Kelvin Sampson Quotations

We felt like if there was an area we could dominate, it would be the boards. It's comforting to know we don't have to shoot well and we have a chance to make second and third shots.

We're playing good enough to win, and that's a great attribute to have. Our kids know how to win games.

We're good at the guard position, but I don't think you can have two point guards. I think you need one. We've got to figure out who we're going to play there.

When you ask how is recruiting going, I think it's going great because we're going to keep D.J.. To me, he was the most important recruit.

(My) team could get a lot better, though, and that's what's exciting.

I wish he'd already had that breakout game because you know it's coming. They're going to put it together soon, and Aaron is going to lead them.

I came to Indiana for one reason, I think you can win championships at Indiana. You think of Indiana basketball and you not only think of tradition but championship tradition.

I came to Indiana for one reason: I think you can win championships at Indiana. I think together we can do some special things at Indiana University.

I am really thrilled to have Rob, Jerry and Jeff as part of our staff. When you combine them with Coach McCallum and Coach Meyer, our staff is as good as any team in the country.

But we're a little bit different team than we were against Missouri and Nebraska. There's no secret that our guards are playing a lot better now that we have them all.

I'm a huge proponent of weight training. We lift at 6 because of the work ethic required, the discipline and doing the right thing. It makes them accountable. It makes them be on time.

I don't think our league is different than anybody else's. A month ago Kansas was struggling. I think they are pretty good right now. A month ago we were struggling. We're pretty good right now.

Give that kid credit for making tough shots. He kept MSU in the game.

He gives Texas an identity. An important part of being a good team is you're going to be known for something. P.J. gives them a toughness and orneriness because that's the way he plays.

He's a unique player and he kind of does what we need.

He was in a group that could have made it or not made it. But I said there's no way we're going out of this country playing on a team without P.J. Tucker. That's one of the things the USA teams have missed in the past. We've taken cookie-cutter kids instead of kids with big hearts who know how to win.

Kevin is the epitome of a student-athlete. He has all the values we really emphasize here.

Kevin's in all our drills, ... He's shooting, doing his hook shot, shooting free throws. He's doing everything except contact.

I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to what they say. If I were putting together a 64-team (field), I think it's almost impossible to say Colorado does not deserve it.

I think I talked to a group of kids that desperately want a coach and need a coach right now. I need them right now because I left behind an incredible group of kids (at Oklahoma), and I think they need me, too.

It is a little bit embarrassing to stand up here and be asked about NCAA violations, but you also have to realize we're human and we make mistakes. I made a mistake but we've corrected it and moved forward.

I think we had a chance to build a lead or take the lead because we were getting stops. We just didn't get it done.

I think we're a top 10-type team. If this team stays healthy, we'll be hard to beat.

I think we've just got to learn to sustain. Turnovers can come in a lot of forms. Sometimes a bad shot's a turnover. Shot-selection turnovers. It was a frustrating game.

I think Texas is good, but I don't think there's a lot of difference between the two teams. I thought Gibson was a lot more active today. Texas was good today, but I was more disappointed in our team than I was impressed with Texas.

Jimmy is great. To me, he's great with the kids and he's excellent for your program.

I think everybody has so much respect for coach Sutton. When something like that happens, we all feel our own mortality. He and the Oklahoma State family are in our thoughts and prayers.

I remember thinking he's lucky to be alive. That was my first reaction. But the more I heard, the more I wanted this kid on my team.

Recruiting is not something you can rush. You have to be patient with it. At the same time, you have to work behind the scenes with the coaches. Those are the people I want to get to know the best.

That call could have could have went either way. Sometimes you've just got to have a break.

I thought he played like a veteran. His play is so important for us. He makes all these guys better.

I think this is going to be a fun team to watch. I'm really looking forward to getting started.

That would probably help. I think P.J. is probably going to class now.

That was an important game for a lot of reasons. I kept telling (Everett) that he was one good game away from breaking out.

