PITT COACH JAMIE DIXON ON HIS TEAM BEING NO. 1I don’t think it puts more pressure on us. It brings a sense of awareness to our players — it has to. We’ve talked about our ranking being two things: It can be a distraction or serve as motivation. We’ve really vowed to limit our distractions this year and find anything that comes upon us as motivation. NOTRE DAME COACH MIKE BREY ON PREPARING FOR SATURDAY’S GAME WITH SETON HALL: Now we prepare for a Seton Hall team that can come after us like St. John’s came after us. They come after you and are physical with you defensively. I think their kids play so hard and they’re so quick. They want to create chaos with their defense. You have to be careful handling the ball. I think Bobby does a magnificent job with eight guys and keeping them fresh and rotating them through there. I’m really impressed with Jeremy Hazell. There ‘s no question he’s an NBA prospect. He’s a young guy right now. He’s getting better in their system and anybody who can put numbers quickly on the board like that is going to catch somebody’s eye on the next level.” RUTGERS COACH FRED HILL ON PLAYING SYRACUSE SATURDAY We’ve got another tough one against Syracuse. Obviously, they’re playing very, very good basketball right now. Now we’re going to see probably one of the best zone teams in the country. Syracuse is playing a little bit more man but Syracuse is probably one of the best 2-3 zone teams in the country. ON THE PLAY OF MIKE ROSARIO I think Mike’s been a typical freshman in the fact that you’re going to be up and down a little bit. Maybe atypical in the fact that he’s an extremely talented young man. He can really score the basketball. We’ve seen junk defenses, some box-and-one, people not leaving him early. Like most freshman he wants it so bad he gets in a hurry sometimes. MARQUETTE COACH BUZZ WILLIAMS ON GETTING A WIN AT THE RAC WEDNESDAY NIGHT
I had never been to the RAC before. There was no one within our program who had ever won at Rutgers so we were grateful…We were just fortunate enough to win. ON WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO SUCCEED IN THE LEAGUE In order to have success you have to have the shortest memory. We have a midnight hour rule. We’ll celebrate every win till midnight and well mourn every loss until midnight but after that you gotta get back to work. The team with the shortest memory will have the best opportunity for success. ON IMPROVING DURING THE COURSE OF THE SEASON You have to make sure that you do not forsake trying to improve yourself as a team. You spend so much time preparing for the next game, classes, travel, etc. I don’t think you can survive an 18-game schedule. If we don’t get better throughout the month of January and February, you have to find ways as a coach to find ways to improve as a team. UCONN COACH JIM CALHOUN ON WHO STANDS OUT IN THE LEAGUE I certainly think Pittsburgh has been the best team in the league based on what they’ve done. ON WHAT STANLEY ROBINSON BRINGS Stanley at 6-foot-9 and about 215 gives us another really good athlete up front. He fits in very softly but very assertively. ON HAVING A SHORT MEMORY You can’t allow what happened before to allow you to think you’re better than you are and you can’t allow what happened before to defeat you. You have to stay in the moment.
