Dick Bennett Quotations

Whether you like his music or not, he's a big name.

We felt like we should be able to compete with them.

What does this program/team need this week?

What you specifically teach is what your players will do best.

We teach offense 5-0/5-5 (whole method) and defense by part (1-1/3-3).

I must learn what I can to teach what I must.

For us to be successful on defense, we must get back and stop the basketball, eliminate easy baskets, keep the ball out of the lane, and bother the shooters.

It is a paradoxical statement, but it takes incredible personal discipline to play with great freedom.

Players who are committed to the team first will find a way to help when things are going bad, they will do whatever it takes. Kids that are more into themselves will not do that. They will take care of themselves and get more individual when things are tough.

Most of my learning and philosophy regarding coaching basketball was developed after great frustration.

I concluded some time ago that a major part of success of a team, or of an individual, has a great deal to do with the intangible qualities possessed. The real key is in how a person see himself (humility), how he feels about what he does (passion), how he works with others (unity), how he makes others better (servanthood), and how he deals with frustration and success, truly learning from each situations (thankfulness). I believe those concepts are the essence of a good player, team, coach, or individual in any capacity in life.

Practice to beat the best.

We cannot accept in victory what we would not accept in defeat.

We were consistent on both ends of the court.

Obviously, we have no leader on the floor. That is obvious if you watch us. I don't think they trust me. My feeling is that most of them think I'm over the hill. Maybe I'm just exaggerating.

Nobody could guard him. They were just too quick for us. We simply weren't able to handle that or their ability to shoot the ball.

I don't even look at those things. There were so many streaks that I inherited here, and Wisconsin. When I was at Wisconsin, there were so many streaks there, I kind of let them go in one ear, and out the other.

I don't know what that is aside from the emotions of the game. Maybe the fact that they have pretty much owned us over the years. I'm not sure. I do know . . . that they've got a lot of young kids out there.

Because they score at the expense of their teammates.

I feel good about doing it. It didn't work out for me, but I think it was the right thing to do. I would be much happier if things break for (Tony) next season than if they had for me this season. I'm at that point in my life now.

I found it easier than I thought it would be. You have a ton of interviews, but if you're comfortable in those settings, it's not bad at all.

He's got to wait until his turn comes up. I made it clear I want to go to the end of this season.

He needs to develop a little more point guard mentality.

I think Batista's the rock on that team.

I think it's the inability to rebound the ball that really cost us the game.

Stanford used their inside people well. The big kid, we were simply unable to handle him.

Matt is a great fit for our staff. He is a young aggressive assistant coach who has been at two Division I universities that have turned around with his recruiting and coaching abilities. He was an integral part of the players landed at Denver and Middle Tennessee. He was a heck of a player in college who was a bulldog and he carried that into his coaching career. He has recruiting ties in the Northwest, West and Midwest.

I was happy we battled and showed a little grit.

I think reality has set in. We knew we had to play well in order to foster those hopes. We played OK against Oregon State, and we just got dominated by Oregon. It hurt to play like that. That's what happens when you are not a good team. Our hopes were higher, but what has happened was not unexpected.

I thought it should have come sooner. I'm glad it came when it did.

We're all 100 percent for keeping the elementary schools in their communities opposed to making a warehouse for the kids, so to speak.

We played miserable basketball in the first half. We looked like a team trying to prove it could be a 94-foot (end-to-end) team -- throwing one-handed passes, shooting on the fly.

We earned last place. The team slowly eroded, and we played our worst basketball at the end of the season. The game meant something to Arizona State. They wanted it, and we didn't. We don't have the toughness to play 40 minutes, and Arizona State could have beaten us by 40.

We've made it clear, actually agreed as a group, that we would like to make a major effort to turn things around this time. We talked about trying to get a running start last week. We're not going talk about wins and losses.

We have not shown the improvement I expected.

We have not contained point guards at all.

We are seeing in the numbers he is ahead, but the depth of his support is not as great as it could be, so I think what is going to happen is, they're going to take a look at him and compare him to Gore and see where it all plays out.

UCLA's execution in the first half was a thing of beauty. Their screens, their cuts, their timing was perfect. In the second half, we made them earn it.

We got him into a bad situation, maybe a travel.

We seem to have hit a little bit of a wall. We were playing better in the first half of the season.

What people don't like is uncertainty. What they really don't like is a president who doesn't acknowledge uncertainty and deal with it. Americans can take bad news, but they want a way out of it and they don't see that from Bush.

We just had no answer for the big kid. He doesn't miss once he touches the ball.

We lost a lot of close games. We've not been beaten badly by anyone.

