courtesy of Jack Alden

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"We feel good about it. It's that same ol' thing. We know (the Manhattan winning streak) is going to end sometime, but I keep putting it on the seniors to extend it one more year. The second half, we were pretty doggone good. I didn't think we were ever gonna stop them in a couple of stretches there. At one point I think they scored five straight times. But like Sunday's game against Nebraska, we were coming down and scoring, as well. Needless to say, it's good to have Drew Gooden back. Kenny's two threes were big for us. And I thought Kirk Hinrich was sensational in the second half. He had zero points at halftime and ends up with 12. He made two big threes for us and distributed the basketball. He had two turnovers at half, and that's what he ended up with. We took better care of the ball. We had 10 turnovers the first half and only five in the second half. "(Putting four walk-ons and Jeff Carey in to replace all starters in the first half) worked out that time. Sometimes it doesn't. We've been very fortunate that it's worked more than it hasn't. The guys who were in the game had seven turnovers in the first five minutes of the game, and they were taking bad shots. Drew took a terrible shot, Kenny took a terrible shot, Kirk goes flying in there and charges a guy, Nick Collison went in there and it probably should have been a charge but he turned it over before he got to the guy. It was not what we practice. I put those guys (subs) in and they stopped 'em three straight times, and they scored a three by Brett (Ballard) and two free throws by Chris (Zerbe). They outscored 'em 5-0 during that stretch. Normally what you just hope for is to keep it the same thing, but those five guys were really big for us. "I think Collison and Gooden both had some big hoops for us, and Eric made a nice little jumper on the baseline when they weren't playing him. We wanted to go inside, we had them in foul trouble. Siebrandt had four. He eventually fouled out. We got Howell to four, and we felt like that would be an advantage for us. Sometimes this year we've forgotten that part of it and haven't played as well, but I thought in the second half we got it inside. A couple of times it came back out, and Kenny made a three and Kirk made a three. "At the end I took (Drew Gooden) out because he kind of flinched, and I thought my gosh, what's he done? He'd sprained his ankle a little bit, and I just decided at that point things were going pretty well, so why even mess with it. He said, 'My ankle's okay, I don't need any x-rays.' It was good to have him back. It gives you another scoring threat. Eric has been struggling a little bit putting the ball in the basket and continued doing that again tonight. I like having everybody available. If we can just get Luke healthy (bad back, DNP), it will be even better. "Larry Reid hadn't scored the first 19:30 of the first half, and he scores their last two possessions. I said, 'He's going to have a great second half.' He had 16 points. Quentin Buchanan was tough for us to handle a little bit. And the Terry youngster just kept driving through our zone and getting it all the way to the basket. I really mean this. I think Jim's done a heck of a job. I think that club has improved throughout the entire season, and we had to play very well in the second half to win the game."

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