Dave Rose Quotations

We are a far better team when we get out and score in transition.

We are looking into installing them because of a rise in vandalism and graffiti at the schools during off hours.

We appreciate the support our fans have given us this season. The fans are a big reason why the Marriott Center is such a great place to play, and we hope they will come out and enjoy a great game on Saturday.

What has been a strength the last two or three weeks with this team. We have personnel step in and help guys when they're not having a good a night as they wanted. We have 10 or 11 players help us. In practice, there is so much competition that guys realize that if they don't play the way they are capable, there is a guy there to do it and that is a plus for this team.

We're just trying to win the next game.

Usually I can't move that fast. I told myself, 'whoa, I have to slow down or these shoes will take me right to half court'.

We're going to do a lot of things to try and guard Slaughter. I don't think you can just put one guy on him and expect him to take care of him. We're going to try and make him work for everything he gets. We want to contest his shots. He's going to get shots, we just want to make them as tough as possible.

We actually had a great crowd tonight. Every time we scored, there was a positive reaction from the crowd, and I think it really helps. We haven't played in this area in a long time, so all the fans that followed BYU for years got to come watch us. We also have three players on our team from Texas. It was nice to have the fans' support.

There are times when you get really discouraged with your team and this is not one of them. This team fought hard. We weren't very good tonight, but there's a lot of basketball left to play and this team is going to get better.

Let me tell you, that guy is really, really good. It's hard to judge how he'll do with blocked shots because he didn't have any against New Mexico in the last game, but he had 19 against us in two games. You wonder if he'll be healthy. ...You try to prepare the players for how he might help out, but at the same time you don't want to get them so nervous that they're just throwing the ball up.

Luckily, the weather's not too good with the snow. So it's a good environment for basketball.

Less than one-half of one percent of our students are involved in assaults.

Most shot blockers will defend primarily on the ball or help from the weak side. Justin Williams can come from anywhere at any time. You have to be in the mind-set that you're either going to pull up and make a shot or find the man he left and punish him by making the extra pass to an open guy.

I felt, if we were going to be successful, it was important to have a number of guys scoring between nine and 14 points a game.

He has great recruiting ties and outstanding basketball knowledge. He really understands the game. Walter also has an excellent rapport with the players in our program.

He's a special athlete with size and strength. I think he's coming into his own.

He seems to get better every game. What we're trying to get out of Trent is more consistent play because we really rely on him.

He's had some really big games. Like a freshman, he's been a little inconsistent at times. He is a really streaky player. If he gets off to a good start, and hits his first two or three shots, he can take off and have a big game. It'll be important for us to pay a lot of attention to him early.

He showed just how tough he was tonight. You could see a few times where he was really fatigued, but he gave us everything he had.

It came down to the wire and Utah made some really good plays.

I think we have so much confidence at home, which is really indicative of a young team. They feel more comfortable at home and there's a lot more energy. We need to come out and force turnovers, and score in transition.

I think what you do is you find the games where they had the most success, and you go from there. You want to see what they've done well, and what needs to be done to contain that.

I think that every time you play anyone in a tournament, you focus on their best games. You don't have to convince anybody of how good any of these teams are.

I think that we have so much more confidence at home, which is really indicative of a young team.

Our players are really engaged and encourage each other. When someone makes a mistake, they're right there encouraging them to move on and get better.

Right now our guys are making big plays. Things are going our way.

That felt good and it is long overdue. Our guys earned it. They played hard and tough.

I think this is a great opportunity for us. Playing at The Pit can be a lot of fun. It's a great atmosphere and a great place to play basketball.

I'm still trying to figure it out. I like the fact that we have days in between to prepare, which was difficult in the Saturday-Monday because of our situation.

That's a warrior, the kind of player you want on your team.

Trent has a great attitude and comes to compete everyday. He has a couple moves that he really likes, and defenses aren't letting him make those moves. He's adjusted well to being able to move around and get shots off; now he's just got to make them. The most important thing is for him to keep his confidence up and for his teammates to keep trusting him. Once he gets a few baskets in transition, it'll really help his psyche.

We have now beat every team in the conference and it is all about confidence. Our guys have confidence in themselves and confidence in each other.

Wyoming is one of the hottest teams in the league right now. They are a team that has had some tough games and learned a lot about themselves. They are playing well right now and are really confident.

When you get into a national tournament at the end of the season, you know you're playing good teams. This is a team that is used to winning and it showed tonight. They're very confident and very good at how they play. They played the game played at their pace.

When we lost to them down there, they played what may be the best game of the season for them. We kind of helped by turning the ball over and never really got into our offense.

We weren't very good. A lot of that has to do with San Diego State. You have to give those guys a lot of credit.

You have to make perimeter shots against this team because of their size, it's just hard to get to the basket. You can't stop going to the basket. They are a team playing with a lot of confidence right now and. our guys came out really focused.

We're trying to get him more involved in the offense and get him moving better. He's so much better on the move than he is just sitting down there in the post. We also worked hard on some defensive assignments and playing help defense.

Being the last game of the night, the guys will be really anxious. Hopefully for us, everyone will come out and play hard and with a lot of energy, and we'll get settled in early.

