Grind Quotations | Page 2

I thought we put a full game together tonight. We needed this for our confidence because we're getting into the grind of conference play, and when you shoot the ball like that it always helps.

I thrilled about the way this team played. Whenever they had a tough time out on the course or faced any adversity, they handled it perfectly. It was a real pleasure to watch them grind out this win.

I think the guys that have come back now have found that they have enjoyed the heck out of it. After the grind of the NFL, the college game seems a little more different and wholesome and spirited.

I think the one thing that should be talked about more is our guys' will and passion to win. They've really stayed focused on winning. ... We really didn't get a lot of breaks. We had to grind it out and find a way to win.

I thought both teams were tired. Florida looked tired and we sure looked tired. We were able to kind of grind it out there and made the plays we needed to make.

I thought a big key for us was that even though we didn't play well, we kept grinding and playing hard. If we would have made our free throws and gotten some more of our shots, our lead would have been 20 points instead of eight.

We're back to step one no respect. We're just going to grind it out like we did at the beginning of the season.

People were expecting a lot of things from this team, and they don't realize, before we got here, they were winning 11 games and facing NCAA sanctions. They wanted national championship success right away, and we knew it wasn't going to be like that. It was going to be a long grind and process. We've done that really well, to the point where we expect to win.

I think the greatest satisfaction is seeing the kids make it here, knowing what they've been through to get here. The pain, the rough road, the grind of it all. To see them finally reach their goal, that's a great feeling. To be here with them, it's fulfilling a dream for me, too.

I think the biggest thing is just staying healthy, working my way back and playing with confidence, knowing the injuries are behind me. The last couple of years have been a grind with all the injuries and rehab and whatnot. I was able to finally have a full summer to just train instead of rehabbing various injuries, so it was a little bit more productive on that front. It was a lot more fun than rehabbing.