Quick Hits: Returning to the Dance, Facing Maryland, Being a No. 9 Seed + More

Initial thoughts on facing Maryland

"I'll be honest, I haven't watched them very much. I haven't watched very much of them at all. I've got too many other people to watch. I'll have a much, much better idea here in a day or two."

Getting back into the tournament

"I think obviously they're excited to play. They weren't jumping up and down but they were excited to play. I never had any doubt that we wouldn't play in the tournament. I thought we were getting better and better."

Why he felt early on that this was a tournament team

"Well, we had Baylor beaten. We miss three free throws. We had Oklahoma beaten. We miss two free throws. All we needed was to make one either game, or both games and we would have won. We were close to enough every game to feel like we could have or would have won. You look back at some of the games we lost, the Oklahoma State game obviously, we should have won that one."

On being a No. 9 seed

"I'm good with it. I mean, obviously we wanted to win more games. But I think we just had some things happen. We missed free throws early on. We had some other games, Oklahoma State game. K-State we're up 16 or something like that at halftime. The Texas Tech game we roll the ball out of bounds for some reason. I mean, certainly, we're a team capable of winning another five or six games. And if we do that and take care of that business, or even if we just do half of it, look where we are."

How different this WVU team is compared to the Press Virginia version that faced Maryland in the tournament

"As I recall, they struggled with our pressure. I think we probably shoot the ball better now than what that team did. It's probably a better shooting team. It can't have that kind of pressure. But I think this team has gotten better and better defensively as the season has gone on. I think Press Virginia was hard for everybody."

If the energy will be there considering it wasn't vs Kansas

"I think we'll be fine on Thursday. You're talking about playing the night before. We were one of the later games the night before and then turn around and play the next day. And we didn't have any energy. You could tell that in the locker room before the game. We just had no umph to us."

This team's turnaround

"I think a lot of people wrote this team off a long time ago. But those people didn't see the transformation in those guys. They're wanting to win. They're playing together. They're looking out more for each other. They just, I thought really came together. The Kansas game in the tournament, just had no energy. But again, that was coming off playing a late game and then playing the best team in the league with no energy. And even at that, we cut the lead I think twice to four points."

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