John Beilein Quotes (99 Quotes)

He's getting there, ... It's going to take a lot of hard work. Our hope is that Kevin will be able to outrun and out-condition the centers we play against. He's going to play a lot of minutes if he can do that.

We're very excited about our television schedule. To go from one or two national games a year to possibly double-digit games on national television is good news, but you can't get on television unless you play the top teams in the country. It speaks well about the direction of our program.

It's absolutely incredible. If you go back two or three years, those first-round games look a like a Sweet 16 group. I looked at the bracket Sunday and that's when it finally hit me how strong this league was this season. The teams that are playing just to get to the quarterfinal round ... it's unbelievable.

That was a great basketball game. Their tempo is incredible. No one had pushed us at that pace all year.

I wish they listened to me that attentively in some of our meetings because our guys were on the edge of their seat.

We're going to give them today off because they deserve it and need it. Tonight's result was great news because a lot of you say we live and die by the three, but we proved that's not necessarily the truth. In order to win, we have to play good defense and take care of the ball and we did both of those.

We look at that every morning, ... We want to remember that every day, how bad we felt. That's the only picture we left up. That will motivate us.

It seems like a year ago that we played. I don't know if it's an advantage playing a team a second time.

That is my preference. But you never know how much these freshmen will be pressed into action.

It seemed like any time they needed a hoop they threw it up in the air, over top of us and one of their guys came down with it. Any time the ball was above the rim, it was theirs. We had no chance of getting a rebound unless it came down under the rim.

There's no secret. There's nothing. I've been doing this 31 years and there's no real secret.

There were some games when we were on the road and I didn't think we had the right attitude. Did we have the right energy Was the season wearing us down I don't know. It's sort of an intangible thing.

We learned at Syracuse that we had to attack inside and outside for scoring success. It's rare that you see a game where we shoot twenty-some percent (from 3-point range) and win.

Their top six guys are tremendous players who all hit good shots.

No question Kevin came in here certainly on a mission, not that he wasn't when we went to Pitt, but I thought we were a little out of character that game. We tried probably to do too much and we didn't realize how good their defense is and we took shots that we thought were good shots, but in retrospect, they weren't because Pitt guards you. This time, Kevin was a little more patient and the result -- he scores 26 more points than he did the first time.

(At) Canisius and at Richmond, we had shooting centers, but we never had anything like this. He may take some shots that look crazy, but he's got a green light.

The last two possessions we did not do what we wanted to do. We were running a certain pattern, and one time we got confused. It just takes one person to get confused, and it throws everybody off. That's just the way it goes. We'll learn something from it. It's hard to do that in that atmosphere.

In the long run I'll have to see if it wears down our team. Jim's got a point, but on the other hand the exposure of college basketball is everywhere and we want to be a part of that.

Where did Aldridge come from He wasn't even in the picture. I thought we were going to win and then all of a sudden Aldridge blocked it.

They'll get some easy points at times.

It is not a gimmick. I wouldn't compare it to a wishbone, I'd say it is more like the fun and gun because they spread you out and they are going to shoot the 3-pointer 25 times.

Sometimes that zone just spooks people. I still haven't gotten used to how fast leads can change. When we make threes, the defense just steps up big time. Everyone gets pretty charged up. That's the beauty of the three.

We just had a really tough road trip at Pitt, Georgetown and at Seton Hall. There's not too many times you feel fortunate to win one out of three. But I do feel that way, even though we would have liked to win them all, or two out of three.

It sure wasn't a beautiful game. (Pitt) had 19 turnovers and we couldn't throw the ball in the ocean.

Right now our kids don't care how banged up they are. They know what's at stake.

It was a bad match-up for us as far as quickness on the perimeter. They got in the lane much too often. We had to give help and give up rebounding.

It was a great basketball game and it brought back memories of when we were shooting so well from the outside, a great moment in West Virginia history. I just wish it could have ended up with a win.

Kevin came in here on a mission. I thought we were a little bit out of character at Pitt. We probably tried to do a little bit too much and probably didn't realize what good defense Pitt plays. We took shots we thought were good and they weren't because Pitt guards you.

A.J. Abrams is a unique player. That's very unusual for a freshman to shoot the 3 that well, have those assist-to-turnover numbers and shoot free throws that well with the pressure of being on a nationally ranked team all year long. The best players in the country don't have those types of numbers as freshmen.

He was just playing so hard. He had difficulty with his shot but was out there keeping balls alive.

I watch tape of them and I don't have answers. We have to make 10 or 11 3s and hope they have an off night. There are just not a lot of answers for this team.

I hope people don't think, all of a sudden, you're not playing well. You're just playing better teams, you're playing on the road and it's a tough test for all of us.

He's a heck of a player. He saw an alley and he took it. Ramon had a great game as well. We lost him a couple of time in our zone.

We were two possessions away for almost the whole second half, but I don't want to start that moral victory stuff. Now, we have to get ready to play Syracuse Monday night.

But everybody in West Virginia feels the tragedies. We all know how important mining is, how important it is to the welfare of the families, the employment, and we all know the dangers involved and the history of the early unions there, the horrors that have occurred over the years in the mines.

In the first half I thought we were just a little lethargic. That created a little bit of a gap. In the second half they only got four offensive rebounds and we played our tails off. We just couldn't make shots drop.

They weren't going to give us a 3. We should have put it inside, but nobody was there.

It's not a very relaxing time to have an extra day or two off for the coaches. It's always a challenge playing them because they've basically played volleyball against us on the backboards.

What's good about it is we played both Pitt and Louisville the past two weeks. We'll be prepared to make the final adjustments Thursday afternoon.

Tonight's game wasn't about who had better players or better coaches. That shot was all about luck. We had some good luck and they had some bad.

I don't think anybody thought we were slow-paced then.

He's really done a tremendous job. For them to have the wins they've had, to win at Syracuse. Villanova was not a win for them, but it was a heck of a loss.

It was a great basketball game. I'm very proud of our young men the way they fought back in the second half. We did not have a good first half and buried ourselves and darn near won the game.

When you play a team like Southern Illinois, you're looking in the mirror. They are a very good team that has had a very good season, or else we wouldn't be playing them.

Kevin is younger than most of our seniors, and some men could not handle all the attention the way he has. He is a very special person.

The schedule is a little bit different this year. Don't give us too much credit yet.

I don't think until the Louisville game (in the Elite Eight last season) did we ever lose a game we led in the last minute. Then it happened to us twice in five days. I think (the Texas loss) bothered us for at least another game. Maybe there was a little lack of confidence after that.

They had an awful lot of turnovers against us the first time. I haven't seen them have those turnover numbers since then.

He appears to be as close to 100 percent as he's been since the injury. He's going to get injured when he plays because he's so fearless. Going into this game, we're going to need that fearlessness in him, and I know we're going to get it.