Famous Quotes & Sayings

It's just a wonderful feeling clinching the conference tournament championship. Our program has made remarkable strides. People counted us out early, but our guys showed character.

Derrick Brooks

It's just the first leg of the championship - division, conference and Super Bowl. As good as this feels, we're looking to feel even better next week.

It's just sad that one of them has to leave early. They deserve to meet in the Western Conference finals.

It's exciting to season the efforts of the last two weeks of preseason come together, ... It was nice to see us run as a team, that's going to be key for us if we want to win a conference championship and place in the top 10 at the NCAA Regionals. We have to run tight in a pack.

Jamie Dixon

It's as tough as it has been, no question. There's no question the league has gotten tougher the last couple of years. When we first got into the conference seven years ago there was talk that the conference was down a little bit. The conference is on the rise the last couple of years.

It's a very big game for us; 16-11 is a lot better than 15-12. It's a combination of ending one year but starting the next one, and you don't want to lose four games in a row heading into the conference tournament.

It's a big difference from Conference USA. Not only is it competitive, but it is extremely deep.

It wasn't unusual for a kid to sign a conference letter and still be recruited. Signing day was in March then, and if you signed a kid (to a conference letter), you had to baby-sit him to make sure he was still coming.

It was disappointing. But not that we lost the conference regular-season (title). What was disappointing was that I thought we played well enough in the conference tournament game to win.

It was fun having conference at home, we just wished we could have done a little better. It was a good experience for our team, though. It will only make us stronger.

It was extremely important to us to play well because there were some things we didn't do particularly well at the end of the season. You know this conference will humble you, and it is imperative that you correct those things.

Georgia is the leading team in the SEC, in conference play, in steals. We have to be smart. We need to rebound the ball, get a good running game going and get stops on defense.

Even though we play a lot of Big Ten teams and a lot of good national-level programs, nevertheless, the conference is the most important thing. We're definitely excited to be getting into conference play.

Even if you come to this conference as a hotel investor or an institution who wants to learn about the hotel industry and do not consider yourself interested in time share, you will want to understand this product because it has become a part of the mix.

Steve Alford

Everybody thought they'd be a very, very good team, but it's kind of hard to duplicate what they did a year ago. And yet, here they are going into conference play undefeated again.

Everybody who plays UPS thinks (it is) the No. 1 team in the conference until someone knocks them off. They've had the success so they know how to win the big games.

Every game we have to show up to play. The whole conference has really strengthened.

Every game in our conference is tough. We made a couple of nice plays there and that's hopefully where our experience pays off.

Every league game seems like a conference tournament game to me. You're looking at two sets of standings: who's winning and who's at the bottom. It's a tough, tough thing on coaches. That's why I rent (a house) and I didn't buy.

Every institution is responsible for creating an environment that's compliant, and if you have holes in that - which this is - then you're susceptible to evaluation by others. We submitted what we've found to the conference office, we've submitted to the NCAA, so we've opened up everything for everyone to take a look at.

Every conference I went to in 2005, this was the topic.

Every conference game usually the teams step up and play harder. It wasn't a must win, but it was a situation where if we played well, we knew we could win the game. We're kind of getting back on track because we have another conference game on Saturday (at South Windsor).

Southmont is a conference rival, and it's a senior-dominated team. We know they're going to come after us. We're going to have to win three games to win it, so we have to go the long route.

One goal for us is that we want the conference back. It'll be a task, though.

Matt Ryan

The more experience I can get, the better off I'm going to be, especially in conference games that are going to mean a lot and are important to the team. I think it's good that I've gotten in there and had success and have dealt with adversity. I think it's been very positive.

Defense is a big concern. In '01, '02, '03 we were at the top of the conference in defense. That didn't happen last year.

(The taste of the loss) is out of my mouth right now. We're over it. We're playing for the conference championship now.

The SouthWest Suburban Conference is 10-deep. We have to be ready. There will be a lot of state medals out of the conference. It's going to be very competitive Saturday.

The Southwestern Conference was extremely good this year, and I think we proved just how good it was this weekend.

The Southeastern Conference (which furnishes the host team for the bowl) wanted it played within the (geographic) footprint of the league, and it was only appropriate that it should be.

The sooner the better. We're looking at the division and then right after that we look at the conference. We still have a lot of work cut out for us. We're looking to go out, clinch tomorrow and get the first one wrapped up. The conference is right there.

The thing that had us optimistic is that we returned so many starters from last year. We had a team that played well within the conference but had various injuries throughout the season that kept us from reaching our potential.

Television exposure is so important. I am not sure many people know that Robert Morris is in the Northeast Conference, especially people outside this area. We understand being in the Northeast Conference that we won't get the exposure of other conferences, but whatever we can get will help with recruiting and help people see this is a competitive league.