We got some offensive rebounds in the second half and the fact that our half court defense was better ... particularly from Ivory Clark. He made Brandon Roy work for everything he got.

You have to recognize that they've got a lot of young kids out there. They're playing freshmen and they lost great players. People don't realize the number of great players they lost. I think probably they're a good team, but they're not the same team as they were last year.

These are the lessons. They were the teachers, and we were the students.

Sometimes you have to be empty. That is one thing I have truly learned in all the rebuilding projects. At some point, you have got to take a punch to the gut that just empties all the arrogance or pride or false hopes, and then you realize we better face up to who we are.

You're always going to have mistakes. You're not going to play perfectly down the stretch, when everything has to work. You know there are going to be some miscues. We just haven't played solidly in the first half and we've had to dig out of that. ... It's just a bit too much for us.

This is a game where we were just dominated by a vastly superior group of players and coaches. We picked an awful night to not even be able to find the basket.

They made the plays they had to make and we didn't.

They made their shots when it counted and we missed ours. It came down to that.

They figured him out. Josh is not one who creates his own shot. His shots have been created off of our screens, and we've given him as many as possible. But they've locked him out by just concentrating on him and we haven't found a lot of alternate scoring.

They're going to bury us in the sand.

At halftime, we talked about 'Let's just show some semblance of a half-court defense and some offense. We took a lot of circus shots in the first half.

It's as realistic for us to win three games, so why not four. Someone has to suffer. I'm just thankful to be in, and who knows what could happen. That's the beauty of tournament time. But, of course it's going to be hard.

It was good that Jim put this in writing. It puts Tony's mind at ease and certainly mine as well.

It's a bit frustrating when you can't find the hoop. Our defense has kept us within reach.

Derrick was unable to process what was happening to him in the lane. Things were happening too fast for him. That's a sign of (Arizona's) ability to be in two places at once.

You test gold in a furnace and silver with a crucible, but you test man with praise.

The big picture is what has to be viewed in this process. There comes a time when the bottom line is all that matters. But that time has not come yet.

The big picture is what has to be viewed in this process. As long as our administration understands it, we'll be fine.

The biggest problem the White House faces is reconnecting with people. People simply aren't buying it anymore. People can see for themselves that things actually are not fine.

I've had a lot of teams for 40 years now and they always look smart and tough out there, but I just haven't been able to do it at Washington State.

They collapsed under the basket (on defense) better than any Arizona team that I've coached against. That's something all great teams have.

They were clearly the better team -- one of the best we've played -- in that second game.

They just dominated us. We just could not come close to their athleticism.

They won the game in the first 10 minutes and there was nothing that we could do to cut into that margin. They basically took our heart early, and we're not a team that has a lot of comeback potential. This is a game that we were just dominated by vastly superior players and a coach.

It's not a big secret that I've been leaning that way. Everybody around here wanted me to wait until the end of the season to make sure. And I think it's time for a change. I knew these three years were going to be difficult, and that's the only thing I've been right on about.

That's been the story of our existence here. Almost, but not quite.

Arizona has lost some good people, and they play a tough schedule ? probably the toughest in the (conference). They have to dip. With the rest of the (conference) being a bit better, it's understandable to lose a few more games.

Aron was the single biggest difference (in the second half).

I love good basketball and I haven't been seeing it in my team. If I am to end it this year, I just want my team to go out playing good ball.

I'm trying not to panic or change everything around regarding that, but I'm trying to find some alternate means of scoring. We can't rely on winning with the three.

I'm anticipating we'll have him at full strength next week. We're going to try and be very careful with this one.

It has been my pleasure to serve WSU in these years.

His head went down and it looked like he had lost confidence. I didn't even start him in the second half.

He totally lost his composure. He totally played into their hands. He had been playing so well.

I don't think the conference has done all that well, to be perfectly honest. I think this is a conference that will arrive late. I don't know why, but it will reassert itself. We haven't raised the banner very high, aside from Washington. We have a lot to prove as a conference. I'm not disturbed. I don't listen to talking heads that the conference is overrated. It will come out in the wash.

I don't think the conference has done all that well. I think this is a conference that will arrive late. Right now, we're all guessing.

I don't think we have any great players. In fact, I'm pretty sure we don't.

I clearly think we've earned that. Take all the close games you want and throw them out the window. When we needed to perform, we were unable to.

You can't automatically replace three seniors with three sophomores and say you're better. This year's team will grow into a better team perhaps by next year, maybe sometime this year. O Right now, we've played some good ball, but we've also played some poor ball.

The loss of Derrick has impacted us far more than I thought it would. I don't mind when we're beaten. I just hate to see us come apart at the seams.

The loss of Derrick has affected us more than I expected.