John Beilein Team Quotations

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.

The 1-3-1 is very hard to prepare for in just one day. It was a staple of everybody's team in the 1970s.

We beat a great Pitt team tonight. Our seniors were outstanding. Their effort was terrific.

We started to shoot too quickly, maybe we played too smart and stopped attacking. We had good shots and didn't make them and that other team was charging. Then Kevin hit that big shot we really needed, the big dagger.

When you play a team like Southern Illinois, you're looking in the mirror. They are a very good team that has had a very good season, or else we wouldn't be playing them.

In games like this there are little three or four minute spans when you've got to be mentally tough enough when that other team is really challenging you. They're distracting your game and you can't give in and I thought we gave in a couple of times and it will be a great thing for us to learn from.

I think our kids don't know any different right now. So, we just attack each game knowing our opponent is a top-ranked team in the country and we hope we can squeeze out more wins.

I don't know if there is a team in the country that can shoot 20 percent and still win the game. I thought we got good shots, but just didn't make them.

Any team that can beat Pittsburgh can beat anyone.

A.J. Abrams is a unique player. That's very unusual for a freshman to shoot the 3 that well, have those assist-to-turnover numbers and shoot free throws that well with the pressure of being on a nationally ranked team all year long. The best players in the country don't have those types of numbers as freshmen.

They played tremendous defense on us. They frustrate you. They're very good defenders, and we as a team have to learn how to handle it when that happens. ... I don't like the way we handled a lot of things, but we are going to learn from this game.

It seems like a year ago that we played. I don't know if it's an advantage playing a team a second time.