Oliver Purnell Game Quotations

Obviously we are very pleased to advance in the NIT. A home game was a major step forward for our program, as was a win.

I'd love to see us be in a close game with them on their home court. And getting a win would be a much-needed boost for us, a great jump-start to finish out the year.

I think we most certainly will probably be in the NIT. We've got to find a way like we have all year long to go back, regroup and point toward a goal, which would be to win a first-round game in the NIT.

We've got to change and adjust - every game might have a little different road map to it.

It would've been nice to get that N.C. State game (a two-overtime loss), but we didn't get it done in any of the three. It has put us in a struggling state.

It's nice to see our guys rewarded for continuing to work hard. We'd like for this to be a game that kind of kick-starts us.

It's disappointing that we didn't make a run at winning the tournament. I felt like if we could advance, anything could happen. So that is disappointing. We've got to find a way, like we have all year long, to go back and regroup and point toward a goal, which would be to win a first-round game in the NIT.

It's tough because we dropped a gut-wrenching game against Virginia Teach the other night, and any time you lose some tight games, or three or four in a row, confidence becomes an issue. But the players came back to practice Thursday with some determined energy. Our message is that you can't fold up, and I hope they're internalizing it. It's an important mindset that if we work at it we can get over the hump here.

After the South Carolina game I thought we had a chance to have a really special team. I thought we had a chance to really leapfrog forward.