Jan. 24, 2008
Coach Herb Sendek
On what he takes from these past two games:
"We just have to continue to keep working and trying to improve. We obviously play an outstanding opponent every night, and we're going to have to be at our very best to get wins in this conference."
On James Harden's play tonight with his injury:
"James didn't do anything all week with us in practice. He gradually did more and more with the trainer, until this afternoon he worked out and the doctor examined him once again. He said he felt pretty good, and the doctors were confident it wasn't an undue risk. So it really wasn't until late this afternoon that we decided he was going to play."
"Do I think he was 100 percent? Obviously no. But he was certainly feeling well enough that he wasn't at risk for furthering injuring himself. We would never put him in that situation. In fairness, he wasn't able to do anything with the rest of the team throughout the week."
On what he is most disappointed in after tonight's game:
"I thought Washington did a really good job of disrupting us and taking us out of our offense for the most part. We weren't able, in some instances, to counter seamlessly when they took away our first option. Those are some things that come to mind."
On Washington forward Jon Brockman:
"You look at his numbers, and they are absolutely remarkable. In terms of productivity in college basketball, he's got to be right there with anybody, with the numbers he's posting. There may be guys who get more acclaim, but when you just talk about production, you have to marvel at what he's doing."
On the lessons the team learned tonight:
"We'll watch the film, and we'll give some very specific and accurate feedback to our guys tomorrow. But our guys are understanding the constant level of excellence that you have to be at to be competitive in this league. You don't have to be room to be less than your best. We don't have room to be less than our best at any moment in time right now."
On Washington forward Jon Brockman:
"If he was 5'11" and weighed 150 pounds, I still think he'd be how he is. It's just the mentality that he has. That's what he does and that's what he's really good at. Some things you just can't change about people, no matter how much scouting you do or how much preparation you put in. Sometimes guys are just going to do what they do just because they have it in their head that nobody is going to stop them."
On what contributed to the loss:
"There's a whole bunch of things. We'll see tomorrow when we watch film. Even if wasn't bunch of shots that we didn't make, they didn't make that many shots either. It's just a matter of getting loose balls and those offensive rebounds."