John Beilein Against Quotations

I think he has to dunk on you, like two times, before you realize you're playing against a giant of a man. Hicks is as good a player as there is in the league and certainly a player who will merit (All-Big East) first-team considerations.

Those miners trapped a week ago Saturday might well have been watching our game against U.C.L.A., if they could have. At the very least, it gives you perspective. It brings you back to earth.

We need to play with confidence, there's no question about it. It means a great deal for us to be playing at home with a great crowd against a great team with a chance for us to be in the top of the Big East. That's a heck of an accomplishment.

We have been successful against a No. 1 and a No. 2 seed, and that's pretty good to beat both in the same year.

What I remember the first time is that they dunked about the first five or six shots. They did a great job against us, with dribble-drive penetration and finding (Eric) Hicks, finding (Jihad) Muhammad. They out-hustled us on many occasions in the first half.

We had played against him in the A-10 when I was at Richmond, so as a result I watched him on tape and ended up saying to my Richmond staff 'These are the type of kids we need to recruit if we want to win at a higher level.

It's not a very relaxing time to have an extra day or two off for the coaches. It's always a challenge playing them because they've basically played volleyball against us on the backboards.

They had an awful lot of turnovers against us the first time. I haven't seen them have those turnover numbers since then.