That was a mistake that we made. There really is no excuse. . . . I don't know that as a staff we took that rule seriously enough. I think if you look back at the compliance of our programs over the last 19 years as a major college head coach, we've never had an issue with NCAA rules, nor will we again.

I would like to have seen Colorado get in because of their body of work, 9-7 in the league. But I'm a Big 12 guy. There are so many deserving teams you can make a case for. I'd hate to have the committee's job. It's tough.

Who knows what will happen in February? We dug ourselves into a hole early. But I like how we're playing heading into this stretch of the season.

Whoever got Mike Neal was getting an impact guard, and we obviously knew that coming in. A lot of times shooters are one-trick ponies. Michael is an outstanding shooter who happens to be a really good basketball player.

We feel fortunate to win this game. But you know what? Five months from now nobody's going to ask you won it. We're 19-6 and now we move forward.

We're all trying to get that one little thing to get us going. Whichever team does that has a chance to finish higher in the standings.

We couldn't have played any better for 34 minutes. We had the crowd out of the game. It's disappointing. This one is hard to handle because I thought we outplayed them for a long time and they outplayed us the last 6 minutes.

We played tough, we played with great determination. This was a very important game for us. Not just because we avoided going 0-3 (in the Big 12), but it is good to win and then have a week off to practice.

We had no answer for Blalock and Stinson. Iowa State has the two best guards on a single team in the Big 12.

We were happy we won those games, but you could just tell that we didn't have our edge. When you lose your edge, it's hard to get back.

We haven't changed anything, we haven't added new plays. We've finally started to put it all together.

The problem with being ranked so high comes if you don't play up to expectations. But we never had our guys. We were always saying what would happen if we could ever get them back. We expected to be a good team, but we weren't the only team to go through some injuries.

You look up and we're up 10, we miss a 1-and-1, we miss three free throws and it's like 'How do you lose a lead?

We won the league last year and didn't get to play in Oklahoma City.

We weren't as good as them for 38 minutes, but we were for 40.

When North Carolina won the national championship last year, they had a lot of two-year players. You get them at the front end or back end. It just depends on how you want to look at it.

We had a couple of sand bags in the dike, but it's just embarrassing. I don't know what else to say.

When the game got tight, out of every timeout we would run something for Michael.

Every workout we've had D.J. has been there. He hasn't missed one thing. And he's been great. I love his attitude and his work ethic. He's working hard in the weight room, and he's working hard on the court.

We're three points away from being 2-0 in the league. But we're 0-2. Unfamiliar territory, but I look at situations like this as an opportunity to bounce back and do something unique.

The defenses they play, they play very well.

Tonight we took a step forward and you have to look at the positives. I'm not the type to sit around and analyze what we don't have. I'd rather emphasize what we do have. I emphasize rebounds with our guards.

Tonight was a little bit of an ambush. I just didn't see this one coming. If we can't find a way to get this turned around, we're probably going to have just one more game.

This team desperately needs leadership. Coaches can fuel practice, but come game time, you've got to have kids that are more vocal, with more fire.

This was really important. We could be 0-3, if Terrell doesn't hit that shot. But we could easily be 3-0, too. It was good to win this game and have a week off.

UNCP is a very special place to me, and I'm honored to be involved in a campaign that is as important to Pembroke's future as this is. Athletics is a huge part of the total college experience ... it plays a huge role in molding character and creating tradition.

We don't run a motion maybe in the pure sense. We run some sets, we run some continuity. We've been able to do it different ways.

You have to take what you're good at and work with it.

We just had to roll the dice and keep Terrell in there.

We just gave them too many extra possessions. They kicked out butts on the boards and that doesn't happen very often.

We lost a one-point game and a two-point game without our best shooter. I knew when we got him back we'd be a lot better shooting team.

We had them at the end of the shot clock a lot tonight, but Jackson, he just made big plays. That's the sign of a good player.

Brandon can be as good as he wants to be. Had he been a little better in Chicago (NBA pre-draft camp), he wouldn't be here. He's a pro. There's a reason he was in Chicago. Guys that athletic and guys that long usually aren't three-point shooters. But there's no area he's not good at.

