Reggie Witherspoon Quotations

We tried a lot of things. We tried zone, we tried man, we tried to really make him work to get it so if he caught it, they wouldn't be easy catches.

We really gave it a tremendous effort on the backboard. It's a tough place to play, there's a lot of history in this building. We did our best to try to give them the game near the end.

Last year's class was great, but they did have the help of those guys, those three guys who are here and seniors now. And what made it really challenging for these three is . . . we had to play a lot of freshman and a lot of new guys. And last year we rarely played a freshman in a game like this. We didn't have to go that deep.

On a given day you're not sure who their best player is, and they probably don't know. It certainly gives us a challenge.

Parnell's fatigued. He's been out a long time. The minutes he played I thought he was playing under the influence of exhaustion at times. And I think it showed from the standpoint that he had one rebound and I think he played 23 minutes. We didn't play anybody that had less rebounds than him. We had one guy who played eight minutes and he had a rebound.

We have to hope that as many teams like that as possible win their tournament. That might be able to open some spots for more MAC teams.

We need his energy to energize us. If he's able to energize us, we have to embrace that as a team. There's a possibility for us to have an advantage when he plays with that kind of energy.

We don't have time to think about last season. They're good now. We can't cloud our guys' minds too much with last season. We have to play well because Ohio is good this season.

We play 18 conference games and it's such a long season. We learned a lot from that last season.

We kept playing harder as the game went on, that's something you have to do. You have to believe you're going to come back. We weren't necessarily playing well but we played harder and that gave us a chance.

We were doing the best we can to patch it all together when the game started, when he had no fouls. When he goes out . . . it's difficult. It's great to get those (other) guys some experience, but it's not a stress-free experience.

We weren't tough enough under the basket. That was the difference.

We knew Calvin had the ability. Where he struggled was his maturity. He had to embrace the notion that he had to mature more. I told him once he did, the sky's the limit.

We turned it over early and often in the first part of the game.

I started to look at George Mason before the selections came out. Just talking to different people from different leagues, some people said to me.

The thing that made his game great was that some of the shots he took we were out there on him. We knew that he was going to hit some shots. We said we just don't want him to get anything easy. I don't think he got anything easy, but he still got to the basket a couple of times. That's what made it difficult.

I've been asking them to visualize and go through the game mentally and anticipate so that you're not just sitting and hoping. If the ball bounces and you didn't think it was going to bounce to you you're probably not going to get it. Hopefully it's paying off for him and I'm hoping some of the other guys are going to start doing that too.

That's why you always want that shot. When you get into a tournament like this, it isn't the best teams that win all the time. You've just got to be better on that day. But you need that day. George Mason got it and took advantage of the opportunity.

This is the first class that I've had for four years, and they've had the psychology to persevere. The time went by so fast. I can't believe our next home game will be Senior Night.

They took the challenge of playing them and embraced it. They locked in for most of the game defensively and really embraced the Senior Night the way it was supposed to be.

A lot of sleepless nights and anxiety went into this. But it's been a heck of a journey just to compete in this conference.

It's just a matter of him believing he's a contributor and not just there to warm up for the game. I knew once he got his hair cut that he thought he was going to be a contributor.

It's not like our need for him went away because he was hurt. It still was there, and sometimes there in greater fashion. What has happened is that other guys have been burdened with more of a role than they are fully ready for yet.

It's like running a race with a bag of rocks on your back. We haven't gotten them all off yet.

It's been hard. When kids are coming along, they aren't used to playing at a high intensity level and when they try it, sometimes they aren't as effective.

It's very upsetting. We didn't rebound the ball at all. . . . We weren't nearly aggressive enough to be able to expect success in this building tonight. . . . You can't expect to beat good teams without giving your maximum effort.

They can make you look bad. They've made a couple ranked teams look bad.

They are very good, extremely good. They are one of the best teams in the country.

They've played so many terrific games off the bench. I told them when they were freshmen that we don't have five starters, we don't play that way. What we've been trying to do this year is play like that and it's been a problem.

If we can come out with enough energy, we will certainly have a chance to succeed. They are playing with a great deal of energy, just a tremendous amount of energy, and we're going to have to work hard to come up with that level of energy to give us a chance.

If you have a hard time caring about a kid that looks different than you, then they will have a hard time relating to you. I think the first component to building relationships is the ability to care. Most kids don't care how much you know until you show them how much you care. The first thing for me is I care about kids, and I think they see that so it makes it easier for me to relate to them no matter what they look like or what their background might be.

I just told him he played great. Actually, I think I told him he had a great career. I thought it was over. I was trying to get him out.

Akron played on a higher level tonight. They play well together and complement each other well. They got out and pressed us. They work really hard on defense. They make shots very difficult.

You don't have to convince our guys to get up for Kent State.