Post-Game Quotes

Feb. 21, 2005

Recap | 
Final Stats | 
Notes

Head Coach Giacoletti

(Opening Statement)

“This is a pretty adverse situation, to get everyone on the same page was hard. They are playing as well as they have played all year, any group that comes in here needs to be on the same page, you need to make some runs, you need to be able to keep everyone together. You need to be able to stop the run and get on a run of your own, it’s so loud, it is hard to communicate. You can’t have four guys knowing what is going on and one guy does not. They were on their A game and did a great job. We were back on our heels and they took the fight to us and scored on their first four possessions.”

“When it gets loud out there you have to huddle everyone up, we have to be able to keep our composure and not get T-ed up. Any mistake where people don’t know their assignments lead to a bucket and it chips away at you. New Mexico was the aggressor, they took the fight to us, they were the better team tonight.”

(On senior Marc Jackson’s technical foul)

“Let me do the fights, let me deal with the officials, we have to keep five guys on the floor, talking and communicating, and we need to work on those things.”

(On the play of Lobo senior Danny Granger)

“He (Danny Granger) makes a huge difference. He is versatile enough to shoot the basketball and put it on the floor. He does so many things, he is a huge difference. It would be like us losing Bogut.”

Head Coach Ritchie McKay:
“It was a great win for our guys. It should help us the rest of the season. Hopefully we gained some confidence and proved that we can be a great team like Utah. I have so much respect for Coach Giacoletti and their program. They have a great team. That’s why we’re so excited about beating those guys.”

Was your plan to attack and go right at them?
“Yeah, our team won’t back down, that’s not our personality. So I thought if we could have some discipline, we would do all right. We did have some shots that we shot too quickly, but we have a confident group, and I think that was obviously a factor in the game.”

On Mark Walters…
“I think he gave a Jordan pose after that bank shot he hit. He was phenomenal tonight. He expressed a lot of energy getting his teammates involved, even though Utah’s pressure was good on the perimeter. I just can’t say enough about his game tonight. That was an all-league performance.”

Is this your biggest win here at New Mexico?
“I wasn’t thinking about what it means to me personally. We’re just trying to get our team into contention for an at-large bid if we don’t win the tournament. We focus on getting better each game and I thought we have done that these past few weeks.”

What does this do for the state of Lobo basketball?
“You heard that crowd – it was phenomenal. Our fans deserve part of this win. I’ve never seen our guys so excited. As a matter of fact, I was very excited on occasion.”