20 Quotes by Steve Merfeld

Obviously, that was not the prettiest ball game, especially in the first half. We knew it was going to be that going in because Illinois State is so good defensively.

I think we're a better basketball team than we were last year but the league is better top to bottom. This may be the best year that we've ever had.

It happened so quickly that you wanted to cherish it for a while, but you had to get ready for the next game.

Jason is such a talented player. He keeps getting better, and he hates to lose. He is such a joy to coach. In the second half, fatigue caught up to him a little bit. He played a lot of minutes (37) today.

Our guys played so hard. But give credit to Coach (Jim) Les and Lawrence Wright and Bradley. They made one more play than we did.

That's their M.O.. That's why they're good. They don't adjust for anybody. You know when you're going to play Southern Illinois, it's going to be a physical war.

We played a triangle-and-two the last eight minutes of the game, and they didn't score.

We really like the versatility of the 2006 recruiting class.

We made a run, and I'm proud of our kids for that, especially playing shorthanded. They could have packed it up after we got behind by 18 points, but they didn't. They're disappointed with the outcome, but they shouldn't be disappointed with their effort.