courtesy of Jack Alden

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"I don't know how to explain Kirk Hinrich, to start with. Last night, all night I was torn up trying to decide what would be best if there was a choice to make. I was afraid there was going to be a choice to make, because I either wanted it to be that there was no way he could play or he would have absolutely no problems whatsoever. This morning at shoot-around at 12:30, I did not feel good about what he was doing, even though he said he felt at least 80% at that time. I told him we'd wait until the warmups. I'd already told the team that Keith was going to start, because I didn't want the uncertainty with Keith being a freshman. So during warmups he said he felt a lot better than he did at 12:30, so I decided to give him a chance. But at that point I didn't know if I was going to just put him in for a couple of minutes and see how he was moving, then take him out, or leave him out there the rest of the night and let him play, which is what we did. He's just about as tough a youngster as I've ever been around. "The game itself, I thought Bosch was big, getting us off with some threes early. Nick rebounded the ball and rebounded from a difficult game he had two days ago. Drew's inside scoring and defense. Knocking the ball loose 35 feet away and going down and dunking meant that all five of our guys were out on the court defending. And I thought Keith and Aaron were very active with the defense early. We came up with some steals early and got us going. Defensively we were relentless, and it was a swarming style defense early in the game, and that really set the tempo."

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