SU Player Quotes vs. West Virginia
Syracuse Player Quotes
Syracuse vs. West Virginia
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
February 20, 2006
Gerry McNamara
On Patrick Beilein’s last three-point attempt…
“If that shot goes in then you have to kick it back. We played great defense at the end. If that goes down you can’t do much about it but we did a great job not letting them get the shot. That was the end result of us playing great defense.”
On his offense…
“I gave it everything I had. There were a couple shots that I felt so good, including the free-throw, and it just didn’t find the bottom of the net. Of my twelve misses I thought eight were going in. We got all the shots on the offense and that was key. We rushed a couple in transition. We played as well as we should have.”
On the defensive intensity…
“We’ve been saying that all week. The reason we won the Louisville game is because we played well on defense and the reason we won this game is because we played well on defense. We didn’t give up an easy shot and that’s what it boils down to. If we’re going to be successful and win games we’re going to have to be active and pretty good in our zone.”
On Terrence Roberts and Eric Devendorf...
“Well that’s going to be the key, especially if I’m not playing well. If they’re keeping on me and not letting me get shots those two guys are going to be big. Eric (Devendorf) started and Terrence (Roberts) finished it. I’m just proud of those guys and how they stepped up.”
Eric Devendorf
On the win…
“This is a tremendous win. Obviously we needed this. We needed the Louisville game and we needed this game. This game just gave us a lot more confidence. A lot of people didn’t think we were going to win this game and we pulled it out. Today we just kept our composure. When things weren’t going right we kept our heads up and we made plays on defense and that helped our offense.”
On having to play zone against West Virginia…
You have to run all over the place because it’s hard to defend. I think we did the best job we could do defending. I think we did a real good job getting out at the shooters.”
On Patrick Beilein’s last attempt…
“He had just made six but we got out on him and he missed. We got the rebound and then Gerry McNamara won us the game because he got that rebound. That’s the one who won us the game.”
Terrence Roberts
On offense…
“We felt like we had a lot of mismatches and we had a break down on defense a lot more than we do with other teams. I thought out guards did an outstanding job with just being patient and looking for the big guys and also looking for their shot. Mookie (Daryl Watkins) and I just went to the boards as hard as we could and left it all out on the floor.”
On the zone…
I don’t know if they were totally confused by the zone, it was just that we were so active on defense. Everybody was just getting low, getting in passing lanes, denying things and taking things away. When we play like that it’s back to the Texas Tech game when we are playing as good as we can, it’s tough to best us.
On Eric Devendorf…
It’s always fun to put challenges on Eric (Devendorf). He definitely impressed me tonight. He just hit big shot after big shot and got the crowd going, got everyone into it and it really kicked in for us.
On upcoming games…
All these games from now on are big games for us. We want to win them all. We want to prove to ourselves that we’re a better team than we’ve been playing. We want to go to Georgetown and get a win down there. We know they’re going to be a tough team and defensively we’re going to have to kick it up a notch.
