Jamie Dixon Playing Quotations

We've been able to celebrate Big East championships and NCAA Tournament appearances while playing in the sold out Petersen Events Center. That success on the court has been mirrored by tremendous academic achievement. Pitt basketball has a very bright future and we are working to build on our recent success.

We've seen them and we're familiar with them. Having a short turnaround as far as playing them, at least it's good that we're familiar with them.

Carl set the tone with his nine assists. That makes us hard to guard when he's playing like that. It was a great team effort. We had a lot of guys step up.

I don't think we've ever had a conference this deep. You look at our situation. We're a team that is 15th in RPI and the sixth seed. You're going to have some teams that in a normal situation would be getting a bye but in this conference they are going to be playing Wednesday night.

I thought they were really a tough team and got after it. We knew that coming into the game and we know it now. It was two teams getting after it, playing aggressive.

I think we should have nine teams in the NCAA tournament. I think we should set a record. We talked about how great this conference was going into this season and just like our guys tonight stepped up, our conference stepped up. We deserve nine bids. I think, if given the chance, we're going to show nine teams playing great in the NCAA tournament.

We don't put too much emphasis in scoring. I know it's going to be there at different times. Carl is making good decisions. He's playing good defense. He's rebounding. He's playing very well.

We didn't shoot it great tonight and a lot of that has to do with the zone. I thought we got the ball inside when we wanted to. I thought we did a good job attacking but don't read too much into it. It was two teams playing hard and we came up a little bit short.

We want to win every game. We're 21-4 and playing well right now.

We weren't playing well despite the fact that we stressed the last three days about getting off to a good start.

They are an NCAA Tournament team. It was two very good teams playing out there. We won the battle.

It was two good teams playing well. They made free throws (11 for 14 in the second half), and we need to win the rebounding battle more than we did.

Sam played well against West Virginia the previous two games. He finished well in the second half. He got great passes from Aaron a couple of times. He's just a freshman playing against seniors. That's why he's getting better.

Antonio's been playing great in practice and it's been carrying over into games.

They seem to be playing well. But it didn't matter who we were going to be playing, we were going to be playing someone good. Everyone in the league is playing well right now.

It's just more of the same. The names have changed, but you know you're going to have good teams every night. We're playing against the best people. There's a few more, but they're all good. To be in the best conference in college basketball is a great thing for the university.

It wasn't our prettiest game. It was tough, and we battled through. We had guys in foul trouble. Aaron and Carl played the whole game with their hands in their pockets. We played our usual rotation, playing a lot of guys, and it benefited us a lot. We'll continue to do that. It's the best thing for this group. So many guys made big plays.

It's a hand-off play. We dribble it over and hand it off. ... People say we're a football team playing basketball. We've heard it for the past couple of years now. They all say, 'Now we have to get ready to play the Steelers.' We think it's good to be compared to a team that's had so much success.

It's something that's been said about us. I sometimes used to get away from it but now we embrace it. Teams often talk about us playing like the Steelers, or as a football team at different times. Now we look at it as a good thing and we're proud of it.

They were a physical, tough team. Those were two teams getting after it and playing aggressive. We didn't outbound them and they got more free throws. Obviously, our big guys having foul trouble had something to do with it.

They have players everyone wanted. They'll be playing with a lot of emotion, and they'll have a lot of confidence for this game.

Nothing's really changed when you look at this conference. There were so many good teams that teams that would normally get a bye will be playing on Wednesday, but that's a testament to the league and how things fell on tiebreakers.

If you look at the numbers, a new guy will be playing significant minutes.