March 5, 2005

SANTA CLARA
Coach Dick Davey's opening statement:
We're ecstatic about having the chance to go to night two. I'm excited for our kids and hopefully we can continue to play with the type of energy we had tonight. We tried to become a little more precise...handling the press a little smarter. Second half we didn't get much at all. When you're up 12-14-17, its kind of my thinking the opponent is going to come after you and be a little more aggressive and you're not going to get shots.

Davey on the keys for Saint Marys game:
Hopefully play hard and the ball is going to go into the basket...maybe a little luck.

Brody Angley on his mentality going into the game:
For me it just keeping the season going (for the SCU seniors); helping the players

Kyle Bailey on facing USF for the third time:
Definitely we got confidence from the second half (last week against USF). Pretty much we just carried over the intensity. The wound was still fresh.

Davey on SCU's defense:
We have a game plan that we tried last week - kind of stuck with the same game plane. We just were a little more precise. I look at the stats. We shot 36 per cent and they shot 33. The teams were playing pretty good defense out there.

USF
Coach Jessie Evans' opening statement:
I thought from the opening tip we were battling uphill. We get the tip and they still go down and score a layup. I think they came out a little more aggressive. They made plays. Once we got behind it was a tough goal. We battled back, second half; got it down to several possessions. We just could not get it down to just one possession or whatever. It was just a battle the whole game. I thought they were in control the whole time, even though we held them to just 1 or 2 field goals the last 13 minutes of the game.

John Cox on SCU's defense in the second half:
Yeh, they picked up the intensity a little bit on defense.

Tyrone Riley on USF making a run in the second half:
I thought we could close the gap. They played well. They executed. They just played harder

Evans on USF's defensive effort:
When you hold the team to 36 per cent - our goal was under 40 - you can't come back when a team is shooting that many free throws. When you play at home sometimes you intimidate the officials a bit. That's just a fact when you play at home.

Evans on the number of free throws by SCU:
We weren't fouling until the end. We were trying to play defense without fouling until the last 2 minutes.

Evans on USF's possibility of receiving an NIT bid:
With the significant wins we have, there's always hope. We have a pretty good resume. Our RPI ranking is pretty high. We'll continue to work with hopes that that might happen.