Doug Elgin Quotes (23 Quotes)

Nationally, I think you're starting to see an emergence of programs that may not be at the tip of the tongue of the media but are starting to be viewed very differently.

We're keeping coaches in place. Dana Altman sets the example. He understands you can accomplish just as much at Creighton as you can at Big State U. His program has been in postseason play for eight consecutive seasons. And kids in the Midwest see Valley schools playing in sold-out arenas, taking on the best teams in the nation, and getting more television exposure. It's coming together for us. We're having a bunch of programs mature at the same time.

We definitely think it's not in our teams' best interest to go to Maryland for the money.

We haven't had a lot of marquee wins since Southern Illinois went to the Sweet 16 in 2002. But we have played well against teams that advanced deep into the tournament.

If I miss any part of service on the committee, its that.

Take away the brand name (Missouri Valley Conference) and put the name of another league on our shirt, and there is no question in people's mind that we should be a five-bid league this year.

I just thought it was too long and too harsh. You can win a lot of arguments with a selective cut of data and I think that's what those guys did.

We've really broken the ice on getting national attention. I don't think they'll forget about this year like they've done in the past with Sweet 16 participant Missouri State in 1999 and Southern Illinois in 2002. The programs that have success this year are linked together by a common thread.

The magnitude of the weekend hasn't sunk in. It's going to take some time to absorb all this. I think it's pretty clear that parity is here, much more parity than people realize or believe. I think what's happening is a sign of things to come. You're going to see a Colonial or a Missouri Valley team one step away from the Final Four.

I miss the selection weekend. Not knowing is agony.

I think the entire country was holding its collective breath when she got hurt. I've never experienced that type of total silence there. It scared the daylights out of all of us.

We're under siege and I don't get it. We deserved every bid. We earned them. We deserved six bids and we should have had five, because I don't understand how they can look at Missouri State and not put them in.

They're entitled to their opinion. I don't think that's the proper forum, to take on the chair and question his integrity. In that situation, I think it was wrong, ... terrible.

If you're a national analyst and you're going to criticize the national committee then you ought to be as knowledgeable as the committee.

We're very concerned when something like this happens. We don't want to curtail unnecessarily anything viewed in cheerleading culture as routine. But we don't want the risk of serious or catastrophic injuries.

It's really helped, I think, to raise the level of officiating. We now look at ourselves differently than we did 15 years ago. We demand more of ourselves.

The attacks were inappropriate, they were skewering the chair and calling out the committee. It was way, way off the charts, below the belt. It was unnecessary.

The pressure is five times greater than it's ever been, and if we go 1-4 or something, everyone will think we've failed.

So the dilemma the basketball committee has is this If you don't take five, who do you leave out.

Money can't buy you a Goliath. It can't buy you an unbeatable team. You gotta have someone who can coach them, someone who can mold them into a unit. You can really equalize things with kids who grow up in a solid program, who become seniors. They have the opportunity to take advantage of the youth and inexperience of some of these major programs that might be playing them in the Tournament.

They're closer than they've ever been. The difference between 5 and 13 is almost insignificant. You have a No. 13 in Bradley playing a No. 4 in Kansas. I don't think it's a mistake in the seeding. The teams were fairly evenly matched.

It's pretty obvious the national media needs to take a better look at what we have to offer.

We've had discussions with other conferences about adding games that would be worthy of national exposure. It's difficult to do. We're trying to be as aggressive as we possibly can.