D.J. has been at every practice. He's our hardest worker. There's not a day gone by where we haven't called each other. He was the most important recruit.

Confidence is like a drug. Right now, we're playing with a lot of it.

Duke is the premier basketball program in the nation. For us, this is a great opportunity, and to me, it is an honor to go to Duke and play. Playing Duke will be a great experience for our kids and will certainly prepare us for the wars we are going to have to play in the Big Ten.

Is that good or bad? The league is so talented, I don't know what advantage it gives you. There are about four or five teams in this league that are good enough to win it.

I see this as something like a snowball. Get it rolling, and it's got to start somewhere.

I've been at Oklahoma for 12 years, but I don't remember many times that I've left the court where I was embarrassed as I was tonight.

They are a good defensive team. We were trying to score as much as we could, but they just wouldn't let us.

The second half, we did a great job of running our stuff. We had great movement, we set great screens.

The strength of the team is up front now. But we don't have a guy who you know can give you points when the going gets tough.

I want a staff that could relate to young people, understand our values that our program will have and that will not only serve as a source of motivation but also guide young men to become better players, better students and better people. These two guys will be tremendous representatives of our program and our university.

Texas has kind of separated itself. They're the one team that cannot be at their best and win, because they're good. There's not that much difference between the rest of us right now. We're all searching.

Sometimes, you have to know when a guy is feeling it. You could just tell for some reason, he got his hop back.

Sometimes you have to go with who is feeling it.

Sometimes recruiting is either through convenience or necessity. We can't go into next season with the team we have right now up front. We have to have some help. And if you need immediate help, the best source for that is junior college right now and that's where we'll go. We need some size.

People can say what they want and think what they want. I like Eddie Sutton. I respect Eddie Sutton.

As he's gotten healthy, he's gotten better and better. He's got a great feel for the game. He can do a lot more things than he's doing right now. As he gets older, gains maturity in this program, he's going to be a really good player in this league.

You would think we'd never, ever, ever scouted an opponent or worked on defense or any of those things. We tried to man them. We tried to zone them. We couldn't get them to miss.

You may upset one team, but you don't sneak up on the next one. This team is not Cinderella. This team is the security guard at the back door. They'll beat you up.

This is the first of my 12 teams at Oklahoma that have practiced harder than they played. They practiced and competed hard this week. But come game time they didn't play as hard as they should have.

This isn't Cinderella. This is the security guard at the back door. They'll beat you up.

This has been a frustrating season in a lot of ways. This is the first of my 12 teams that practiced harder than they played. Come game time, we didn't always play as hard as we should have.

They run out there behind that three-point line and it's kind of like a sea to them. Kevin doesn't guard three-point shooters . . . In the back of Kevin's mind, when he gets that far out, the first thing he's thinking about is getting beat off the dribble.

Amazing thing is he tipped it in with his left hand, and it's broken.

There was no way we were leaving the country without P.J. Tucker.

There's a reason why we won the league last year - these two guys here and the way they played. This is the first time all year that these guys played the same way.

It seems this topic comes up every year on the conference call since Syracuse won the national championship. We see a lot of zone for obvious reasons -- because we have a hard time making 3s.

I truly love Oklahoma, but Indiana is a program that all coaches hope to coach at one day. Once they offered, it was just one of those programs that I couldn't turn down.

It makes everyone better. It's like in football -- if all you can do is run, they just stick nine guys in the box. This year we have a perimeter and a post attack. It's a lot easier to watch.

It's been a frustrating season in a lot of ways.

Confidence comes through in your swagger. Our program has always had a swagger, regardless of where we play. This team is just now starting to get it.

That kid would run through a wall if you asked him to,

I've had some great conversations with these guys and I'm not trying to talk them in or talk them out of anything. I'm just trying to get to know them and trying to do that in the best way possible. You have to respect these kids. I'm also dealing with it on the other side (in Oklahoma), and it is sensitive.

Oklahoma was the difference today from the first game. We just didn't have it today. I thought Texas played good against us the first time. But we didn't show up today. It was simple as that.