Basketball Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/12/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 12, 2002
Head Coach Jim O’Brien:
“We’re not disappointed in our seeding. If someone would have said in December that we would have been a four seed, we would have went to the moon to play. Sometimes people get a little greedy near the end of the season. We can’t worry about that. We just have to go out and play.
“Everyone is saying that the west is the toughest bracket right now. There are a lot of tournament champions out there. We’re not really looking at the big picture right now. If we are to have success, we have to break this down into three four-team tournaments and just take one game at a time.
“Our fans have really traveled very well. We’ve been very blessed to have a lot of fans where ever we have played. All the other teams that are going to be out there are going to be in the same boat. There are a few teams that are close, but the teams that we are directly connected to, it won’t be easy for them either.
“If we can pick-up where the women left off that would be really nice. They had a terrific run last year where they won the (NIT) championship on New Mexico’s home floor. Hopefully we’ll have the same kind of success as they did.
“I’ve known Davidson’s coach for a long time. Bob and I were contemporaries in high school. We both graduated high school at the same time. He was in the Queens division of the catholic league and I was in the Brooklyn division. We didn’t play against each other too much but we’ve known each other for a real long time. He’s a good guy and a good coach and has done very well at Davidson.
“I just tell our guys not to lose the focus from this past weekend. We played at a very high level in Indianapolis and we’re hoping that we can keep that competitive edge. If we can stay focused we’ll be fine.
OSU Center Terence Dials:
“They’re a good outside shooting team and that they take a lot of quick threes. Our guards are going to have to play them real tough. We’re going to come out strong, I think we’re all excited to go out there and play hard.
“We’re on a four-game winning streak right now and we all feel pretty confident that we can go out there and get a couple wins. If we execute well everything will fall into place.
OSU Center Velimir Radinovic:
“We’re really excited about this tournament trip. We just came off a tournament championship and we’re feeling pretty good right now. We’re real confident going into this tournament. We got some good wins away from home and we really played well as a team. That was probably our best ball of the year and this is the best time to be playing your best.
“They’re a perimeter oriented team. They like to shoot the three and we’ll have to defend well against that.”
OSU Guard Brian Brown:
“We real excited. We won the Big Ten tournament, but we have to put that behind us now and focus on the task at hand. We’re pumped up. We still hear that people are doubting us even though we won the Big Ten tournament. We just have to play well like we have a chip on our shoulder.
“They are a very good three-point shooting team and they have a very big inside presence. They probably shoot twice as many threes as we do. We’re going to have to be mentally prepared to stop them on the outside as well as on the interior.”
