Steve Alford Guys Quotations

Guys had to play different roles. Their effort while he was absent was pretty good.

I think it's great. You never like to lose. But I think because of the loss, the guys know what they have to do. There is more sense of an urgency. They've been unified the whole time. But I sense more excitement and enthusiasm over the weekend than any kind of pressure.

I think the guys are excited about what they've done.

Our guys were just so much more active. We have played awfully good defense all year, but this may have been our best 40-minute effort.

I think he was mad at me for the four minutes he sat. But he practices this hard. You should have seen Monday's practice; he was on the floor right away. A lot of other guys would have been hesitant with the injury that he had. But he was ready to play the Drake game. That's just who Jeff is.

I think guys are getting more confident. We're shooting the ball better, yet the defense has stayed pretty consistent. We always felt like we could go to another level as a team if our shooting would all of a sudden kick in.

We didn't even talk about whether (Strickland) was going to be in or not be in. I think the guys did a good job of handling that, because we know we've been on the other end.

When Wilt played, there weren't a lot of guys his size. Now you've got guards that are 6-7 or 6-8. For (Bryant) to do that is a phenomenal feat.

When you end up getting into the profession, you end up learning how important that end is. This is a group of guys who have gotten older and matured through the Big Ten. ... They understand the benefits that go into defending.

This year's been easy. This has been a fun team. And I don't think these guys are ready to be done just yet.

You've got two guys that have probably done more for Illinois basketball than anybody in the history of the program. That says a lot, because there have been some great players here.

Dan's done a terrific job of keeping his guys together. They're going to be a very dangerous team down the stretch, in particular in the Big Ten tournament. They have a lot of experience, and they exposed us at both ends of the floor.

Dan has done a tremendous job keeping his guys together and playing extremely hard. They're going to be very dangerous down the stretch and, in particular, the Big Ten tournament.

This is a very difficult game to all of a sudden break in guard play, especially with the guards that they have. We just lost an outstanding player, and two days later we've got to deal with this. I thought we handled it as well as our guys are capable of handling it right now.

I hope it's because our guys keep getting better. We've had a trend here (where) we keep getting better later in the year. That's a good trend.