courtesy of Jack Alden

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"You have to feel for UNC-Asheville. They’ve played an unbelievable schedule, all of ‘em on the road, and played at Oklahoma on Monday night, then have to come in here. And we were very focused tonight. We’ve had some days off since Saturday; we’ve had three really good days of practice since we got back. We’ve gone two-a-days for three straight days, and I think it showed out there. We didn’t make as many outside shots. Kirk’s not usually gonna miss those that he missed tonight, but I thought he was really sensational tonight defensively. He started out on Andre Smith, their leading scorer, and I think he and Aaron did a good job on him. They didn’t do quite as much on Kragel, to say the least, but that youngster really shot the ball very well. And I think it helped us, too, with McGonagil getting in foul trouble early in the game. They never really got into it. We were really good defensively, and when we’re that good defensively, we get turnovers and quick shots or shots from them that lead to fast breaks, and that’s the reason we shot such a high percentage. “I told (Keith Langford) at halftime ­ and I think he was a little surprised to see me joking around ­ but I told him to see me after the game, and we’ll go buy lottery tickets. “We had some really good things. Nine for ten for Nick, 9- 12 for Wayne, 8-11 for Keith.... Kirk and Aaron didn’t make as many as they normally make; one for seven from the three point line. But we got some good time off the bench. Michael Lee gave us some good moments, and we were able to give Jeff Graves 19 minutes tonight, trying to get some more action out of him. And at times he did some nice things, too. “It was pleasant sitting over there and watching (the subs) tonight. I wasn’t over there about to have an aneurysm because they were screwing it up so badly. And that makes it more fun for everybody. If you execute and try to do the things that we work on in practice at the end of the game, instead of looking at the score and trying to figure out how many shots you can get up in the last three minutes, you’re gonna be a better basketball player. And the six, seven, eight, nine, and 10, I told them to really focus because there’s gonna be times when we’re gonna need them this year. “The kids did some nice things tonight. I told them to enjoy it. We’ve got this span of three games in five days, so we’ll work a little bit tomorrow and focus on UMKC, and hopefully have a good game (Saturday). Then it really starts being a lot of fun after that one.”

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