JAY WRIGHT, Villanova
ON JIM CALHOUN WINNING 800 GAMES
“It’s a number that none of us can even comprehend and I don’t know if he can either….To think about 800 of them is just incomprehensible to me.”
BOB HUGGINS, West Virginia
ON FRESHMEN DEVIN EBANKS, TRUCK BRYANT AND KEVIN JONES
“Our freshman have gotten pretty comfortable and I think they’re responding pretty well. It gives us more options offensively.”
JOHN THOMPSON III, Georgetown
ON HIS TEAM’S PLAY
“We haven’t won games so we have to do a lot of things better…We gotta get better on offense, we gotta get better on defense.”
NORM ROBERT, St. John’s
ON HIS TEAM’S PLAY
“We played very well against Seton Hall in a tough battle here at Carnesecca Arena. Then we played Syracuse probably very, very tired. And they shot the ball very well against us.”
ON PLAYER OF THE YEAR
“I think the player of the year in my own opinion is DeJuan Blair. He’s done it night in and night out.”
ON VETERAN TEAMS
The best teams in this league are the veteran teams, by far…Keno [Davis] i’s doing a lot like what Buzz Williams is doing at Marquette. He’s got veteran guys.”
MICK CRONIN, Cincinnati
ON MAKING THE LEAP
“We’ve had some tough practices this week trying to make the leap from the middle of the pack to the top of the pack.”
ON PLAYING WEST VIRGINIA THURSDAY NIGHT
“We’re going to have to have a strong finish to be able to put ourselves in position to have a postseason bid.”
ON WHO CAN WIN THE WHOLE THING
“If Jerome Dyson doesn’t get hurt, I think Connecticut would’ve been favored to win the national championship…It’s very conceivable right now that Louisville, Pitt and UConn are three of the four favorites to win the whole thing.”
ON VILLANOVA
“Villanova’s a Top 12 team in America…and they get no national attention at all because of the four teams ahead of them in our our conference. They’re an elite team that maybe would win or tie for every other conference in America. They’re in fifth in our league.”
ON CALHOUN GETTING TO 800 WINS
“It’s beyond my comprehension to coach 800 games, let alone win 800 games. I live day to day, we all do nowadays, even Coach Calhoun. His accomplishments in our game are among the top seven or eight in the history of our game….Young guys like me can only hope to accomplish what he’s accomplished.”
JIM BOEHEIM, Syracuse
ON OVERCOMING INJURIES“The injuries really hurt, they really held us back….I think we’re the healthiest we’ve been. I think the time off helped us last week. I think we’re right on the verge of where we can play even better than we’ve played.” ON HOW TOUGH THE LEAGUE IS “Because you lose to Top 10 teams doesn’t mean that you’re not a good team. It just means that you’re not a Top 10 team…I think Georgetown and Notre Dame are good teams. They just got caught up in our league. “Louisville, Connecticut and Pittsburgh, they’ve only got a couple of losses….We’re losing to really, really good teams.” BOBBY GONZALEZ, Seton Hall
ON PAUL GAUSE
“I can hit you with a million clichés. For me taking over three years ago, I didn’t know what I inherited at first, what an energy guy . . . I didn’t know really how great of a marriage it was going to be for me in terms of our pressing and running style and the intangible she brought on and off the court—unbelievable toughness, leadership, a guy who will run through brick walls . . . it’s not easy to find guys like that. They’re the type of guys you remember the rest of your career, the rest of your life. When you don’t have a Paul Gause you’ll say, ‘I wish I had two or three Paul Gauses . . . I’m sure the fans are going to give him an incredible send-off Saturday night. Seton Hall is a blue-collar place and Paul is one of those guys who gave everything he had for the four years he’s been here.”
ON PLAYING PITT SATURDAY
“Probably the worst thing that could happen to us is they lost to Providence. I’m not saying they would have come in and we would have beaten them anyway, but they’ve only lost two games the whole year, to expect them to lose two in a row is highly unlikely.”
BIG EAST Men’s Basketball Report
Feb. 26, 2009
Cincinnati To Honor Huggins Before Playing His Team
On Thursday night, Cincinnati will host West Virginia in still another important BIG EAST game. Before tipoff, however, UC will recognize the contributions that Huggins, now the WVU headmaster, made as the Bearcat head coach for 19 seasons. Huggins compiled a 399-127 record at UC and guided them into the postseason each year, including the 1992 Final Four. Current Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin was an assistant to Huggins at UC. ESPN will televise the game.
And Down The Stretch They Come
With only two weekends to go in the regular season, the jockeying for position in the BIG EAST standings only intensifies. Three critical games this weekend can be seen on national networks. At noon ET, Villanova hosts Georgetown on ESPN. CBS Sports is carrying Notre Dame at Connecticut Saturday at 2 p.m. ET. On Sunday, CBS Sports will show Marquette at Louisville at noon.
Calhoun In Elite Company With 800 Wins
Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun joined some impressive company Wednesday when he picked up his 800th career victory with the Huskies’ 93-82 win at Marquette. He became just the seventh Division I coach to win 800 games. Among active coaches, only Duke’s Mike Krzyewski (826) has won more games than Calhoun.
West Virginia’s Ruoff Named To ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America First Team
West Virginia guard Alex Ruoff has been chosen as one of five players named to the 2008-09 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America First Team. Ruoff, who was a third team selection last season, is a history major with a 3.79 grade-point average who ranks second on the Mountaineers in scoring (16.1 ppg). He is the second West Virginia player to earn Academic All-America First Team accolades in the last four years, following Johannes Herber, who was chosen in 2005 and 2006.
