Fred Batchelor Quotations

We've taken our good losses this year. This is one we wanted to get. This is just disappointing. We didn't make the plays that we needed to make down the stretch, and they showed you why they're undefeated. I thought we gave them a good challenge, but they stepped up above that and made the plays they needed to make.

They outplayed us tonight. They really played great, it was clear they came to play and we didn't, it's as simple as that.

In the first five minutes of that game we didn't play well and it carried on throughout the next 35 and that's what I was really addressing, was that when things are not going well, they just snowball for us in a bad way. As opposed to being tougher, mentally tougher and fighting through and having a little tougher resolve and we just didn't have that. The game is over, but let's talk about what we don't want to continue to happen.

I'm really proud of the way they stepped up. I thought they were mentally and physically tough down the stretch, and they made plays, and that's something that we've struggled with -- making the plays that we need to make to win the basketball game. I thought they did that tonight.

Last year, we didn't have a whole lot of leadership from the seniors. I thought this year there's been a huge difference all the way through. We weren't playing very good basketball early in the year, and then throughout February into March we've been playing really, really solid basketball.

That's the difference in the games we've lost. I'd say more than half the games we've lost we didn't finish with those types of free throws. ... Today, hitting those free throws was the difference in the game. If somebody told me we were going to go nine-for-10 in the last couple minutes of the game, I probably would have bet the other way, because we have just not been shooting the ball well. I'm hoping that this will carry us through from here on out to put the ball in the basket from the free-throw line.

I thought (Bethune) got a lot of good looks down the stretch that they usually knock down, that I've seen them knock down over and over again. I thought that the difference was the fact that they didn't get any second looks.