Oklahoma-Texas Postgame Quotes

March 15, 2003

TEXAS TECH
Head Coach Bob Knight
On the game...
"The thing we had to do in this game was make it a defensive game, make it a low-scoring game to win it. I think the thing that's most overlooked about Oklahoma's team was how good their guards are. They are really, really good defensive guards. In the first half, they tied our guards up almost completely, and we weren't able to do a whole with our offense, so we changed our approach in the second half and tried to play the best defensive team that we have. Our problem that we've had all year long is something we have to correct through recruiting. We just don't have a team that can play against everything. We've got a team that we can run our man-to-man offense with, but we just don't have a team that can play against a zone and be the same team that's our best defensive team. To be really good, you've got to have six or seven players that can play against everything and we don't have that right now. We've got kids, one group who played defense pretty well in the second half, and we stuck with that because it got us back in the ballgame and gave us a chance to win it. The thing that's just totally overlooked about their team, as I said, how good the guards are defensively. It's unusual for a kid like Price to be as good as he is offensively, and then put in the same kind of intensity on the defensive end of the floor as the offensive end of the floor."

Junior Guard Andre Emmett
On the future of the team ...
"We were in the position that we wanted to be in. We proved that we are a good team, and that people should pay attention to us. We play in the toughest conference in the nation, and we've had some games just out of our reach. We definitely belong (in the NCAA tournament). We all played together as a team."

Junior Forward Robert Tomaszek
On the disappointment of this game ...
"I don't know what to say. We played as hard we could, probably the way we should have the entire season. Sometimes I didn't play with as much aggression as I should have. In the second half we just didn't do what we were capable of and our mental errors killed us in overtime."

Sophomore Guard Ronald Ross
On your shot that put the game in overtime ...
"Well, Oklahoma just made big buckets and tough shots and we didn't make the big plays. I think we made a strong case that Tech can beat anyone, especially by beating the #4 Texas and taking the #6 into overtime. It's hard when you play that tough and come up short."

OKLAHOMA
Head Coach Kelvin Sampson
On keeping the drive late in the season ...
"I think for us just competitivness. When I was at Washington State, the Pack 10 tournament was really important. Even though I'm not at Washington State, I'm at Oklahoma, although we're not trying to get in the tournament it's still the same thing. You're playing a game and they're keeping score right? I don't know how you can turn on and off playing this time of year.."

On how much the team wanted the win ...
"Nobody's playing the game but the players. Remember it's far more important to them than to anybody. It's more important to them than to the media, than to the fans. It may be meaningless to a lot of people, but it's not meaningless to Andre Emmett or Kasib Powell or Quannas White, Hollis Price, it's not meaningless to them. I take offense to the word meaningless. I think it's a very important game because we're playing it."

Senior Guard Quannas White
On attempting to repeat as conference tournament champions...
"We're the defending champs and I think it's real important to repeat and we really want to win. This is the Big 12 championship and there is nothing more important at this time. We just have to stay focused, we won this game and we have to put it behind us and look forward to the next game."

Senior Guard Hollis Price
On playing Missouri...
"Everything works its way out. Missouri did a great job down there and we didn't come to play down there in Missouri. Now we know what we have in front of us and we have to go out there and give it our all and just play Sooner basketball."

Junior Center Jabahri Brown
On championship game against Missouri ...
"Last time we played them was an unfortunate loss, so we'll see tomorrow and hopefully we'll play some good basketball. When you play in the Big 12 it's always a war. Everyone plays tough and physical, they all want to hit and battle to the end."

On senior play against Texas Tech ...
"(The seniors) were big tonight. If we had loss tonight, this would've been the last Big 12 game for the seniors so we all had to step up and follow them."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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