March 9, 2006

GAME 7: (1) Memphis 75, (8) Tulane 56

Memphis Head Coach John Calipari
"The thing I am most pleased with I thought you saw an intensity and effort level that you have not seen in a couple of weeks. The second thing I was pleased with was there were things we prepared to do and we executed them, which was get the ball from one side of the court to the other as we play. It was some good stuff and it was a good win for us."

"CDR is getting the MRI and the knee was tight. When I walked over I asked him if he heard a pop. He said no and I said get up you big baby and let's go. He has rubber bands for legs anyway. Hopefully it is just a twisted knee. He did go down kind of funky but we just don't know yet. It would be unfortunate for us if he could not play anymore."

"I wanted Rodney Carney, Shawne Williams and Darius Washington to play like stars and I thought their energy was terrific. Rodney has to be prepared to play 40 minutes unbelievably. Now we may not use him that much, but we may have to, and he has to be ready. Forget about scoring, but just get yourself mentally prepared to play at a high level. I thought Darius was much better today. He had a couple of kicks, but he matched up in the press unbelievably. He got us started well on offense."

"Robert Dozier had 8 rebounds in 20 minutes, two assists and two blocked shots and five of them offensively. When you win, everyone kind of shines a little bit. Antonio Anderson had four steals, five rebounds, two assists and a block. It does not matter when you play and do all those other things. All these guys did a good job of performing at a high level."

Memphis Player Rodney Carney
"I really wanted to come out tonight with great energy on the defensive end because defense starts everything. It led to some free throws, a couple of run throws and a couple of dunks. I wanted to get a spark going for this team and I feel I did a good job of that tonight."

Memphis Player Robert Dozier
"I felt great tonight and coach said to go out and do what we have been doing all year and that is play ball. I tried to come off the bench and bring intensity and play defense."

Tulane Head Coach Dave Dickerson
"I just want to say how proud I am of our program this year. The things that we went through and the opportunities we had with this basketball season. We had a chance to end up fifth in the conference on the last day of the season. It showed that our guys have weathered the storm. They were resilient in their effort and their beliefs. They were loyal to our school and our city. Most importantly, as a first year coach, I feel indebted to them because they were loyal to me just by sticking with Tulane University and sticking with me being a first year head coach. Guys had opportunities to leave; some guys did leave. They did a great job at sticking there with us. We gave ourselves a chance to be a good team in the second half of the season, which given the fact that we played our first eight games on the road away from our arena, away from our student body; away from our fans, parents and loved ones. We had a chance to finish in the upper half of this conference, which to me shows what kind of kids we have and what kind of future we have for this program."

"This is what we've done all year. We were down by 22 at Tulsa and came back to cut the game into one. Memphis and Tulsa are two different teams, but the thing we talked about at halftime is giving ourselves a chance to walk out of the locker room with our heads held up high. The only way you can do that is by giving a maximum effort and making ourselves feel good as individuals and as a program, and the guys did that. After the first half, that is the only thing you can ask for."

Tulane Player Quincy Davis

"We tried to do a good job at getting the ball inbounds and getting the ball across half court. We knew once we got the ball across half court the offense was going to take care of itself. That was the problem we had in the beginning; getting the ball inbounds. We just didn't do that, and it caused us to turn the ball over at a high rate. It's hard to stay focused and do what we need to do on offense, and that is where we got in trouble."

Tulane Player Chris Moore

"We came out not wanting to turn the ball over. We gave them the first points of the game, which hurt a lot. They got up by a lot and we got down. It's obviously hard when you get down that much to come back. To make a run in the second half like we did, I don't know how much we lost by--too much--but we came back. We made a run. In the beginning, I don't know if we were pressing too much or we were nervous or what it was, we just had too many turnovers in the first half and that hurt us a lot."