Men’s Basketball Quotes – March 13, 2007 – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/13/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 13, 2007
Thad Matta, Ohio State head coach
On the Big Ten Championship
“Anytime you are competing for a championship you have to raise the level of each game. For our guys, it was something they wanted to achieve and I’m pleased with their performance. Hopefully, we can continue to build on it. Ron (Lewis) played great basketball and I loved the leadership he exhibited at the tournament. As a team, we did a good job of taking what the defense gave us. Throughout the course of the season we saw so many different styles of basketball which enabled us to be ready to adapt to different ways teams would play us.”
On Ohio State
“The thing I like about this team is our guys have a clear understanding of what they have to do to win. Our philosophy is that we want to take and make open shots and with the way we practice, I have great confidence in our guys to take great shots. When we got Greg (Oden) back it did take us time to adjust. I credit the players for having a true understanding of what had to be done in that situation. I’m pleased with where we are today, but I feel we can still make great strides.”
On Central Connecticut State
“I like their team and they are on a roll right now. Their guard play is tremendous and it’s going to be a great challenge for us.”
On Xavier making the NCAA tournament
“Sean (Miller) and the coaches and players have done a great job this year. I have tremendous pride in the job that Sean has done at Xavier and I couldn’t be happier for the team and university. Sean has put his stamp on the program and has done a great job with it.”
On the win over Wisconsin
“We put together some good minutes of basketball and I think Wisconsin may have run out of gas at the end. It was a great collective team effort.”
On the No. 1 seed
“I’ve been a 16th seed and had the chance to win when I was at Western Carolina and almost beat Purdue. This team will hopefully benefit from my experience there. Going through a Big Ten season is extremely challenging and we are happy to represent the conference as one of six teams in the tournament.”
Ivan Harris, senior forward
On the NCAA tournament
“We come out and play every game like it is our last, so we play hard. We talked about our loss last year and know that Central Connecticut State is a quick team with good guards.”
Ron Lewis, senior guard
On continuing to play well
“The main thing is just to play freely and not worry about anything. I just go out and play the best I can and play like every game is my last.”
On the next loss being the last game
“I don’t think about it during the game or during pre-game. I don’t think about it because it won’t do anything to help out the team.”
On using last year as motivation
“I don’t want out the second round this year and I don’t want out the first round this year either. The main thing is to keep everybody focused and just go out and play like we did in the tournament.”
