courtesy of Jack Alden

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"The frustrating thing is, I don't think (MU) had their 'A' game. I think Quin would say the same thing. I think he was pretty frustrated. But whatever letter grade you give their game, it was five or six grades higher than ours was, particularly early in the game. In the first half, we're down 13 or 14 points at the half, and I told our guys, I truly thought that we would be there at the end, but we had to do a better job of executing what we were wanting to do and had to compete a little harder against what they were trying to do. "Early in the second half we played sensational basketball, and that probably was our 'A' game at that time. It hurt us with Nick Collison getting his fourth foul, yet Drew and Eric did some good things inside. Kenny made some big-time shots for us, and we got right back in the basketball game. Then Kareem Rush made a couple of big baskets and Brian Grawer was really big for 'em. Clarence Gilbert scares you to death, and he made some big hoops for 'em tonight, too. They had a stretch there where I thought Brian made two, maybe even three, threes, and Kareem had a couple of drives and a stick-back, and we just didn't have enough to come back again. "We tried to play zone to keep (Collison) out of foul trouble as long as we could in the second half. Early the zone was effective, but they got more used to it themselves and made some big shots. Then we'd have a little breakdown, and they'd find where the breakdown was. "Eric was 0-4 (FT's), Kenny was 1-4, Drew was 5-8. I think we missed a possibility of six points in a row on the free throw line when it was about a four- or five-point game. You gotta be tough enough to step up there and make the free throws at that point. "I've said all along that Kirk is a very good defender. We tried to use him on Clarence (Gilbert) just to give us more size, and I think he bothered Clarence. But I'm not gonna let Kirk take the whole credit, because sometimes Clarence just missed a shot. The first 10 or 12 minutes of the second half, we really played well, and that was about it for the whole game for us. "I think we're in good shape (in the conference race), but we've got to play better. You can't come in and be in such a frenzy. I thought it took us so long to calm down. It was a Keystone Cops routine out there in the first half. We didn't show much poise. We've gotta play with more poise, we've gotta execute better, and have more enthusiasm on the defensive end, but be able to tone it down somewhat on the offensive end and do what we're supposed to do."

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