Tom Collen Quotations

She's the focal point. She draws a lot of attention. But she needs to look to herself as a focal point. Her numbers are starting to come back up.

She's battled at times this year just because she's the focus of attention defensively. And we simply haven't done a good job of getting her the ball. I think at times that has frustrated her.

She made all the plays late and to her credit she's going to be a good one for them as she continues to play for them the way she played tonight.

Now we just have to trust that the (selection) committee will not throw our whole season down the tubes. Hopefully, they will overlook this and look at our resume from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

I have all the respect in the world for coach Carey. I know he has done everything to get this team back on track, and they will be ready to play us. We just hope we can play and not have to hear about losing to West Virginia. That was painful.

I don't think we saw this coming. I thought we were ready. But there are not many conferences who can boast a 12 seed as good as West Virginia. We approached this game like we were the underdog having lost to them, but maybe that wasn't the right way to do it.

We've been to the NCAA Tournament the last two years, but we've been one and done. I really think next year, with the talent we have, we could advance to the Sweet 16 and maybe all the way to the Final Four. It could be a real breakthrough year for us.

Jazz has handled it well even though everybody focuses on her. We need others to step up and score.

Last time we played, they just flat out stepped up and shot the basketball. But without Meg, West Virginia certainly is a different team. She is a great all-around player. But they still have talent.

Out of the shoot, we fell prey to a team that was fired up. When I watched them lose to Temple the other night, I knew we were in trouble.

I was very pleased with our second-half effort. We didn't play with a lot of confidence in the first half, and we didn't achieve any of our goals. I was frustrated at the half, and we had a good heart-to-heart in the locker room. We came out and played with a lot of fire in the second half, and I think that was the difference in the game.

I think they?re excited about it. They can hear about (being in the Big East) or read about it in the papers, but now here we are. I think they?re excited to see what the big time is all about.

We were very frustrated. As I was sitting watching the Temple-Rutgers game on TV, I was saying, 'Please, Rutgers win.'... I know Vivian and I knew she was going to let them hear about it.

We wanted to make sure Duffy was tired at the end. We wanted to limit her touches. She might be the best point guard in the league. I don't think she looks at herself as a big-time scorer.

We left her unguarded on purpose. We rolled the dice with her. We tried to guard her late, but we didn't get it done.

We called four different plays and didn't score on any of them. I think that was it. We had hit the wall at that point.

We were shocked. We really believed in our heart that through the relationship we had built with her that she wanted to come to Louisville. We were perplexed by what actually happened.

We clearly left her unguarded on purpose at times because we were concentrating on their other kids. We rolled the dice. When you play against a team that's got like nine or 10 all-Americans and you can't guard all of them straight up, you have to take your chances.

When we play games against top-10 programs and in the NCAA Tournament, she's the type of player who's going to step up and shine and take us to another level. That's how much talent she has.

When she stepped on the floor, her game went to another level in terms of intensity with a little more focus.

This was kind of a hard one to take. I don't think we saw it coming. I thought we were ready to play.

We certainly respect them, they put it on us by 26 points on the road. With or without Bulger, we?re going to have our hands full. When we got beat by West Virginia, for the next two weeks we all had to hear about it. I don?t think that sat well with our kids and our coaching staff. So we have all the motivation in the world to come out and play well against West Virginia.

We certainly haven't been through anything like this with this team. I hope we're ready. If not, we're not going to be able to compete at this level.

There's just a not a lot of bad stuff on our resume right now. But you never want to give the NCAA (selection) committee any ammunition if they want to leave you out.

The same thing happened last week at Pittsburgh. I told them, 'If we're going to be good in this league, then you got her, you got her, you got her and you need to get your girl stopped.' We had a little bit more of that in the last 10 minutes, and as simple as it sounds, that was a difference-maker for us.

After last game, we needed to get Jazz more into our offense today. She was 12-for-12 from the floor last game and this one she only took seven shots. But our entire offense couldn't do anything against Rutgers. They shut us down.

Any kid that goes 12-for-12 needs to have 20 shots instead of 12.

They've been hearing about and reading about being in the Big East, and now here we are. We're in the Big East tournament and I think they're anxious to see what the big time is about.

They have every reason to maybe not have as much confidence in themselves. But miraculously, when I let them play through a missed shot here and there, they stay confident. That's why they're out there on the floor.

They have a great atmosphere there. The fans are very exuberant; they?re right on top of you. It?s very loud there. They have a great home-court advantage.

They're a veteran team that's well-coached. They like to pound the ball inside, but they're also a good shooting team from the perimeter, so they protect their inside game.

For her to come back and have a big game on the national stage like she did against (Notre Dame) has to give her more confidence. And we could use 20 points out of her against the big dogs.

For 37 minutes, we deserved to win. In the last two and a half minutes we let it slip away.

It was pretty ugly. But sometimes these kinds of games, rivalry games in front of big crowds, turn into brawls. And so if you can come out on top of the brawl, you've done some pretty good things.

They just set an incredible pace, and want to blow you out in the first five minutes. If you?re not ready to run back in transition, you?re not ready for them to shoot the ball early, and they?re hot, you can find yourself in a hole really, really fast. I think you have to go in there knowing that they have a great home-court advantage, and I think you have to go in there knowing that the game is going to be intense.

I hope we recovered out of our three-game skid. I thought we bounced back and played pretty well against Marquette. It was an important game for us.

I really think our kids stopped believing, and that's really frustrating for me. When they get down by 15 points, we look at the scoreboard and feel sorry for ourselves.

This is a great opportunity for us. We want to see if we can play with them. We want to see if we've improved.

You work so hard to try and build this program up and the kids have worked so hard, you want to play well, you want the national media to see you play well whether you won or you lost. At the same time you know you're getting all this attention and you just hope you play well enough that you don't disappoint people.