Post-Game Quotes
12/30/2000 12:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 30, 2000
Head Coach Stan Joplin:
"It's a good win for us and it's also nice to come back and win a close ballgame, especially after we let one slip away against Xavier. We had to learn how to win a close game. If Cincinnati would have made the shot at the end, it would have taken away a lot of confidence from our players."
"We needed this win against a quality team like Cincinnati. They're very athletic and a lot like Fresno State and Xavier. I knew they were going to make a run. They didn't give up, but we withstood their run and somehow we hung on for the win."
"We thought we could play really good defense against them. My big concerns were keeping them off the boards and getting back in transition. We didn't want to be intimidated and back down."
"Hopefully this win is a shot in the arm as we enter our MAC season. But we play Miami on Wednesday and they're an entirely different team. They've beaten Temple and Notre Dame and that says a lot right there."
Senior forward Greg Stempin:
"We were hungry after our loss to Xavier and we had a good week of practice. We had a good attitude going in and we were confident. We knew we were going to be in the game."
"We wanted to come out hard and be aggressive. A lot of teams come out and shy away from Cincinnati because they're a big-time program. Our coaches kept telling us if you're not going to play aggressive, you're not going to play at all."
"We're starting to push the ball like we can. We have a lot of guys who can get up and down the court. Even after a made basket by them we were able to score quickly. That's just part of being aggressive and taking at them."
"We knew they were going to make a run. We wanted to come out strong in the first five minutes and increase our lead to 15 or 20 points and we did that. They just fought back and hit some big shots and we had a little bit of trouble with their pressure and turned the ball over a couple of times."
