March 5, 2005

2005 West Coast Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Santa Clara University - Leavey Center

USD Head Coach Brad Holland's opening statement:
'It's very gratifying to beat Pepperdine two times this season. They're a very talented, dangerous team. A couple of things that were very important: one was rebounding...We backed it up tonight and beat them on the boards and at the same time shot 50 per cent from the field.

Brandon Gay on first half shooting:
Not like this afternoon. It seems like in the first half everything that went up went in. It was fun...because Pepperdine is one of our rivals. It was like you hit a couple and you get in that groove. I thought I was in the groove in the first half.

Holland on Gay's first half shooting:
It was not by accident. Brandon shot 51 per cent for the year

Nick Lewis on USD's inside game versus Pepperdine:
We have always had pretty good success against them inside. When you leave Brandon wide open like that he's going to kill you.

Holland on the physical nature of the game:
It's a physical game and it has been in this conference this year. We have a lot of older, bigger players in this league. And obviously Pepperdine has a couple of them.

Holland on the pressure in last 4 minutes of the game:
They have the ability to turn up the heat on you. We made a couple of cross court passes that were bad decisions. That's Pepperdine. They can turn it on you quickly. For the most part I think we warded them off well.

Holland on facing Gonzaga in the semifinals:
Obviously we know each other well. A month ago when we walked out of their arena I heard our players say we want another shot at them. I just reminded them we wanted another shot and here we go. We're a team that is playing extremely well. We believe that when we walk out on the floor we're going to win.

PEPPERDINE:
Pepperdine Head Coach Paul Westphal's opening statement:
(It was a) very unusual game... Unbelievable shooting performance by Brandon Gay. That was astonishingly good. I look at the stat sheet and if we do that (what we did) we're going to win most games. We did a lot of good things. I was very proud of our team. It's a tough ending to a tough season for us. We were fighting back the whole way. There was a lot of good basketball out there by both teams.

Westphal on 0-18 shooting by Yakhouba Diawara:
I think he was taking it real hard to the basket and ending up in the back a lot. It's a tough end for the career of a very good player.

Alex Acker on Brandon Gay's first half shooting:
I think Brandon he had a really good game in the first half. He came out ready to play.

Glen McGowan on finishing his collegiate career with a loss:
Yes, very difficult. I've been through a lot at Pepperdine. I didn't want my season to end like that. I can say that college, at Pepperdine, has made myself a man

McGowan on the physical nature of the game:
It was tough to get a call down there. It was a very physical game down low. It seems like we didn't get a break at all.

Paul Westphal on how the game reflected the season:
Yes, it actually did. I'm very proud of this team. It kept bouncing back from breaks it shouldn't have had to bounce back from.