Gary Waters Last Quotations

No, I believed it. I just felt we made rebounding an emphasis. Last year, I mean, we talked about it and practiced it, but now we go after it hard every day in practice.

I thought we were fabulous in overtime. I tell our guys two things when you're in the last minutes of a game: You can't turn the ball over and you gotta make your free throws. We did all that in overtime.

Remember, we lost two of our last three games, and that stopped us from getting to the NCAA. We're actually playing better, but (playing) on the road is a different case. Now we're playing game by game.

That was paramount. We had talked, going into the first half, that this team was on (its) last legs. They felt there was one game that they (had a chance to win) and it was our game. I told our team to go out and take them (Bulls' legs) away. Once you do that, they'll feel like there's nothing else left. I think that's what happened.

When the powers-that-be have made decisions, you don't know where and when it all started. I know a year ago when we came in last place in the Big East the bubbling started. This year they had question marks when we lost a few games. This is the best league in America and we could end up 7-9 with a team that was picked to finish 14th and not be in the Big East Tournament.

We were in a position, and it turned on us in the last minutes. We didn't execute well in the last minutes.

When we get to those last moments we have to trust each other out there. I think sometimes we get into situations where we don't trust each other on what can be accomplished.

I have to give DePaul a great deal of credit because they could have backed down in that game when we were up by eight in the last four minutes of the game. But they kept fighting.

That (run) was paramount. We talked about, going into the game, that this team was on their last leg. They felt if there was one game they had a chance, it was against us. I told our team to go out and take them away, because then there's nothing else left. And that's what happened.

I told our guys if we had had a timeout we would have won that game. We would have set up something for that last shot.

I told our guys in the locker room that if we had a timeout, we would've won that game. We would've set something up on that last shot.