Ritchie McKay Quotations

Very emphatically, I never, ever in my 18 years of coaching have forced a young man or demanded or made it mandatory for a young man to attend church, ... I appreciate the ACLU, but to not listen to my bosses and to file a complaint, maybe its mission is to be controversial. Obviously I know the difference between making it mandatory and personal convictions and what the First Amendment says.

We want to put our best players on the floor at any given time. Some teams happen to be guard-oriented like us.

Because of those three seniors last year, the climate, the atmosphere around here has really changed. We have a chance to contend for league championships for the next several years.

I have a ton of respect for them. They are really good. But this league is also really balanced and at a conference tournament on a neutral floor, anyone is capable of beating anyone.

From Day 1, I have said that this league is very balanced and anyone can beat anyone. At the time we played them, I thought Air Force was as good a team as there was in the league. Now I think San Diego State . . . has to be the front-runner, and I think they will hold on.

Having more people in town to see us is huge. Having games on TV locally is real critical to our entire success.

The ranking doesn't surprise me, ... We lost a great player in Danny Granger and people are wondering how we are going to replace him.

J.R.'s incident didn't happen at the University of New Mexico. I knew all the circumstances coming in.

I think Trent is going to be one of the best players in this league when it's all said and done.

Kyle is one of those junkyard dog-type players. He is one that not many will account for in the scouting report. He is a luxury to have on the team.

We needed to know where he was every time. He hit four 3s in Laramie, and it hurt us badly, so our guys were there on the catch, and we wanted to make him bounce a little bit. We did a good job of changing defenses and not letting him get into a rhythm.

We've got to avoid the road blues. We've got to avoid getting down early. We've been playing from behind the last 140 minutes of basketball on the road. We led Kansas State at half (which eventually was a 68-56 loss on Nov. 23), and we haven't played with the lead since.

Tony would be a great poker player, because he doesn't show much emotion. I think he has bigger goals for his own game. I sense some frustration.

Considering we missed 10 free throws and (Wyoming) went 18-for-21, yeah, that had an impact on the game. I think we have missed some opportunities by not making free throws. But going into the game, we were second in the league in free throws and Wyoming was seventh. I'm not sure how to explain that.

encourages his players to live a Christian life.

Our defense has taken away the best scoring option or scoring options. We made other people step up. That's a good thing. The only problem is they have done it successfully.

They survived our run. I thought we took some of their primary options away offensively but we couldn't do it over 40 minutes. They tired us out and we turned it over too much.

They have five guys that can score on the floor nearly every possession. You're going to give up something.

They're a team that's a rhythm team and they want to get it inside. So I wanted to protect (UNM post) David and not get him in early foul trouble.

I told our team we should have been up 10 at halftime. We didn't play with enough discipline in the second half. (Heath) just took over. He showed great fortitude and found his rhythm and got it going.

It's not one strike and you're out. You deal with each situation individually.

For every road win, you have that much more margin of error at home. Since we don't have any, those home games are significant.

It's so deflating. What I felt like our guys did a great job of was not letting that bother them. I think we played through Air Force's toughness.

The last three games, he has been the best guard in the league. I'm probably a little biased, but I think he is as good as there is in this league from the perimeter.

I'm not John Wooden, but he wouldn't play a guy based on potential or stats. Five seniors have stayed and they are playing for money. Five years ago I would be praised for rewarding guys for what they earned and not for what their stats say.

If Mark has the ball coming down the floor with 18 seconds left in the game, I am probably not going to call timeout because I think he will get us a good shot.

I don't really know how we got four votes. I'm not going to apologize for getting votes. But if I had a vote, I wouldn't vote us in the Top 25.

I don't think any of our guys are thinking about that game because the teams are so different now. We're 10 months removed. We were excited about being able to knock off Utah two times in a row, but I think that's long behind us.

I am very impressed with Air Force. Going in I knew they were very good and thought they might be the best team we play all year.

The chemistry is great right now. We are really together. I think we're committed to do whatever our role is to make our team win. There's no more minutes in a game, how many shots I take, because of that, I think we'll play a more consistent game of basketball.