Ernie Kent Quotations

What a gutsy performance. I can't say enough about how they battled.

With this conference as tight as it is, there are going to be nights when you've got to get lucky. I've been on both sides of it. We'll take it and move on.

We wanted to win the game but wanted to manage the game as well. Certainly, when we were up 20, I wanted some of our guys to rest their legs. We had to manage the game.

Nobody will think about it at all. But from where it came from to get to this point is just incredible to me.

I would expect both of those kids to help us. To what extent, I won't know until we get them here.

But from the perspective of a dad, I soul-searched and said to myself, here was someone who's very gifted and wants to try something.

I don't think it's make or break, but we want to play well. If it's four straight or two straight, you want to protect your home court. Stanford and us are the only teams to be undefeated at home, and we want to keep it that way. The schedule turns in our favor. It doesn't matter if it's at home in the middle of the season or late, you want to win at home.

For us, it's move forward. If he comes back it will be a plus for us.

We're only one game over .500, so I'm not going to send those expectations out of the roof. There's a lot of basketball left; let's just keep getting better game by game.

We've got to win games. We've got to get off to a good start whether we're at home or on the road. But for us, the way we've been playing, it's a good thing to open at home.

He's had two back-to-back phenomenal games, to score like that and with no turnovers. I thought he was great.

I agree to a point. They're all tough, that's the way I look at it.

It certainly inspired African-Americans in college basketball and everything else. I don't want to say it opened up the door, but it certainly was a bridge to recruiting athletes of color. It definitely revolutionized the game.

We put it in Aaron's hands down the stretch. He was playing great and playing in control. He did a terrific job running the team.

We're already under way with recruiting to add another player to the program, and I feel we will be able to do that.

We were focused on locking down their guards. Our bigger focus was to shut down their guards.

We are certainly looking forward to it. We are going to work hard these next couple days. It's going to be about who wants it more in that environment with two teams going down there with not a lot of fans in the building and playing in neutral court. For us right now, it's one game at a time. We know we have Washington State and that's going to be a battle for us.

Between him and Ivan, they've been pretty productive down there. With us, the way we've been playing, we've just got to go to the people who are consistent regardless what size they are. (Adam) and Ivan Johnson have both given us a real a solid five man at the spot.

Even though we came up empty-handed on this Bay Area trip, we actually got better as a basketball team. If we can grow from what we accomplished down here, come back home and protect our home court, we'll be a different team going out on the road.

Quite frankly, we really missed him. We missed his energy, his toughness, his defense, his hustle. He's a glue guy for us.

That's going to be a good battle for us, and we'll be ready to go.

There's a big part of me that didn't want to be the guy to beat Dick Bennett in his last game. There's part of me that wanted him to go out a winner that he is. He's a tremendous man. He's done so much for college basketball, and every program he's been in, he's improved the program. However, it was important for us to get the win and move forward.

This is the right move for him, and that's why I give him my blessing.

I told them to continue to meet and talk as much as they like if they play like that.

It's day to day. If he's able to play, we'll use him in spurts of four or five minutes. ... Any help he gives us is a plus.

If you look at his face and his demeanor, he looks 24 or 25. Then you remember he is only 18. There will be a time when he takes over an entire game, but he is not quite there yet.

He's reached that comfort zone. It's just all come together for him now.

If ever a team needed a win, it was certainly this basketball team.

If I had my way, this would be a running program. For right now, for this team, we seem to have settled into a style of play that's working for us.