Steve Alford Quotes

"It wasn't the start we wanted. I've always felt like the team that plays Thursday has an advantage in the Friday game, but we weathered that and found a way to move on."

"People who come for the dogs come here primarily to eat, drink and have a good time,"

"I think the majority of the players who leave early aren't successful. You have more failure stories than success stories with that, but that's the nature of our game right now."

"There was a lot of emotion for the seniors, but not just for them. Sometimes it's what your teammates do (on Senior Night), and I think we saw that."

"I think some people would say the numbers are the same. But with the casinos, we're fighting a trend and everyone else is going down, ... The fact is, we're not going down. Our people do go to the casinos, but they don't go up there every day."

"It hit us at a good time. We hadn't had a break for a while. We got away from basketball Sunday, and we got away from it (Wednesday)."

"It was the same scenario. The last 5 minutes, I just thought they were the tougher basketball team."

"Fans will see intense basketball and competitive games. It will be a great prelude to what will happen in the national tournament."

"It?s something coach Knight used to always do. It?s a long season. It?s a grind. Back when I played, there were 18 (conference) games. It gets to be very long and can mentally really wear your team down."

"I never once had a conversation with the A.D. at Missouri. But it gets reported that way and it just gets blown up and goes from there. There was no contact on my part with Indiana. Obviously that's my alma mater, and if they wanted to talk I would have at least listened out of my respect for my alma mater."

"This isn't the end of the season, but it's a bad defeat."

"Both Alex and Carlton expressed their desire to explore other options. We wish them well and will provide assistance as they search for a better fit."

"Maybe your anxiety and nerves are different. Every year it seems we're on the brink and not knowing how many games we had to win or in '01 knowing we needed to win all of them to get in. It's a different feeling this year. There's the pressure that we think we're a pretty good basketball team and winning one of the two Big Ten championships is out there."

"We appreciate the hard work and efforts that Rich and Greg have extended on behalf of this program over the past seven years. With 46 wins in the last two seasons and six straight winning seasons, they have contributed to a lot of the successes we have enjoyed. In my long?term commitment toward the future, I wanted to move Brian to director of basketball operations and felt these moves were necessary for the continued progress of the program."

"I couldn't be more happy or pleased for our seniors to go out this way."

"I think he'll be okay. We can get him a lot of rest heading into the weekend. Hopefully he'll be okay."

"There's no question text-messaging recruits is very valuable. That's something that's changed. It's amazing how rules keep changing and it seems like the rules keep trying to keep up with technology, whether it be e-mails or text messaging, but that's one thing in the rules where we're allowed to stay in pretty good contact with people."

"When you end up getting into the profession, you end up learning how important that end is. This is a group of guys who have gotten older and matured through the Big Ten. ... They understand the benefits that go into defending."

"It's a tremendous win for our program. We're in the midst of a special journey. We're trying to win something. It's going to be an incredible battle, but this was a big hurdle."

"Obviously a tremendous, tremendous win for our team and our program. We're in the midst of a very special journey right now."