March 9, 2006

Quarterfinal 2: (3) UTEP 66, (11) Southern Miss 47

UTEP Quotes

UTEP Head Coach Doc Sadler
"I thought it was a very hard played game by both teams. Any time you play a Larry Eustachy team, you play against a basketball team that will play hard for 40 minutes and not give you anything. A sign of a good team and outstanding coach is when the game has been decided how hard they continue to play and I thought Southern Miss did that."

We shot the basketball well and we made shots today. The first half, we were outstanding on the offensive glass and Southern Miss got only 2 offensive rebounds and that was a big key. In the second half we did not do quite as well because Southern Miss got 12 offensive rebounds. Our guys competed extremely hard and we get a chance to play tomorrow."

"It used to be if you get to 20 wins you don't have to worry about getting in to the NCAA Tournament. I don't know if 20 wins is a guaranteed spot but I know we get another opportunity along with UAB, and I think the winner of that game will get into the NCAA Tournament and the loser will have a long day on Sunday.

"In terms of the last time we played UAB and won, it won't have anything to do in what happens tomorrow. UTEP has a great home court advantage, maybe the best in Texcas and in college basketball, but UAB has been in so many big ball games. Emotions will be out the window in the first two minutes and then the play will really start.

UTEP Player Jason Williams

"It is a good feeling to get a win coming off a loss. We wanted to make it to the NCAA Tournament and this was the first step. We have another step tomorrow and will try to take the momentum from today's win to tomorrow's game.

"From the first game we played UAB, we took care of the ball and we knew UAB would use their pressure defense. We have to take care of the ball and rebound tomorrow. We have to execute our plays tomorrow and they will not let us have the game and we will not let them have it either. We will both go down fighting.

UTEP Player Miguel Ayala

"It was a tough game and we knew it would be. We played good defense and stayed focused today and played for 40 minutes. We got some shots to go down and we will be ready for tomorrow against UAB.

Southern Miss Quotes

Southern Miss Head Coach Larry Eustachy
"I thought UTEP really played well and had a lot to do with us missing shots. They had five seniors and we had one. They are way ahead of where we're at. With that said, I was really pleased with this group of guys. They fought all the way until the end all year; undermanned and undersized. They've really poured everything into it. I have no qualms at all about this group. I'm really excited for the young guys; (Craig) Craft and (Courtney) Beasley. They're starting to make progress and it will start showing up next year in the win column."

"UTEP was 11-3 in conference for a reason. They had a lot to do in the difference of winning and losing. Not that Tulsa wasn't a very good team, but UTEP is a tournament- type team. We missed a lot of shots, and for some reason, we looked a little fatigued out there. We shouldn't have looked that way, but we did and we tried."

"I almost had a feeling, and I tried to guard against it after the Tulsa game and all the way up to tip-off, that we were kind of satisfied about where we were at. We won a game in a way we hadn't won in a while. I think it's human nature for young guys, and I tried to guard against it, for them to relax. We lost the game in the beginning and could never get back in it."

Southern Miss Player Jason Forte
"A lot of the younger guys from this experience should really learn from a lot of the things that went on this season both good and bad. They should grow from the good things and delete the bad things from the program. I feel like coach said, that we did get too relaxed after winning one game yesterday. We didn't come out the same way today and we lost."

Southern Miss Player Courtey Beasley
"It just hurts to lose like we did. From my experience playing with Jason (Forte), I can just learn from him. Learning from what coach taught us, it hurt really bad to go out like we did."