are going to shoot the 3-pointer 25 times.

I watch tape of them and I don't have answers. We have to make 10 or 11 3s and hope they have an off night. There are just not a lot of answers for this team.

Jerry's had a great impact on our program. If you look at how we've done since he joined the staff - it's been nothing but upward.

Our usual trademark is to make foul shots down the stretch, and tonight we didn't. We had two of our best free throw shooters at the line.

Right now our kids don't care how banged up they are. They know what's at stake.

Pitt played tremendous defense on us. We did our best to open looks. It was hard to get them. They frustrate you.

(Marshall) played a great game and they're getting better every day. I thought they just played excellent defense on us. We did all of the things we wanted to do to get open shots and they just didn't go in.

It felt like 10 years ago that we had beaten a really good team. We didn't have that quality win yet.

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.

The 1-3-1 is very hard to prepare for in just one day. It was a staple of everybody's team in the 1970s.

That was a great basketball game. Their tempo is incredible. No one had pushed us at that pace all year.

That's the thing I think of when I think of this rivalry. That's when I sensed it was something special.

That's way overrated. Momentum can change so quickly. One injury, one missed shot, a missed dunk, technical. Momentum is too changeable for me to put much stock in it.

That's a very important thing, and I'll let him make that choice.

I would hope he's distracted like crazy. This is a pretty big event. It makes basketball seem like nothing.

I would never have imagined that. I don't know if this game can be any more intense than it is right now.

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.

We just couldn't get over the hump. That's just the way it goes. We'll learn something from it.

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.

We were two possessions away for almost the whole second half, but I don't want to start that moral victory stuff. Now, we have to get ready to play Syracuse Monday night.

We're all trying to get as many wins as possible and they took a major step with the win tonight. I thought they played tremendous defense on us. We couldn't make shots the way we normally do.

We played just a brilliant first half. We really got after them from the start.

We have been successful against a No. 1 and a No. 2 seed, and that's pretty good to beat both in the same year.

We played to the top level that we can play. Unfortunately, so did Cincinnati.

We'll use a 10-man rotation and everybody just has to give us enough. I hope that's not an issue. The issue will be the talent we face.

We've had four (of these) with other fans celebrating at our expense, so it was nice to see our fans get a chance.

We know that they're going to play good defense. We call it the New Jersey defense, the strong, tough defense. We knew that they were going to play that way.

Today's win was much-needed before the road trip. I can't really say I am comfortable now. I think our schedule has helped.

You knew the second half was going to be a root canal. They went after us with everything they had with their waves, and we got worn down, but we were still standing at the end.

You knew the second half was going to be a root canal.

Those miners trapped a week ago Saturday might well have been watching our game against U.C.L.A., if they could have. At the very least, it gives you perspective. It brings you back to earth.

We were just trying to win everyday at practice, so I can't say I ever thought about this. But to get to this point, it's very rewarding.

We beat a great Pitt team tonight. Our seniors were outstanding. Their effort was terrific.

What I remember the first time is that they dunked about the first five or six shots. They did a great job against us, with dribble-drive penetration and finding (Eric) Hicks, finding (Jihad) Muhammad. They out-hustled us on many occasions in the first half.

We started to shoot too quickly, maybe we played too smart and stopped attacking. We had good shots and didn't make them and that other team was charging. Then Kevin hit that big shot we really needed, the big dagger.

We learned at Syracuse that we had to attack inside and outside for scoring success. It's rare that you see a game where we shoot twenty-some percent (from 3-point range) and win.

With 5 seconds it's just very hard to match their quickness.

We have five returning players, and Jamie is six. So, we'll probably go a little deeper into the year before we sort things out.

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

This was an ambitious endeavor by us to come all the way out here, but as it turns out now, I'm glad we did.

Two more shots and we might have won this game.

Tonight's game wasn't about who had better players or better coaches. That shot was all about luck. We had some good luck and they had some bad.

We knew going in that it was going to be a root canal in the second half. They just went after us with everything they had, but in the end, we were still standing.

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.

We just try to get good shots. We take what's given.

We just had a really tough road trip at Pitt, Georgetown and at Seton Hall. There's not too many times you feel fortunate to win one out of three. But I do feel that way, even though we would have liked to win them all, or two out of three.

What's good about it is we played both Pitt and Louisville the past two weeks. We'll be prepared to make the final adjustments Thursday afternoon.

We're very excited about our television schedule. To go from one or two national games a year to possibly double-digit games on national television is good news, but you can't get on television unless you play the top teams in the country. It speaks well about the direction of our program.

We had played against him in the A-10 when I was at Richmond, so as a result I watched him on tape and ended up saying to my Richmond staff 'These are the type of kids we need to recruit if we want to win at a higher level.

We couldn't have done it without the crowd. It's a lot easier to dive for those loose balls when the crowd's behind you.

Everybody just looks at the stats as the telltale sign. Pitt just played tremendous defense. We tried to get open looks. It was very hard to get them.

There's no secret. There's nothing. I've been doing this 31 years and there's no real secret.

Things were very quiet in the locker room. And then I asked for a moment of prayer.

They are a blend of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and maybe a Georgetown with the way they guard. They are just a great defensive team. You hear a lot about it, but, watching it with my own eyes, you can see they have great quickness.

The schedule is a little bit different this year. Don't give us too much credit yet.

The stats tell the story of the game. Pitt played a tremendous game. We'll learn a lot from this game. It was very hard to get open looks in this game.

Sometimes that zone just spooks people. I still haven't gotten used to how fast leads can change. When we make threes, the defense just steps up big time. Everyone gets pretty charged up. That's the beauty of the three.

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.

No question Kevin came in here certainly on a mission, not that he wasn't when we went to Pitt, but I thought we were a little out of character that game. We tried probably to do too much and we didn't realize how good their defense is and we took shots that we thought were good shots, but in retrospect, they weren't because Pitt guards you. This time, Kevin was a little more patient and the result -- he scores 26 more points than he did the first time.

Any team that can beat Pittsburgh can beat anyone.

This is a pretty big event. It makes basketball seem like nothing. If he's caught between games, or he can not make a game because of the delivery, then we'll just play on through it, and get better as a team. That's what happens. We'd prefer a healthy baby much more than a healthy game.

They were like the New York Yankees in that it was tough to love them, even though you had great respect for them. Now, I look back at them and I'm a coach, and I just marvel at what they were able to accomplish. I mean, they've had nothing but success.