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"Aaron’s (3pt shot) was purely luck, don’t you think? I’ve never seen a shot go in the basket that hard my entire life. I’d said something to him earlier because he’d really screwed it up. We were running a play, and he turns the ball over, and Clemmons makes a three because Aaron didn’t show great effort trying to get out and challenge the shot. So at the timeout, not only did I take him out, I chewed his rear end out because you’ve got to play every possession. I didn’t turn it over; he did. Then to go down and not show effort trying to get to Clemmons’ shot.... You know, we screwed it up. But Aaron had enough savvy to make sure we got it up on the board, and it was one of those lucky things that it went in. "Kirk had told me the next shot he got, he was gonna make it, so that one didn’t surprise me as much. I thought it had ticked the rim, and I was trying to call timeout because I thought we were going to get a completely new clock. But Kirk had more savvy than the head coach, and knocked it in. But his was a good shot. Aaron’s was purely luck. "(Clemmons) has taken some shots against us in both games that I’d say, ‘Boy, that’s a tough shot,’ but it goes in. I told our guys we were lucky. Sometimes you put yourself in a position to take advantage of luck, and we did that today. I thought we were really good at times in the first half defensively. In the second half we let down some. We turned it over. Keith turned it over, Aaron turned it over, Keith got a shot blocked. There in a stretch we weren’t playing very well, but we got two stops on the defensive end of the floor. But Ricky Paulding was a load in there. You can’t put him on the free throw line. He was 11-11. Both he and Clemmons had big-time days, and again, we feel very lucky. "We really wanted to win. It’s pretty easy to do (emotionally) when you’re a senior, knowing that this is your last regular season game and last game against Missouri. Games against Missouri mean something, whether it’s eighth or ninth place or whatever the heck it is. Games against Missouri mean something to us. I hope that every game does, but this is a special rivalry, and we were very lucky. "If you had told me before the season that we were going to (win the conference championship) without Wayne, I’d have thought there was no way. But I really congratulate these kids. They’ve handled some adversity, some tough times. Then we get excited. Wayne plays 20 minutes, has 21 points, 13 rebounds, and we think we’re going to get him back. Then all of a sudden we don’t have him, and they handled all that very well. Nick and Kirk led the team all year long. And one guy I haven’t said anything about today, Michael Lee was pretty doggone big today. He’s had two good games against Missouri. He was very good against Missouri at our place, as well.”