I made a couple typical freshman mistakes, but coach (Dave) Dickerson has been faithful to our team the whole year and he let me play it out. He kept the ball in my hand and he trusted that I was going to make plays. That's what I tried to do.

It was just a regular Big East game that got heated, physical.

The basketball team is like my family. We go out a lot as a team, and we all like each other.

It's really going to bother us. A lot of guys are hurting. It's going to bother me for a long time.

Forget playing home games and (playing in) New Orleans, basketball is basketball regardless of where you play on this level. You have to step up and make shots and do the simple things to win games.

All of it has been really inspirational to us. To not play as hard as you possibly can would be disrespectful.

Coach Martin said something before the game that we had to play all out because this could be our last time. I told Phil we had to play as hard as possible so we could get back here in two weeks.

Even last year we had the confidence we could beat them. But now we have more experience, more depth. I know we're not going to be happy with a loss.

What did people think when they saw that? That we're back, I guess. I guess a few people were surprised. But I don't think anybody on this team was surprised.

We battled the No. 1 team in the country and did it without many of our guys. We had guys who were in foul trouble and we had guys who were sick. Still, we battled them down to the end.