60 Quotes by Tom Crean

Our players are building mental toughness. It's really hard with a young team. It's very hard to close teams out in a close game. The more that you get experience at it and the more you learn from the experience is when you don't do it is where it can really help you.

Our fans have been fantastic. Our home crowd is huge to us and we haven't seen it in a while.

Playing 40 minutes of defense was the absolute key. We thought last week that we played about 20 minutes of solid defense, and we lost our defensive intensity in the second half.

I think rivalries don't just happen anymore. They've got to be created on the floor. I think a couple coaches could get together and manipulate the situation but that would be short-lived. I think what happens on the floor creates the rivalry: a buzzer-beater, a double-overtime game, a couple games down to the wire.

I think he can poke fun at them and they can poke fun at him. I don't know if it was always like that but he's grown into it; he's learned to trust and respect and they've learned to trust and respect him.

I was proud of the way our guys hung in there and battled back, even though we were unable to finish it off.

We couldn't have gotten a better look and we couldn't have had a better guy taking the shot.

We have to make it a defensive game every time we turn around, that's the Big East. You've got to take advantage of your possessions.

What I told my team after the game was first thing, that I've been a part of some great wins and some great teams. (But) I've never been around a group of guys that sold out for each other like they did in the second half.