Except (Smith) probably shoots the ball even better. He's a very long, athletic player who can make plays both offensively and defensively.

I've seen wild things happen. I kept telling the guys that.

Our effort was good tonight. We stayed focused, especially at the start of the two halves. You have to make perimeter shots against this team. Their size caused a lot of problems.

After you shake their hands, you can celebrate.

The most pleasing thing about this win is how many of our guys stepped up and contributed, and did it against the best team in our league, a very, very good team.

As far as Justin Williams is concerned, he can come from anywhere at any time when you attack the basket to block shots.

At his press conference, Wade Phillips said that he'd feel really, really bad not being the coach of the Denver Broncos if they only fired bad coaches. But they fire good coaches everyday.

This is how it's supposed to be in February. To have every game mean something.

This coming week is a big week for us. We're excited for our players to be where they're at. These games are very important. We had a terrific crowd against San Diego State so hopefully our fans will come out this week and help us win these games.

This is a critical time for us if we're going to stay in the race until the end. We can't get too much separation between us and the top.

They had good explanations. You just go with it.

They got us to play the kind of game they wanted us to, and anytime a team can do that, they're going to have an advantage.

This is the way games are supposed to be played in March.

They're a very athletic team. They have two guys playing well in the post, which allows them to make plays at the basket both offensively and defensively. They're probably the hottest team in the league right now. They'll give us a fight.

It's just a matter of worrying about yourselves, getting ready and trying to play hard.

It was a style Austin hadn't seen before. He got used to it later, but all our guys battled, and I'm proud of them.

It's a very tight-knit group, and they're all supportive of each other.

It is very hard for defenders to stay in front of him. He is deceptively fast for a kid as big as he is. Rashaun gets about 27 minutes a game, sharing the point with Austin Ainge.

I told our guys I wanted them to do two things: play hard and be tough. We've had a tendency to let people get after us on the road but tonight we answered. As a coaching staff, we challenged Jimmy to play hard and he responded. I thought Austin Ainge also came in and got us going after we got off to a rough start. In order for us to be successful, we need Jimmy and others to be consistent like he was tonight.

It's a great time of year. There's a lot going on, and there's a lot of focus being paid to conference standings and potential NCAA tournament teams. It's a time of year where some people thrive and others struggle.

It's all what you make of it. I personally think the bye week is a good thing. The kids seem to get really hungry when they have a week off.

I told them we'd come too far and worked too hard not to absolutely give our best effort out there and we needed everything we could for the remainder of the game. I don't think our guys ever did not play hard at any point in this game. We made mistakes, but they played hard and gave everything they had.

For a large part of the game, guys were able to push the ball on the break and get a good look. That's kind of how we like to play.

It's something we can build on, even if it wasn't our best game.

It looked pretty bleak there for a minute.

They are obviously a really good team and especially in The Pit. They play with more confidence at home. They shoot the ball better at home. And probably like most teams in college basketball, they have a lot of confidence from their crowd.

Slaughter and Heath pack a pretty good 1-2 punch. They've both got experience in this league and have been scoring for a long time. They've both started since their freshman year, and have the confidence to score at this level.

I'm not really educated on that. You just feel bad that we aren't playing anymore. The more you win, the better chance you have. But in this situation, we don't get to play tomorrow.

I'm optimistic about this year's team. I think we have an opportunity to be good, but there's a lot of things we have to take care of.

I'm just glad he didn't get to 30 points.

In the first five or six minutes of the game, we were right on target with what we needed to do to win this game. Tonight, it seemed like everything we tried to do, they did just a little bit better than us.

I appreciate the recognition for my role in the success of our team but it is really a reflection of our staff and our players. They have all worked very hard. The team has all put themselves second and the team first.

How we guard the post against TCU will be a key. We always try to cause havoc defensively to make guys a little bit uncomfortable and prevent them from getting into rhythm. It's important for our team to get stops defensively because that's what triggers us offensively.

I do believe that as a competitor when somebody tells you that you're going to finish last, that doesn't sit real well with you. Hopefully our guys are going to respond to that. We don't work as hard as we do to finish ninth.

Colorado State's personnel is a little different than when we played them last. (Freddy) Robinson is really helping them. He has stepped up the last four of five games. They have gotten a lot better in the half court defensively. Their size can cause us problems.

You could see it in our guys' attitudes today that they were going to come out and play well. To get a big emotional win really helps. I think our guys have grown up a bit.

The key for us is to play consistent. We're kind of a team that plays in spurts. We seem to be able to overcome some of those spurts at home. When we get out on the road, we need to be more consistent. When you go on the road, you have to get a group of guys playing well.

The key for our guys is confidence. You get confidence with wins.

The guys are learning. We had some time off (since the last game), watched some film and they know the three games we played in league were very different than the first 12.

You've got to credit Houston. We tried to find film of a team that was like them that we've played and there wasn't one.

The last three or four timeouts we were still trying to fight to get back into the game against San Diego State. That was just the fifth of 16 conference games. Each team will play eight at home and eight on the road, and we can't afford to let any of those learning opportunities pass by. We were playing for more than the last seven or eight minutes of one game.