John Mercer Quotations

We're really excited that we hung in there after losing the doubles point. I saw six very determined singles players today. We gave a great effort and I think this team grew up a lot out there.

She's been solid all year and shown a lot of consistency in her wins and effort. We're glad she was recognized with the award and hopefully she and the rest of the team will continue to improve as we head toward the Conference USA tournament.

I thought we did an excellent job tonight after coming off two losses. We played a very determined match and we came out with a good win.

I thought we played better, especially with the bottom half of the lineup today. We showed a lot of improvement and I feel like we're getting better as we go along.

Pitt was a good team and they will have a good year in the Big East. We're now looking forward to our weekend against Penn State and St. John's.

You just try to get an idea of the certain teams and players play. When you see all the teams during the year you can have a game plan ahead of time of what you need to do. You can work on certain things in practice. This way it's just more fly by the seat of your pants coaching.

We're very proud of Kellie and excited for her. It's very deserved. She had an excellent weekend and has been playing well all year. She won some important matches and hopefully she will continue doing that for us the rest of the way.

We had another tough match with a short turn around after a difficult match last night. I was proud of our team for bouncing back at the level that we did to get the win today.

Those four are the best recruiting class we've had since we've been here. They're going to do nothing but get better and we're excited to see where they take us in the future.

The other is that maybe they are going to be pawns for some leverage in political negotiations. I still have hope that the Taliban have kept them safe for over 100 days now and they will continue to do so,

This week's practices will be all about brushing up on things. We'll help the players with things that they feel they're not doing crisply.

I visited the Taliban embassy this morning and, while they did not come out and say 'yes they're in Kandahar,' they led me to believe that's where they were,

It was a really tough match that our young team will benefit from in the future. I thought it was a great match overall and these are the matches that you want to play to get better if you want to be a Top 25 program like we do.

It should be an exciting weekend for us. We are looking forward to seeing where we stand with this new team. We have a very competitive team from top to bottom that shows up to fight from the first point to the last point. That gives us a lot of potential.

It's nice to get recognized by the conference and to also start moving up in the rankings.

It's very distressing. If I sit back and try to analyze it, you know, it is quite possible that the Taliban consider that they still have an effective government and they can still have a trial in Kandahar,

They were preparing a nice meal for Dayna Curry, whose birthday was on the 4th (of November), ... Over the past few days it had been relatively quiet in Kabul proper and I think emotionally they had all come to develop a sense of resignation that they were in for the long haul, that they were doing OK emotionally but they certainly did want to get out of there as soon as they could.

They were preparing a nice meal for Dayna Curry, whose birthday was on the 4th (November). Over the past few days it had been relatively quiet in Kabul proper and I think emotionally they had all come to develop a sense of resignation -- that they were in for the long haul, that they were doing OK emotionally, but they certainly did want to get out of there as soon as they could.

In practice, we've been working on point patterns and recognition. There are certain sequences you go through during a point. We want (the players) to find a balance between making unforced errors and playing too defensively.

I challenge you to advocate and work to implement a budget for the Montana University System where the state pays at least 50 percent of the cost of education. It would seem you could do at least as well as I did.

All of the players have surprised me at different points in the year. The two sophomores have vastly improved from last year, and the four newcomers have gotten better since the day they've gotten here.