Wake Forest Athletics
Men's Basketball Quotes From Wednesday's NCAA Press Conference
3/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 13, 2002
#34 Antwan Scott - I feel like we're working together. We stay together and stay focused. In the past, previous season, we kind of just went our own way. I think this year us staying together more as a team has helped us a lot.
#25 Darius Songalia - Last year was rolling down the hill. This season is a totally different situation. We won a game in the (ACC) tournament, and we have that momentum going for us. Antwan made a good point, we have five seniors on the team, everybody is getting along great.
#25 Darius Songalia - (On playing against other centers in the tournament) I think that attack is the right word for it. You have to attack, you can't back off, you can't back down. If you're gonna be scared, thinking about if the other guy is gonna block your shot every time you go up there, then that's what's gonna happen.
Head Coach Skip Prosser - (On what he has learned from past NCAA tournament experiences) - I've been blessed, I've been a head coach for nine years and I guess this is the sixth time in the national tournament. I think that you really want to enjoy it, savor it, in terms of a lot of outstanding coaches and terrific players that never get the chance to play in the national tournament. I told our players that the one thing you don't want to lose is the innocence of making it to the tournament. I think if you make it a bunch of times, you become kind of jaded and it becomes a relief, as opposed to a time for exaltation. I think that we are just trying to enjoy the experience. I think that we have prepared well. I think that ours is a team that has overcome some things this year. You know, we were picked to finish fifth in our league and we did a little bit better than that. Again, we are looking forward to playing. We're gonna try and be risk takers. We don't want to be reticent in how we attack the game. We're gonna be very aggressive and I think that serves any team in tournament play as opposed to being reluctant to taking chances.
Prosser - (On the athleticism of Pepperdine) - They really harken to mind Arkansas in terms of how athletic they are. Although I think their post guys are better than Arkansas post guys. I think that when we have problems offensively is when we throw the ball to the other team and they're the kind of team that can take the basketball away from you. So I think it behooves us to take care of the ball because when we take care of the ball, we score a lot of baskets, and they score a lot of baskets. I doubt this will be a pitchers duel, you know a 1-0 game. I think it will be relatively up-tempo. We just have to guard, we need to rebound and throw the ball the guys in the white shirts. I think that will give us a chance to win.
Prosser- (On UNCW's development since their last meeting at the beginning on the season) - I think that even though it was our first game of the year, it was a watershed game for us. That was a game that we had every opportunity to lose. I think that coach Wainwright's team is battle tested, they have a terrific player in Blizzard, outstanding players around Blizzard. I think they are tough, physical and I think they would be a difficult first round opponent. I think that will be a difficult game for USC. I think Wilmington is very, very good.
Prosser - (On how Josh Howard is doing) - He did not practice yesterday. We'll see how he runs around this afternoon. It's been I wanna, say a month since the injury, so we're a better basketball team. This is a game that really lends itself well to Josh's abilities, because it should be an open court game. Lacking Josh Howard and Steve Lepore really limits our options, especially on the perimeter. That's the hand we're dealt so we'll play it.
Prosser - (On Pepperdine guard Devon Montgomery) - Ironically when I was at X(avier), we played Devion, he was at Duquesne. As you know our track record, in terms of keeping quick point guards from scoring a lot of baskets against us, hasn't been all that scintillating. Tony Akins, Edward Scott, um, ad infinitum, ad nauseum for me as far as that goes. I remember at Duquesne one year he really played well against us at Xavier and they beat us. One guy will have a very difficult time guarding him, all five of us will have to guard him. He's a handful.
